 Book 2 Chapter 8. The Scandalous Scene Musoff, as a man of breathing and delicacy, could not but feel some inward qualms when he reached the Father Superior's with Yvonne. He felt ashamed of having lost his temper. He felt that he ought to have disdained that despicable wretch, Theodore Pothovich, too much to have been upset by him and Father Zosima's cell, and so to have forgotten himself. The monks were not to blame in any case, he reflected on the steps, and if there are decent people here, and the First Father Superior, I understand, is a dobleman, why not be friendly and courteous with them? I won't argue. I'll fall in with everything. I'll wend them by politeness, and show them that I have nothing to do with that asop, that buffoon, that pierot, and have merely been taken in over this affair just as they have. He determined to drop his litigation with the monastery, and relinquished his claims to the wood-cutting and fishing-rights at once. He was the more ready to do this, because the rights had become much less valuable, and he had indeed the vagus idea where the wood and river in question were. These excellent intentions were strengthened when he entered the Father Superior's dining-room, though strictly speaking it was not a dining-room, for the Father Superior had only two rooms altogether. They were, however, much larger and more comfortable than Father Zosima's. But there was no great luxury about the furnishing of these rooms, either. The furniture was of mahogany, covered with leather in the old-fashioned style of 1820. The floor was not even stained, but everything was shining with cleanliness, and there were many choice-flowers in the windows. The most sumptuous thing in the room at the moment was, of course, the beautifully decorated table. The cloth was clean, the service shone. There were three kinds of well-baked bread, two bottles of wine, two of excellent mead, and a large glass jug of quass. Both the latter made in the monastery, and famous in the neighborhood. There was no vodka. Raketen related afterwards that there were five dishes, fish soup made of stirlets, served with little fish patties, then boiled fish served in a special way, then salmon cutlets, ice pudding and compote, and finally, blanc mulch. Raketen found out about all these good things, for he could not resist peeping into the kitchen, where he already had a footing. He had a footing everywhere, and got information about everything. He was of an uneasy and envious temper. He was well aware of his own considerable abilities, and nervously exaggerated them in his self-conceit. He knew he would play a prominent part of some sort, but Al-Yasha, who was attached to him, was distressed to see that his friend Raketen was dishonorable, and quite unconscious of being so himself, considering, on the contrary, that because he would not steal money left on the table, he was a man of the highest integrity. Neither Al-Yasha nor anyone else could have influenced him in that. Raketen, of course, was a person of too little consequence to be invited to the dinner, to which Father Yosef, Father Paesi, and one other monk were the only inmates of the monastery invited. They were already waiting when Musov, Kalganov and Ivanov arrived. The other guest, Maximov, stood a little aside, waiting also. The father's superior stepped into the middle of the room to receive his guests. He was a tall, thin, but still vigorous old man, with black hair streaked with gray, and a long, gray, ascetic face. He bowed to his guests in silence, but this time they approached to receive his blessing. Musov even tried to kiss his hand, but the father's superior drew it back in time to avoid the salute. But Ivanov and Kalganov went through the ceremony in the most simple-hearted and incomplete manner, kissing his hand as peasants do. We must apologize most humbly, your reverence. Began Musov, simpering affably and speaking in a dignified and respectable tone. Pardon us for having come alone without the gentleman you invited, Fyodor Pavlovich. He felt obliged to decline the honour of your hospitality, and not without reason. In the reverend Father Zosima's cell, he was carried away by the unhappy dissension with his son, and let fall words which were quite out of keeping. In fact, quite unseemly, as he glanced at the monks, your reverence is no doubt already aware, and therefore recognizing that he had been to blame, he felt sincere regret and shame, and begged me and his son Ivan Fyodorovich to convey to you his apologies and regrets. In brief he hopes and desires to make amends later. He asks your blessing, and begs you to forget what has taken place. As he uttered the last word of his tirade, Musov completely recovered his self-complacency, and all traces of his former irritation disappeared. He fully and sincerely loved humanity again. The Father Superior listened to him, with dignity, and with a slight bend of the head, replied, I sincerely deplore his absence. Perhaps at our table he might have learnt to like us, and we him. Pray be seated, gentlemen. He stood before the holy image, and began to say grace aloud. All bent their heads reverently, and Maximov clasped his hands before him with peculiar fervour. It was at this moment that Fyodorovich played his last prank. It must be noted that he really had meant to go home, and really had felt the impossibility of going to dine with the Father Superior, as though nothing had happened, after his disgraceful behaviour in the elder's cell. Not that he was so very much ashamed of himself. Quite the contrary, perhaps. But still he felt it would be unseemly to go to dinner. Yet his creaking carriage had hardly been brought to the steps of the hotel, and he had hardly got into it, when he suddenly stopped short. He remembered his own words at the elders. I always feel when I meet people that I am lower than all, and that they all take me for a buffoon, so I say let me play the buffoon, for you are every one of you stupider and lower than I. He longed to revenge himself on everyone for his own unseemliness. He suddenly recalled how he had once in the past been asked, Why do you hate so and so so much? And he had answered them. With his shameless imprudence I'll tell you, he has done me no harm, but I played him a dirty trick, and ever since I have hated him. Saying that now, he smiled quietly and malignantly, hesitating for a moment. His eyes gleamed, and his lips positively quivered. Well, since I have begun, I may as well go on, he decided. His predominant sensation at that moment might be expressed in the following words. Well, there's no rehabilitating myself now, so let me shame them all for I am worth. I will show them I don't care what they think that's all. He told the coachman to wait, while with rapid steps he returned to the monastery and straight to the father's superiors. He had no clear idea what he would do, but he knew that he could not control himself and that a touch might drive him to the utmost limits of obscenity, but only to obscenity, to nothing criminal, nothing for which he could be legally punished. In the last resort he could always restrain himself and had marvelled indeed at himself on that score sometimes. He appeared in the father's superior's dining-room at the moment when the prayer was over and all were moving to the table. Standing in the doorway he scanned the company and, laughing his prolonged, impudent, malicious chuckle, looked them all boldly in the face. They thought I'd gone, and here I am again. He cried to the whole room. For one moment everyone stared at him without a word, and at once everyone felt that something revolting, grotesque, positively scandalous was about to happen. Musoff passed immediately from the most benevolent frame of mind to the most savage, all the feelings that had subsided and died down in his heart revived instantly. No! This I cannot endure! he cried. I absolutely cannot, and I—I certainly cannot. The blood rushed to his head. He positively stammered, but he was beyond thinking of style and he seized his hat. What is it he cannot? cried Fyodor Pavlovich, that he absolutely cannot and certainly cannot. Your reverence am I to come in or not? Will you receive me as your guest? You are welcome with all my heart," answered the superior. Gentlemen, he added, I venture to beg you most earnestly to lay aside your dissensions and to be united in love and family harmony, with prayer to the Lord at our humble table. No! No! It is impossible! cried Musoff, beside himself. Well, if it is impossible for Piotr Alexandrovich, it is impossible for me, and I won't stop. That is why I came. I will keep with Piotr Alexandrovich everywhere now. If you will go away, Piotr Alexandrovich, I will go away too. If you remain, I will remain. You stung him by what you said about family harmony, Father Superior. He does not admit he is my relation. That's right, isn't it, Vonson? He's Vonson. How are you, Vonson? Do you mean me?" muttered Maximov, puzzled. Of course I mean you, cried Piotr Alexandrovich. Who else, the Father Superior, could not be Vonson? But I am not Vonson, either. I am Maximov. Oh, no! You are Vonson. Your reverence, do you know who Vonson was? It was a famous murder case. He was killed in a house of harlotry. I believe it is what such places are called among you. He was killed and robbed, and in spite of his venerable age, he was nailed up in a box and sent from Petersburg to Moscow in the luggage van. And while they were nailing him up, the harlot sang songs and played the harp. That is to say the piano. So that is that very Vonson. He has risen from the dead. Hasn't he, Vonson? What is happening? What's this? These were heard in the group of monks. Let us go! cried Muzov, addressing Kalganov. No! Excuse me, Fyodor Pavlovich broke in shrilly, taking another step into the room. Allow me to finish. There in the cell you blamed me for behaving disrespectfully just because I spoke of eating grudge in Piotr Alexandrovich. Muzov, my relation, prefers to have plus de nubles que de sincerité, in his words, but I prefer in mine plus de sincerité que de nubles, and damn de nubles. That's right, isn't it, Vonson? Allow me, Father Superior, though I am a buffoon and play the buffoon, yet I am the soul of honour, and I want to speak my mind. Yes, I am the soul of honour, while in Piotr Alexandrovich there is wounded vanity in nothing else. I came here perhaps to have a look and speak my mind. My son, Alexei, is here being saved. I am his father. I care for his welfare, and it is my duty to care. While I've been playing the fool, I have been listening and having a look on the sly, and now I want to give you the last act of the performance. You know how things are with us. As a thing falls, so it lies. As a thing once has fallen, so it must lie forever. Not a bit of it. I want to get up again. Holy Father, I am indignant with you. Confession is a great sacrament, before which I am ready to bow down reverently. But there in the cell they all kneel down and confess aloud. Can it be right to confess aloud? It was ordained by the Holy Fathers to confess in secret, then only your confession will be a mystery, and so it was of old. But how can I explain to him, before everyone, that I did this and that? Well, you understand what. Sometimes it would not be proper to talk about it, so it is really a scandal. No, Fathers, one might be carried along with you to the flag lengths, I daresay. At the first opportunity I shall write to the Synod, and I shall take my son Alexei home. We must note here that Fyodor Pavlovich knew where to look for the weak spot. There had been at one time malicious rumours which had even reached the archbishop, not only regarding our monastery, but in others where the institution of elders existed. That too much respect was paid to the elders, even to the detriment of the authority of the superior, that the elders abused the sacrament of confession, and so on and so on. Absurd charges which had died away of themselves everywhere. But the spirit of folly, which had caught up Fyodor Pavlovich, and was bearing him on the current of his own nerves into lower and lower depths, of ignonomy, prompted him with his old slander. Fyodor Pavlovich did not understand a word of it, and he could not even put it sensibly. For on this occasion no one had been kneeling and confessing aloud in the elder's cell, so that he could not have seen anything of the kind. He was only speaking from confused memory of old slanders. But as soon as he had uttered his foolish tirade he felt he had been talking absurd nonsense, and at once long to prove to his audience, and above all to himself, that he had not been talking nonsense. And though he knew perfectly well that with each word he would be adding more and more absurdity, he could not restrain himself and plunged forward blindly. "'How disgraceful!' cried Piotr Alexandrovich. "'Pardon me,' said the Father Superior. It was said of old. Many have begun to speak against me, and have uttered evil sayings about me. And hearing it, I have said to myself, it is the correction of the Lord, and he has sent it to heal my vain soul. And so we humbly thank you, honored guest. And he made, Piotr Pavlovich, a low bow. T-t-t-t, sanctimoniousness and stock phrases, old phrases and old gestures, the old lies and formal prostrations. We know all about them, a kiss on the lips and a dagger in the heart, and in shillers robbers. I don't like falsehood fathers. I want the truth. But the truth is not to be found in eating grudgen, and that I proclaim aloud. Other monks, why do you fast? Why do you expect reward in heaven for that? Why for reward like that I will come and fast too? No saintly monk, you try being virtuous in this world. Do good to society without shutting yourself up in a monastery at other people's expense, and without expecting a reward up aloft for it. You'll find that a bit harder. I can talk sense to, Father Superior. What have they got there?' He went up to the table. Old port wine, mead brewed by the LSEF brothers, five-five fathers. That is something beyond grudgen. Look at the bottles the fathers have brought out. And who has provided it all? The Russian peasant, the labourer, brings here the fathering earned by his horny hand, ringing it from his family and the tax-gatherer. You bleed the people, you know, holy fathers. This is disgraceful,' said Father Yosef. Father Paisi kept obstinately silent, Musov rushed from the room and Kalganov after him. Well, Father, I will follow Pyotr Alexandrovich. I am not coming to see you again. You may beg me on your knees. I shan't come. I sent you a thousand rubles, so you have begun to keep your eye on me. No, I'll say no more. I am taking my revenge from my youth and all the humiliation I endured. He thumped the table with his fist in a paroxysm of simulated feeling. This monastery has played a great part in my life. It has cost me many bitter tears. You used to set my wife, the crazy one, against me. You cursed me with bell and book. You spread stories about me all over the place. Enough, fathers. This is the age of liberalism, the age of steamers and railways, neither a thousand nor a hundred rubles, no, nor a hundred farthings will you get out of me. It must be noted again that our monastery never had played any great part in his life, and he never had shed a bitter tear owing to it, but he was so carried away by his simulated emotion that he was for one moment almost believing it himself. He was so touched he was almost weeping. But that very instant he felt that it was time to draw back. The Father Superior bowed his head at his malicious lie, and again spoke impressively. It is written again, Bear circumspectly and gladly dishonor that cometh upon thee by no act of thine own. Be not confounded, and hate not him who has dishonored thee, and so will we. Be thinking thyself and the rest of the rigmarole. Think yourselves, Fathers, I will go, but I will take my son Alexei away from here for ever. On my parental authority, Yvonne Fyodorovich, my most dutiful son, permit me to order you to follow me. Vonson, what have you to say for? Come and see me now in the town. It's fun there. It is only one short verse, and instead of Lenten oil, I will give you suckling pig and kasha. We will have dinner with some brandy and liqueur in it. I've cloudberry wine. Hey, Vonson, don't lose your chance. He went out, shouting and gesticulating. It was at that moment Raketen saw him and pointed him out to Alyosha. Alexei, his father shouted from far off, catching sight of him, you come home to me to-day, for good, and bring your pillow and mattress, and leave no trace behind. Alyosha stood rooted to the spot, watching the scene in silence. Yvonne Fyodorovich had got into the carriage, and Yvonne was about to follow him in grim silence, without even turning to say good-bye to Alyosha. But at this point, another almost incredible scene of grotesque buffoonery gave the finishing touch to the episode. Maximov suddenly appeared by the side of the carriage. He ran up, panting, afraid of being too late. Raketen and Alyosha saw him running. He was in such a hurry that in his impatience he put his foot on the step on which Yvonne's left foot was still resting, and clutching the carriage he kept trying to jump in. I'm going with you! He kept shouting, laughing a thin, mirthful laugh with a look of recklessly in his face. Take me too! There! cried Fyodorovich, delighted. Did I not say he was Vonson? It is Vonson himself, risen from the dead. Why, how did you tear yourself away? What did you Vonson there? And how could you get away from the dinner? You must be a brazen-faced fellow. I am that myself, but I am surprised at you, brother. Jump in! Jump in! Let him pass, Yvonne. It will be fun. He can lie somewhere at our feet. Will you lie at our feet, Vonson? Or perch on the box with a coachman? Skip on to the box, Vonson! But Yvonne, who had by now taken his seat, without a word, gave Maximov a violent punch in the breast and sent him flying. It was quite by chance he did not fall. Drive on! Yvonne shouted angrily to the coachman. Why, what are you doing? What are you about? Why did you do that? Fyodor Pavlovich protested. But the carriage had already driven away. Yvonne made no reply. Well, you are a fellow, Fyodor Pavlovich said again. After a pause of two minutes, looking a scant at his son. Why it was you who got up all this monastery business? You urged it. You approved of it. Why are you angry now? You've talked wrought enough. You must rest a bit now. Yvonne snapped sullenly. Fyodor Pavlovich was silent again for two minutes. A drop of brandy would be nice now. He observed sententiously. But Yvonne made no response. You shall have some too when we get home. Yvonne was still silent. Fyodor Pavlovich waited another two minutes. But I shall take Alyosha away from the monastery, though you will dislike it so much, most honoured Carl von Moor. Yvonne shrugged his shoulders contemptuously, and turning away stared at the road. And they did not speak again all the way home. This ends Chapter 8. Book 3. Chapter 1 of the Brothers Karamazov. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, translated by Constance Garnet. Book 3. The Sensualists. Chapter 1. In the Servant's Quarters. The Karamazov's house was far from being in the centre of town, but it was not quite outside it. It was a pleasant-looking old house of two stories, paint and grey with a red iron roof. It was roomy and snug, and might still last many years. There were all sorts of unexpected little cupboards and closets and staircases. There were rats in it, but Fyodor Pavlovich did not altogether dislike them. One doesn't feel so solitary when one's left alone in the evening, he used to say. It was his habit to send the servants away to the lodge for the night and to lock himself up alone. The lodge was a roomy and solid building in the yard. Fyodor Pavlovich used to have the cooking done there, although there was a kitchen in the house. He did not like the smell of cooking, and winter and summer alike the dishes were carried in across the courtyard. The house was built for a large family. There was room for five times as many, with their servants. But at the time of our story there was no one living in the house but Fyodor Pavlovich and his son Ivan. And in the lodge there were only three servants, old Grigori and his old wife Marfa, and a young man called Smegyakov. Of these three we must say a few words. Of old Grigori we have said something already. He was firm and determined, and went blindly and obstinately for his object, if once he had been brought by any reasons, and they were often very illogical ones, to believe that it was immutably right. He was honest and incorruptible. His wife, Marfa Gnatevna, had obeyed her husband's will implicitly all her life, yet she had pestered him terribly after the emancipation of the serfs. She was set on leaving Fyodor Pavlovich, and opening a little shop in Mosca with their small savings. But Grigori decided then, once for all, that the woman's talking nonsense, for every woman is dishonest, and that they ought not to leave their old master, whatever he might be, for what was now their duty. Do you understand what duty is, he asked Marfa Gnatevna. I understand what duty means, Grigori Vasilyevich, but why it's our duty to stay here I shall never understand, Marfa answered firmly. Well, don't understand that, but so it shall be, and you hold your tongue. And so it was. They did not go away, and Fyodor Pavlovich promised them a small sum for wages, and paid it regularly. Grigori knew, too, that he had an indisputable influence over his master. It was true, and he was aware of it. Fyodor Pavlovich was an obstinate and cunning buffoon, yet though his will was strong enough, in some of the affairs of life, as he expressed it, he found himself, to his surprise, extremely feeble in facing certain other emergencies. He knew his weaknesses and was afraid of them. There were positions in which one has to keep a sharp look out, and that's not easy without a trustworthy man, and Grigori was a most trustworthy man. Many times in the course of his life Fyodor Pavlovich had only just escaped a sound thrashing through Grigori's intervention, and on each occasion the old servant gave him a good lecture. But it wasn't only thrashings that Fyodor Pavlovich was afraid of. There were graver occasions, and very subtle and complicated ones, when Fyodor Pavlovich could not have explained the extraordinary craving for someone faithful and devoted, which sometimes unaccountably came upon him all in a moment. It was almost a morbid condition, corrupt and often cruel in his lust, like some nauseous insect. Fyodor Pavlovich was sometimes, in moments of drunkenness, overcome by a superstitious terror and a moral convulsion which took an almost physical form. My soul simply quaking in my throat at those times, he used to say. At such moments he liked to feel that there was near at hand, in the lodge if not in the room, a strong, faithful man, virtuous and unlike himself, who had seen all his debauchery and knew all his secrets, but was ready in his devotion to overlook all that, not to oppose him, above all not to reproach him or threaten him with anything, either in this world or in the next, and in case of need to defend him. From whom? From somebody unknown, but terrible and dangerous. From what he needed was to feel that there was another man, an old and tried friend that he might call him in his sick moments, merely to look at his face, or perhaps exchange some quite irrelevant words with him. And if the old servant were not angry, he felt comforted, and if he were angry he was more dejected. It happened even, very rarely, however, that Fyodor Pavlovich went at night to the lodge to wake Grigory and fetch him for a moment. When the old man came, Fyodor Pavlovich would begin talking about the most trivial matters, and would soon let him go again, sometimes even with a jest, and after he had gone, Fyodor Pavlovich would get into bed with a curse, and sleep the sleep of the just. Something of the same sort had happened to Fyodor Pavlovich on Alyosha's arrival. Alyosha pierced by his heart, by living with him, seeing everything and blaming nothing. Moreover Alyosha brought with him something his father had never known before, a complete absence of contempt for him, and an invariable kindness, a perfectly natural, unaffected devotion to the old man who deserved it so little. All this was a complete surprise to the old profligate who had dropped all family ties. It was a new and surprising experience for him, who had till then loved nothing but evil. When Alyosha had left him, he confessed to himself that he had learned something he had not till then been willing to learn. I have mentioned already that Grigori had detested Adelaide Ivanovna, the first wife of Fyodor Pavlovich, and the mother of Dmitry, and that he had, on the contrary, protected Sofya Ivanovna, the poor crazy woman, against his master and anyone who chanced to speak ill or lightly of her. His sympathy for the unhappy wife had become something sacred to him, so that even now, twenty years after, he could not bear a sliding allusion to her from anyone and would at once check the offender. Externally, Grigori was cold, dignified and taciturn, and spoke weighing his words without frivolity. It was impossible to tell at first sight whether he loved his meek, obedient wife, but he really did love her, and she knew it. Marfa Ignatievna was by no means foolish. She was probably indeed cleverer than her husband, or at least more prudent than he in worldly affairs, and yet she had given in to him an everything without question or complaint ever since her marriage, and respected him for his spiritual superiority. It was remarkable how little they spoke to one another in the course of their lives, and only of the most necessary daily affairs. The grave and dignified Grigori thought over all his cares and duties alone, so that Marfa Ignatievna had long grown used to knowing that he did not need her advice. She felt that her husband respected her silence, and took it as a sign of her good sense. He had never beaten her but once, and then only slightly. Once during the year after Fyodor Pavlovich's marriage with Adelida Ivanovna, the village girls and women, at times serfs, were called together before the house to sing and dance. They were beginning in the green meadows, when Marfa, at that time a young woman, skipped forward and danced the Russian dance, not in the village fashion, but as she had danced it when she was a servant in the service of the rich Musel family and their private theatre, where the actors were taught to dance by a dancing master from Moscow. Grigori saw how his wife danced, and an hour later at home in their cottage he gave her a lesson, pulling her hair a little, but there it ended, the beating was never repeated, and Marfa and Yativna gave up dancing. God had not blessed them with children. One child was born, but it died. Grigori was fond of children, and was not ashamed of showing it. When Adelida Ivanovna had run away, Grigori took Dimitri, then a child of three years old, combed his hair and washed him in a tub with his own hands, and looked after him for almost a year. Afterwards he had looked after Ivanovna and Alyosha, for which the General's widow had rewarded him with a slap in the face. But I have already related all that. The only happiness his own child had brought him had been in the anticipation of its birth. When it was born he was overwhelmed with grief and horror. The baby had six fingers. Grigori was so crushed by this that he was not only silent till the day of the christening, but kept away in the garden. It was spring, and he had spent three days digging the kitchen garden. The third day was fixed for christening the baby. Meantime Grigori had reached a conclusion. Going into the cottage where the clergy were assembled and the visitors had arrived, including Fyodor Pavlovich, who was to stand Godfather, he suddenly announced that the baby ought not to be christened at all. He announced this quietly, briefly, forcing out his words, and gazing with dull intentness at the priest. Why not? asked the priest with good, humored surprise. Because it is a dragon, muttered Grigori. A dragon? What dragon? Grigori did not speak for some time. It's a confusion of nature. He muttered vaguely, but firmly, and obviously unwilling to say more. They laughed, and of course christened the poor baby. Grigori prayed earnestly at the front, but his opinion of the newborn child remained unchanged, yet he did not interfere in any way. As long as the sickly infant lived, he scarcely looked at it, tried indeed not to notice it, and for the most part kept out of the cottage. But when at the end of a fortnight the baby died of thrush, he himself laid the child in its little coffin, looked at it in profound grief, and when they were filling up the shallow little grave, he fell on his knees and bowed down to the earth. He did not for years afterwards mention his child, nor did Mafia speak of the baby before him, and even if Grigori were not present, she never spoke of it above a whisper. Marfa observed that, from the day of the burial, he devoted himself to religion, and took to reading the lives of the saints, for the most part sitting alone and in silence, and always putting on his big, round, silver-rimmed spectacles. He rarely read aloud, only perhaps in Lent. He was fond of the Book of Job, and had somehow got hold of a copy of the sayings and sermons of the God-fearing father Isaac the Syrian, which he read persistently for years together, understanding very little of it, but perhaps prizing and loving it the more for that. Of late he had begun to listen to the doctrines of the sect of flaglants settled in the neighbourhood. He was evidently shaken by them, but judged it unfitting to go over to the new faith. His habit of theological reading gave him an expression of still greater gravity. He was perhaps predisposed to mysticism, and the birth of his deformed child, and its death, had as though by special design been accompanied by another strange and marvellous event, which as he said later had left a stamp upon his soul. It happened that on the very night after the burial of his child, Marfa was awakened by the wail of a newborn baby. She was frightened, and waked her husband. He listened, and said he thought it was more like someone groaning. It might be a woman. He got up and dressed. It was a rather warm night in May, and he went down the steps. He distinctly heard groans coming from the garden, but the gate from the yard into the garden was locked at night, and there was no other way of entering it, for it was enclosed all around by a strong high fence. Going back into the house, Grigori lighted a lantern, took the garden key, and, taking no notice of the hysterical fears of his wife, who was still persuaded that she heard a child crying, and that it was her own baby crying and calling for her, went into the garden in silence. There he heard at once the groans came from the bath-house that stood near the garden gate, and that there were groans of a woman. Opening the door of the bath-house, he saw a sight which petrified him. An idiot girl, who wandered about the streets and was known to the whole town by the nickname of Lizivieta Smeryatchka, stinking Lizivieta, had gone into the bath-house and had just given birth to a child. She lay dying with the baby beside her. She said nothing, for she had never been able to speak. But her story needs a chapter to itself. This ends Chapter 1. CHAPTER 2 Lizivieta There was one circumstance which struck Grigori particularly, and confirmed a very unpleasant and revolting suspicion. This Lizivieta was a dwarfish creature, not five foot within a wee bit, as many of the pious old women said pathetically about her after her death. Her broad, healthy red face had a look of blank idiocy, and the fixed stare in her eyes was unpleasant, in spite of their meek expression. She wandered about summer and winter alike, barefooted, wearing nothing but a hempen smock. Her coarse, almost black hair curled like lambswool and formed a sort of huge cap on her head. It was always crusted with mud and had leaves, bits of stick and shavings clinging to it, as she always slept on the ground and in the dirt. Her father, a homeless, sickly drunkard called Ilya, had lost everything and lived many years as a workman with some well-to-do tradespeople. Her mother had long been dead. Still and diseased, Ilya used to beat Lizivieta inhumanly whenever she returned to him, but she rarely did so, for everyone in the town was ready to look after her as being an idiot and so especially dear to God. Ilya's employers and many others in the town, especially of the tradespeople, tried to clothe her better and always rigged her out with high boots and sheepskin coat for the winter. But although she allowed them to dress her up without resisting, she usually went away, preferably to the cathedral porch, and taking off all that had been given her, kerchief, sheepskin, skirt or boots, she left them there and walked away barefoot in her smock as before. It happened on one occasion that a new governor of the province making a tour of inspection in our town saw Lizivieta and was wounded in his tenderest susceptibilities. And though he was told she was an idiot, he pronounced that for a young woman of twenty to wander about in nothing but a smock was a breach of the proprieties and must not occur again. But the governor went his way, and Lizivieta was left as she was. At last her father died, which made her even more acceptable in the eyes of the religious persons of the town as an orphan. In fact, everyone seemed to like her. Even the boys did not tease her, and the boys of our town, especially the schoolboys, are a mischievous set. She would walk into strange houses and no one drove her away. Everyone was kind to her and gave her something. If she were given a copper she would take it and at once drop it in the alms-drug of the church or prison. If she were given a roll or a bun in the market she would hand it to the first child she met. Sometimes she would stop one of the richest ladies in the town and give it to her, and the lady would be pleased to take it. She herself never tasted anything but black bread and water. If she went into an expensive shop where there were costly goods or money lying about, no one kept watch on her, for they knew that if she saw thousands of rubles overlooked by them she would not have touched a farthing. She scarcely ever went to church. She slept either in the church porch or climbed over a hurdle. There are many hurdles instead of fences to this day in our town. Into a kitchen-garden. She used at least once a week to turn up at home, that is at the house of her father's former employers, and in the winter she went there every night and slept either in the passage or the cow-house. People were amazed that she could stand such a life, but she was accustomed to it, and although she was so tiny she was of a robust constitution. Some of the town's people declared that she did all this only from pride, but that is hardly credible. She could hardly speak, and only from time to time uttered an inarticulate grunt. How could she have been proud? It happened one clear, warm, moonlit night in September, many years ago. Five or six drunken revelers were returning from the club at a very late hour, according to our provincial notions. They passed through the back way, which led between the back gardens of the houses, with hurdles on either side. This way leads out to the bridge, over the long, stinking pool, which we were accustomed to call a river. Among the nettles and bird-ocks, under the hurdle our revelers saw Liza Vietta asleep. They stopped to look at her, laughing and began jesting with unbridled licentiousness. It occurred to one young gentleman to make the whimsical inquiry whether anyone could possibly look upon such an animal as a woman, and so forth. They all pronounced with lofty repugnance that it was impossible. But Fyodor Pavlovich, who was among them, sprang forward and declared that it was by no means impossible, and that indeed there was a certain pickancy about it, and so on. It is true that at that time he was overdoing his part as a buffoon. He liked to put himself forward and entertain the company, ostensibly on equal terms, of course, though in reality he was on servile footing with them. It was just at the time when he had received the news of his first wife's death in Petersburg, and with creep upon his hat, was drinking and behaving so shamelessly that even the most reckless among us were shocked at the sight of him. The revelers, of course, laughed at this unexpected opinion, and one of them even began challenging him to act upon it. The others repelled the idea even more emphatically, although still with the utmost hilarity, and at last they went on their way. Later on Fyodor Pavlovich swore that he had gone with them, and perhaps it was so. No one knows for certain, and no one ever knew. But five or six months later all the town was talking with intense and sincere indignation of the Zivyatis condition, and trying to find out who was the miscreant and who had wronged her. Then suddenly a terrible rumour was all over the town that this miscreant was no other than Fyodor Pavlovich. Who set the rumour going? Of that drunken band, five had left the town, and the only one still among us was an elderly and much respected civil councillor, the father of grown-up daughters, who could hardly have spread the tale, even if there had been any foundation for it. But rumour pointed straight at Fyodor Pavlovich, and persisted in pointing at him. Of course this was no great grievance to him. He would not have troubled to contradict a set of tradespeople. In those days he was proud, and did not condescend to talk except in his own circle of the officials and nobles whom he entertained so well. At the time Grigori stood up for his master vigorously. He provoked quarrels and altercations in defence of him, and succeeded in bringing some peoples round to his side. That's the wrench's own fault, he asserted, and the culprit was Karp, a dangerous convict who had escaped from prison, and whose name was well known to us as he had hidden in our town. This conjecture sounded plausible, for it was remembered that Karp had been in the neighbourhood just at that time in the autumn, and had robbed three people. But this affair, and all the talk about it, did not estrange popular sympathy from the poor idiot. She was better looked after than ever. A well-to-do-merchants widow named Condatyev arranged to take her into her house at the end of April, meaning not to let her out until after the confinement. They kept a constant watch over her, but in spite of their vigilance she escaped on the very last day, and made her way into Fyodor Pavlovitch's garden. How in her condition she managed to climb over the high, strong fence remained a mystery. Some maintained that she must have been lifted over by somebody. This is hinted at something more uncanny. The most likely explanation is that it happened naturally. That Lizaveta, accustomed to clambering over hurdles to sleep in gardens, had somehow managed to climb this fence in spite of her condition and had leapt down injuring herself. Grigori rushed to Marfa and sent her to Lizaveta while he ran to fetch an old midwife who lived close by. They saved the baby, but Lizaveta died at dawn. Grigori took the baby, brought it home and making his wife sit down, put it on her lap. A child of God, an orphan is akin to all, he said, and to us above others. Our little lost one has sent us this, who has come from the devil's son and a holy innocent. Nurse him, and weep no more. So Marfa brought up the child. He was christened pavlov, to which people were not slow in adding Fyodorovitch, son of Fyodor. Fyodorovitch did not object to any of this and thought it amusing, though he persisted vigorously in denying his responsibility. The townspeople were pleased at his adopting the foundling. Later on Fyodorovitch invented a surname for the child, calling him Smedyakov after his mother's nickname. So this Smedyakov became Fyodorovitch's second servant, and was living in the lodge with Grigori and Marfa at the time our story begins. He was employed as cook. I ought to say something of this Smedyakov, but I am ashamed of keeping my reader's attention so long occupied with these common menials, and I will go back to my story, hoping to say more of Smedyakov in the course of it. This ends Chapter 2. Book 3. Chapter 3 of the Brother's Karamazov. This is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org. The Brother's Karamazov by Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, translated by Constance Garnet. Book 3. Chapter 3. The Confession of a Passionate Heart, Inverse. Al-Yosha remained for some time irresolute after hearing the command his father shouted to him from the carriage, but in spite of his uneasiness he did not stand still. That was not his way. He went at once to the kitchen to find out what his father had been doing above. Then he set off, trusting that on the way he would find some answer to the doubt tormenting him. I hasten to add that his father's shouts commanding him to return home with his mattress and pillow did not frighten him in the least. He understood perfectly that those peremptory shouts were merely a flourish to produce an effect. In the same way a tradesman in our town who was celebrating his name-day with a party of friends, getting angry at being refused more vodka, smashed up his own crockery and furniture, and tore his own and his wife's clothes, and finally broke his windows, all for the sake of effect. Next day, of course, when he was sober, he regretted the broken cups and saucers. Al-Yosha knew his father would let him go back to the monastery next day, possibly even that evening. Moreover he was fully persuaded that his father might hurt anyone else but would not hurt him. Al-Yosha was certain that no one in the whole world would ever want to hurt him, and what is more, he knew that no one could hurt him. This was for him an axiom, assumed once for all without question, and he went his way without hesitation, relying on it. But at that moment an anxiety of a different sort disturbed him, and worried him the more because he could not formulate it. It was the fear of a woman, of Katerina Ivanovna, who had so urgently entreated him, in the note handed to him, by Madame Hofleckoff, to come and see her about something. This request and the necessity of going had at once aroused an uneasy feeling in his heart, and this feeling had grown more and more painful all the morning in spite of the scenes at the hermitage and at the father's superiors. He was not uneasy because he did not know what she would speak of and what he must answer, and he was not afraid of her simply as a woman. Though he knew little of women, he had spent his life from early childhood till he entered the monastery, entirely with women. He was afraid of that woman, Katerina Ivanovna. He had been afraid of her from the first time he saw her. He had only seen her two or three times, and had only chance to say a few words to her. He thought of her as a beautiful, proud, imperious girl. It was not her beauty which troubled him, but something else. And the vagueness of his apprehension increased the apprehension itself. The girl's aims were of the noblest. He knew that. She was trying to save his brother Dimitri simply through generosity, though he had already behaved badly to her. Yet although Alyosha recognized and did justice to all these fine and generous sentiments, a shiver began to run down his back as soon as he drew near her house. He reflected that he would not find Yvonne, who was so intimate a friend with her, for Yvonne was certainly now with his father. Dimitri was even more certain not to find there, and he had a foreboding of the reason. And so his conversation would be with her alone. He had a great longing to run and see his brother Dimitri before that fateful interview. Without showing him the letter, he could talk to him about it. But Dimitri lived a long way off, and he was sure to be away from home too. Standing still for a minute, he reached a final decision. Using himself with a rapid and a custom gesture, and at once smiling, he turned resolutely in the direction of his terrible lady. He knew her house. If he went by the high street, and then across the marketplace, it was a long way round. Though our town is small, it is scattered, and the houses are far apart. And meanwhile his father was expecting him, and perhaps had not yet forgotten his command. He might be unreasonable, and so he had to make haste to get there and back. So he decided to take a shortcut by the back way, for he knew every inch of the ground. This meant skirting fences, climbing over hurdles, and crossing other people's backyards, where everyone he met knew him and greeted him. In this way he could reach the high street in half the time. He had to pass the garden in joining his father's, and belonging to a little tumble-down house with four widows. The owner of this house, Azaleya Shanu, was a bedridden old woman, living with her daughter, who had been a gentile maid-servant in the general's families in Petersburg. Now she had been at home a year, looking after her sick mother. She always dressed up in fine clothes, though her old mother and she had sunk into such poverty that they went every day to Fyodor Pavlovitch's kitchen for soup and bread, which Marfa gave readily. Yet though the young woman came up for soup, she had never sold any of her dresses, and one of these even had a long train, a fact which Alyosha had learned from Raketen, who always knew everything that was going on in the town. He had forgotten it as soon as he had heard it, but now on reaching the garden he remembered the dress with the train, raised his head, which had been bowed in thought, and came upon something quite unexpected. Over the hurdle in the garden, Dimitri, mounted on something, was leaning forward, gesticulating violently, beckoning to him, honestly afraid to utter a word for fear of being overheard. Alyosha ran up to the hurdle. �It's a good thing you looked up! I was nearly shouting to you!� Mitya said, in a joyful, hurried whisper. �Climb in here quickly! How splendid that you've come! I was just thinking of you.� Alyosha was delighted too, but he did not know how to get over the hurdle. Mitya put his powerful hand under his elbow to help him jump. Looking up his cossack, Alyosha leapt over the hurdle with the agility of a bare-legged street urchin. �Well done! Now come along!� said Mitya, in an enthusiastic whisper. �Where?� whispered Alyosha, looking about him, and finding himself in a deserted garden, with no one near but themselves. The garden was small, but the house was at least fifty pieces away. �There's no one here! Why do you whisper?� asked Alyosha. �Why do I whisper?� �Doos take it!� cried Demetri at the top of his voice. �You see what silly tricks nature plays on one! I'm here in secret, and on the watch. I'll explain later on, but knowing it's a secret, I began whispering like a fool when there's no need. Let us go. Over there. Till then be quiet. I want to kiss you.� �Glory, glory to God in the world! Glory to God in me! I was just repeating that, sitting here before you came.� The garden was about three acres in extent, and planted with trees only along the fence at the four sides. There were apple trees, maples, limes, and birch trees. The middle of the garden was an empty grass-space from which several hundred weight of hay was carried in the summer. The garden was let out for a few rubles for the summer. There were also plantations of raspberries and currants and gooseberries laid out along the sides. A kitchen garden had been planted lately near the house. Dmitri led his brother to the most secluded corner of the garden. There in a thicket of lime trees and old bushes of black current, elder snowball tree and lilac, there stood a tumble down green summer house, blackened with age. Its walls were of lattice work, but there was still a roof which could give shelter. God knows when this summer house was built. There was a tradition that it had been put up some fifty years before by a retired colonel called Von Schmidt, who owned the house at the time. It was all in decay, the floor was rotting, the planks were loose, the woodwork smelled musty. In the summer house there was a green wooden table fixed in the ground, and round it were some green benches upon which it was still possible to sit. Alyosha had at once observed his brother's accelerated condition, and on entering the arbor he saw half a bottle of brandy and a wine-glass on the table. �That's brandy!� Dmitri laughed. �I see your look. He's drinking again. Distrust the apparition. Distrust the worthless, lying crowd, and lay aside thy doubts. I'm not drinking. I'm only indulging, as that pig Yorakitin says. He'll be a civil counselor one day, but he'll always talk about indulging. Sit down, I could take you in my arms, Alyosha, and press you to my bosom till I crush you, for in the whole world, in reality, in reality, can you take it in? I love no one but you.� He uttered the last words in a sort of exultation. �No one but you, and one Jade I have fallen in love with, to my ruin. But being in love doesn't mean loving. You may be in love with a woman, and yet hate her. I can talk about it gaily still. Sit down here by the table, and I'll sit beside you and look at you and go on talking. You shall keep quiet, and I'll go on talking, for the time has come. But on reflection, you know, I'd better speak quietly, for here. Here you can never tell what ears are listening. I will explain everything. As they say, the story will be continued. Why have I been longing for you? Why have I been thirsting for you all these days and just now? It's five days since I've cast anchor here. Because it's only to you I can tell everything. Because I must. Because I need you. Because tomorrow I shall fly from the clouds. Because tomorrow life is ending and beginning. Have you ever felt—have you ever dreamt of falling down a precipice into a pit? That's just how I'm falling, but not in a dream. And I'm not afraid. And don't you be afraid? At least, I am afraid, but I enjoy it. It's not enjoyment, though, but ecstasy. Damn it all, whatever it is—a strong spirit, a weak spirit, a womanish spirit—whatever it is—let us praise nature. You see what sunshine, how clear the sky is, the leaves are all green, it's still summer, four o'clock in the afternoon, and the stillness. Where were you going? I was going to Fathers, but I meant to go to Caterina Ivanovna's first. To her? And to father? Ha! What a coincidence! Why was I waiting for you, hungering and thirsting for you, and every cranny of my soul and even in my ribs? Why to send you to father and to her, Caterina Ivanovna, so as to have done with her and with father? To send an angel. I might have sent any one, but I wanted to send an angel. And here you are, on your way to see father and her. Did you really mean to send me? You cried Al-Yasha with a distressed expression? Stay! You knew it, and I see you understand it all at once, but be quiet, be quiet for a time. Don't be sorry and don't cry. Dmitri stood up, thought a moment, and put his finger to his forehead. She's asked you, written to you a letter or something, that's why you're going to her? You wouldn't be going except for that. Here is her note. Al-Yasha took it out of his pocket. Dmitri looked through it quickly. And you were going the back way. Oh, gods, I thank you for sending him by the back way, and he came to me like the golden fish to the silly old fisherman in the fable. Listen, Al-Yasha, listen, brother. Now I mean to tell you everything, for I must tell someone. An angel in heaven I've told already, but I want to tell an angel on earth. You are an angel on earth. You will hear and judge and forgive. And that's what I need, that someone above me should forgive. Listen, if two people break away from everything on earth and fly off into the unknown, or at least one of them, and before flying off or going to ruin, he comes to someone else and says, do this for me. Some favor never asked before that could only be asked on one's deathbed. Would that other refuse if you were a friend or a brother? He will do it. But tell me what it is, and make haste, said Al-Yasha. Make haste. Don't be in a hurry, Al-Yasha, you worry and worry yourself. There's no need to hurry now. Now the world has taken a new turning. Ah, Al-Yasha, what a pity you can't understand ecstasy. But what am I saying to him, as though you didn't understand it? What an ass I am. What am I saying? Be noble, O man. Who says that? Al-Yasha made up his mind to wait. He felt that perhaps, indeed, his work lay here. Mitya sank into thought for a moment, with his elbow on the table and his head in his hand. Both were silent. Al-Yasha, said Mitya, you're the only one who won't laugh. I should like to begin my confession with Shiller's Hymn to Joy and Daiv-Kleud. I don't know German, I only know it's called that. Don't think I'm talking nonsense because I'm drunk. I'm not a bit drunk. Brandy's all very well, but I need two bottles to make me drunk. Salinas with his rosy fizz upon his stumbling ass. But I have not drunk a quarter of a bottle, and I'm not Salinas. I'm not Salinas, though I am strong, for I've made a decision once for all. Forgive me, the pun. You'll have to forgive me a lot more than puns today. Don't be uneasy. I'm not spinning it out. I'm talking sense, and I'll come to the point in a minute. I won't keep you in suspense. Say, how does it go? He raised his head, thought a minute, and began with enthusiasm. Wild and fearful in his cavern hid the naked troglodyte, and the homeless nomad wandered, laying waste his fertile plain. Menacing with spear and arrow, in the woods the hunter strayed. Woe to all poor wretches stranded on those cool and hostile shores. From the peak of high Olympus came the mother Cirrus down. Seeking in those savage regions her lost daughter Prosapein. But the goddess found no refuge, found no kindly welcome there, and no temple bearing witness to the worship of the gods. From the fields and from the vineyards came no fruits to deck the feasts, only flesh of bloodstained victims smoldered on the altar fires. And where the grieving goddess turned to her melancholy gaze, a sunken, vilous degradation, man his loathesomeness displays. Mithia broke into sobs and seized Al-Yosh's hands. My dear, my dear in degradation, in degradation now too, there's a terrible amount of suffering for man on earth, a terrible lot of trouble. Don't think I'm only a brute in an officer's uniform, swallowing in dirt and drink. I hardly think of anything but of that degraded man. If only I'm not lying, I pray God I'm not lying and showing off. I think about that man because I am that man myself. Would he purge his soul from vileness and attain to light and worth? He must turn and cling forever to his ancient mother earth. But the difficulty is how am I to cling forever to mother earth? I don't kiss her, I don't cleave to her bosom. Am I to become a peasant or a shepherd? I go on, and I don't know whether I'm going to shame or to light and joy. That's the trouble for everything in the world is the riddle, and whenever I've happened to sink into the vilous degradation—and it's always been happening. I always read that poem about Sirius and man. Has it reformed me? Never. For I'm a carimazov. For when I do leap into the pit, I go headlong with my heels up, and am pleased to be falling in that degrading attitude and pride myself upon it. And in the very depths of that degradation I begin a hem of praise. Let me be accursed, let me be vile and base, only let me kiss the hem of the veil in which my God is shrouded. Though I may be following the devil, I am thy son, O Lord, and I love thee, and I feel the joy without which the world cannot stand. Joy everlasting fostereth the soul of all creation. It is her secret, firmant fires, the cup of life with flame. Tis at her beck the grass has turned, each blade towards the light, and solar systems have evolved from chaos and dark night, filling the realms of boundless space beyond the sages' sight, at bounteous natures kindly breast, all things that breathe drink joy, and birds and beasts and creeping things all follow where she leads. Her gifts to man are friends in need, the wreath, the foaming must, to angels, vision of God's throne, to insects, sensual lust. But enough poetry, I am in tears, let me cry, may be foolishness that everyone would laugh at, but you won't laugh. Your eyes are shining, too. Enough poetry, I want to tell you now about the insects to whom God gave sensual lust. To insects, sensual lust. I am that insect, brother, and it is said of me especially. All we Karamazovs are such insects, an angel as you are. That insect lives in you, too, and will stir up a tempest in your blood. Tempests, because sensual lust is a tempest, worse than a tempest. Beauty is a terrible and awful thing. It is terrible because it has not been fathomed and can never be fathomed, for God sets us nothing but riddles. Here the boundaries meet, and all contradictions exist side by side. I am a cultivated man, brother, but I've thought a lot about this. It's terrible what mysteries there are. Too many riddles weigh men down on earth. We must solve them as we can, and try to keep a dry skin in the water. Beauty, I can't endure the thought that a man of lofty mind and heart begins with the ideal of the Madonna and ends with the ideal of Sodom. What's still more awful is that a man with the ideal of Sodom and his soul does not renounce the ideal of the Madonna, and his heart may be on fire with that ideal, genuinely on fire, just as in his days of youth and innocence. Yes, man is broad, too broad indeed. I'd have him narrower. The devil only knows what to make of it. What to the mind is shameful is beauty and nothing else to the heart. Is there beauty in Sodom? Believe me, that for the immense mass of mankind beauty is found in Sodom. Did you know that secret? The awful thing is that beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and the devil are fighting there, and the battlefield is the heart of man. But a man always talks on his own ache. Listen now to come to facts. CHAPTER IV The Confession of a Passionate Heart in Anecdote I was leading a wild life then. Father said just now that I spent several thousand roubles in seducing young girls. That's a swinish invention, and there was nothing of the sort. And if there was, I didn't need money simply for that. With me money is an accessory, the overflow of my heart, the framework. Today she would be my lady, tomorrow a wench out of the streets in her place. I entertained them both. I threw away money by the handful on music, rioting, and gypsies. Sometimes I gave it to the ladies, too, for they'll take it greedily. That must be admitted, and be pleased and thankful for it. Ladies used to be fond of me, not all of them, but it happened. But I always liked side paths, little dark back alleys behind the main road, there one finds adventures and surprises, and precious metal in the dirt. I'm speaking figuratively, brother. In the town I was in, there were no such back alleys in the literal sense. But morally there were. If you were like me, you'd know what that means. I loved vice. I loved the ignonomy of vice. I loved cruelty. Am I not a bug? Am I not a nauseous insect? In fact a Karamazov? Once we went a whole lot of us for a picnic in seven sledges. It was dark, it was winter, and I began squeezing a girl's hand, and forced her to kiss me. She was the daughter of an official, a sweet, gentle, submissive creature. She allowed me, she allowed me much in the dark. She thought, poor thing, that I should come next day to make her an offer. I was looked upon as a good match, too. But I didn't say a word to her for five months. I used to see her in a corner at dances. We were always having dances, her eyes watching me. I saw how they glowed with fire, a fire of gentle indignation. This game only tickled that insect lust I cherished in my soul. Five months later she married an official, and left the town, still angry, and still perhaps in love with me. Now they live happily. Observe that I told no one. I didn't boast of it, though I am full of low desires, and love what's low, I'm not dishonorable. You're blushing. Your eyes flashed. Of enough of this filth with you, and all this was nothing much, wayside blossoms ala paul du cock, though the cruel insect had already grown strong in my soul. I have a perfect album of reminiscences, brother. God bless them, the darlings. I tried to break it off without quarreling, and I never gave them away. I never bragged of one of them. But that's enough. You can't suppose I brought you here simply to talk of such nonsense. No, I'm going to tell you something more curious, and don't be surprised that I'm glad to tell you instead of being ashamed. You say that, because I blushed, Al-Yasha said suddenly. I wasn't blushing at what you were saying, or at what you've done. I blushed because I am the same as you are. You! Come, that's going a little too far. No, it's not too far, said Al-Yasha warmly. Obviously the idea was not a new one. The latter's the same. I'm at the bottom step, and you're above—somewhere above the thirteenth, that's how I see it—but it's all the same, absolutely the same in kind. One on the bottom step is bound to go up to the top one. Then why not not to step on it at all? Anyone who can help it had better not, said Al-Yasha. But can you? I think not, said Al-Yasha. Hush, Al-Yasha, hush, darling, I could kiss your hand, you touch me so. That rogue Grushenka has an eye for men. She told me once that she'd devour you one day. There, there, I won't. From this field of corruption fouled by flies, let's pass to my tragedy, also be fouled by flies, that is, by every sort of fileness. Although the old man told lies about my seducing innocence, there really was something of the sort in my tragedy, though it was only once, and that it did not come off. The old man, who has reproached me with what never happened, does not even know of this fact. I never told anyone about it. You're the first. Except Yvonne, of course. Yvonne knows everything. But he knew about it long before you. Yvonne is a tomb. Yvonne's a tomb? Yes. Al-Yasha listened with great attention. I was a lieutenant in a line regiment, but still I was under supervision, like a kind of convict. Yet I was awfully well-received in the little town. I spent money right and left. I was thought to be rich, I thought so myself. But I must have pleased them in other ways as well. Although they shook their heads over me, they liked me. My colonel, who was an old man, took a sudden dislike to me. He was always down upon me, but I had powerful friends, and moreover all the town was on my side, so he couldn't do me much harm. I was in fault myself for refusing to treat him with proper respect. I was proud. This obstinate old fellow, who was really a very good sort, kind-hearted and hospitable, had had two wives, both dead. His first wife, who was of a humble family, left a daughter as unpretentious as herself. She was a young woman of four and twenty, when I was there, and was living with her father and an aunt, her mother's sister. The aunt was simple and illiterate. The niece was simple but lively. I like to say nice things about people. I never knew a woman of more charming character than Agafya. Fancy her name was Agafya Ivanovna. And she wasn't bad-looking either, in the Russian style—tall, stout, with a full figure, and beautiful eyes, though a rather coarse face. She had not married, although she had had two suitors. She refused them, but was as cheerful as ever. I was intimate with her, not in that way. It was pure friendship. I have often been friendly with women quite innocently. I used to talk to her with shocking frankness, and she only laughed. Many women like such freedom. She was a girl, too, which made it very amusing. Another thing one could never think of her as a young lady. She and her aunt lived in her father's house with a sort of voluntary humility, not putting themselves on in equality with other people. She was a general favourite, and of use to everyone. She was this clever dressmaker. She had a talent for it. She gave her services freely without asking for payment, but if anyone offered her payment she didn't refuse. The Colonel, of course, was a very different matter. He was one of the chief personages in the district. He kept open house, entertained the whole town, gave suppers and dances. At the time I arrived and joined the battalion, all the town was talking of the expected return of the Colonel's second daughter—a great beauty, who had just left a fashionable school in the capital. His second daughter is Katerina Ivanovna, and she was the child of the second wife, who belonged to a distinguished general's family. Although as I learned on good authority, she, too, brought the Colonel no money. She had connections, and that was all. There may have been expectations, but they had come to nothing. Yet when the young lady came from boarding school on a visit, the whole town revived. Our most distinguished ladies, two Excellencies and a Colonel's wife, in all the rest following their lead, at once took her up and gave entertainments in her honour. She was the belle of the balls, and picnics, and they got up tableau vivant in aid of distressed governesses. I took no notice. I went on as wildly as before, and one of my exploits at the time set all the town talking. I saw her eyes taking my measure one evening at the Battery Commanders, but I didn't go up to her, as though I disdained her acquaintance. I did go up and speak to her at an evening party not long after. She scarcely looked at me, and compressed her lips scornfully. Wait a bit. I'll have my revenge, thought I. I behaved like an awful fool on many occasions at that time, and I was conscious of it myself. What made it worse was that I felt that Katenka was not an innocent boarding school miss, but a person of character, proud and really high-principled. Of all, she had education and intellect, and I had neither. You think I meant to make her an offer? No. I simply wanted to revenge myself, because I was such a hero, and she didn't seem to feel it. Meanwhile, I spent my time in drink and riot, to the Lieutenant Colonel put me under arrest for three days. Just at that time, father sent me six thousand rubles in return for my sending him a deed, giving up all claims upon him, settling our accounts, so to speak, and saying that I wouldn't expect anything more. I didn't understand a word of it at that time. Until I came here, Alyosha, till the last few days indeed, perhaps even now, I haven't been able to make head or tail of my money affairs with father. But never mind that. We'll talk of it later. Just as I received the money, I got a letter from a friend telling me something that interested me immensely. The authorities, I learned, were dissatisfied with our Lieutenant Colonel. He was suspected of irregularities. In fact, his enemies were preparing a surprise for him. And then the commander of the division arrived, and kicked up the devil of a shindy. Shortly afterwards he was ordered to retire. I won't tell you how it all happened. He had enemies, certainly. Suddenly there was a marked coolness in the town towards him and all his family. His friends all turned their backs on him. Then I took my first step. I met Agafya Ivanovna, with whom I'd always kept up a friendship, and said, Do you know there's a deficit of 4,500 rubles of government money in your father's accounts? What do you mean? What makes you say so? The general was here not long ago, and everything was all right. Then it was. But now it isn't. She was terribly scared. Don't frighten me, she said. Who told you so? Don't be uneasy, I said. I won't tell anyone. You know I'm as silent as the tomb. I only wanted, in view of possibilities, to add that, when they demand that 4,500 rubles from your father, and he can't produce it, he'll be tried, and made to serve as a common soldier in his old age, unless you like to send me your young lady in secret. I've just had money paid me. I'll give her four thousand if you like, and keep the secret religiously. You scoundrel! That's what she said. You wicked scoundrel! How dare you! She went away furiously indignant, while I shouted after her once more that the secret should be kept sacred. Those two simple creatures, Agafia and her aunt, I may as well say at once, behaved like perfect angels all through this business. They genuinely adored their Katya, fought her far above them, and waited on her hand and foot. But Agafia told her of our conversation. I found that out afterwards. She didn't keep it back. And of course, that was all I wanted. Suddenly, the new major arrived to take command of the battalion. The old Lieutenant Colonel was taken ill at once, couldn't leave his room for two days, and didn't hand over the government money. Dr. Krovenchko declared that he really was ill. But I knew for a fact, and had known for a long time, that for the last four years the money had never been in his hands except when the commander made his visits of inspection. He used to lend it to a trustworthy person, a merchant of our town called Trifonov, an old widower with a big beard and gold-rimmed spectacles. He used to go to the fair, do a profitable business with the money, and return the whole sum to the Colonel, bringing with it a present from the fair as well as interest on the loan. But this time I heard all about it quite perchance from Trifonov's son and heir, a driveling youth and one of the most vicious of the world. This time I say, Trifonov brought nothing back from the fair. The Lieutenant Colonel flew to him. I've never received any money from you, and couldn't possibly have received any. That was all the answer he got. So now our Lieutenant Colonel is confined to the house, with his howl round his head, while there all three busy putting ice on it. All at once an orderly arrives on the scene with a book and the order to hand over the battalion money immediately, within two hours. He signed the book. I saw the signature in the book afterwards. Stood up, saying he would put on his uniform, ran to his bedroom, loaded his double-barrow gun with a service bullet, took the boot off his right foot, fixed the gun against his chest, and began feeling for the trigger with his foot. But Agafya, remembering what I had told her, had her suspicions. She stole up and peeped into the room just in time. She rushed in, flung herself upon him from behind, threw her arms round him, and the gun went off, hit the ceiling, but hurt no one. The others ran in, took away the gun, and held him by the arms. I heard all about this afterwards. I was at home. It was getting dusk, and I was just preparing to go out. I had dressed, brushed my hair, scented my handkerchief, and taken up my cap, when suddenly the door opened, and facing me in the room stood Katarina Ivanovna. It's strange how things happen sometimes. No one had seen her in the street, so that no one knew of it in the town. I lodged with two decrepit old ladies who looked after me. They were most obliging, old things, ready to do anything for me, and at my request were as silent afterwards as two cast-iron pots. Of course, I grasped the position at once. She walked in and looked straight at me. Her dark eyes determined, even defiant, but on her lips and round her mouth I saw uncertainty. My sister told me, she began, that you would give me forty-five hundred rubles if I came to you for it myself. I have come. Give me the money." She couldn't keep it up. She was breathless, frightened, her voice failed her, and the corners of her mouth and the lines round it quivered. Al-Yasha, are you listening, or are you asleep? Mitya, I know you will tell the whole truth," said Al-Yasha in agitation. I am telling it. If I tell the whole truth just as it happened, I shan't spare myself. My first idea was a Karamazov one. Once I was bitten by a centipede brother, and laid up a fortnight with a fever from it. Well, I felt a centipede biting at my heart then. Hanasha's insect, you understand? I looked her up and down. You've seen her. She's a beauty. But she was beautiful in another way then. At that moment she was beautiful because she was noble, and I was a scoundrel. She in all the grandeur of her generosity and sacrifice for her father, and I, a bug. And scoundrel as I was. She was all together at my mercy, body and soul. She was hemmed in. I tell you frankly, that thought, that venomous thought so possessed my heart that it almost swooned with suspense. It seemed as if there could be no resisting it, as though I should act like a bug, like a venomous spider without a spark of pity. I could scarcely breathe. Understand, I should have gone next day to ask for her hand so that it might unhonorably, so to speak, and that nobody would or could know, for though I am a man of base desires, I'm honest. And at that very second some voice seemed to whisper in my ear. But when you come to-morrow to make your proposal, that girl won't even see you. She'll order her coachman to kick you out of the yard. Publish it all through the town, she would say, I'm not afraid of you. I looked at the young lady. My voice had not deceived me. That is how it would be. Not a doubt of it. I could see from her face now that I should be turned out of the house. My spite was roused. I longed to play her the nastiest, swinish-cad's trick, to look at her with a sneer, and on the spot where she stood before me, to stun her with a tone of voice that only a shopman could use. Four thousand? What do you mean? I was joking. You've been counting your chickens too easily, madam. Two hundred, if you like, with all my heart. But four thousand is not a sum to throw away on such frivolity. You put yourself out to no purpose. I should have lost the game, of course. She'd have run away. But it would have been an infernal revenge. It would have been worth it all. I'd have howled with regret all the rest of my life, only to have played that trick. Would you believe it? It has never happened to me with any other woman, not one, to look at her at such a moment with hatred. And on my oath I looked at her for three seconds, or five, perhaps, with fearful hatred, that hate which is only a hair's breadth from love, from the maddest love. I went to the window, put my forehead against the frozen pane, and I remember the ice burnt my forehead like fire. I did not keep her long, don't be afraid. I turned round, went up to the table, opened the drawer, and took out a bank note for five thousand rubles. It was lying in a French dictionary. Then I showed it to her in silence, folded it, handed it to her, opened the door into the passage, and, stepping back, made her a deep bow. A most respectful, a most impressive bow, believe me. She shuddered all over, gazed at me for a second, turned horribly pale, white as a sheet, in fact, and all at once, not impetuously, but softly, gently, bowed down to my feet. Not a boarding school curtsy, but a Russian bow, with her forehead to the floor. She jumped up and ran away. I was wearing my sword. I drew it and nearly stabbed myself with it on the spot. Why I don't know. It would have been frightfully stupid, of course. I suppose it was delight. Can you understand that one might kill oneself from delight? But I didn't stab myself. I only kissed my sword and put it back in the scaperd. Which there was no need to have told you, by the way, and I fancy that in telling you about my inner conflict I have laid it on rather thick to glorify myself, but let it pass, and to hell with all who pry into the human heart. Well, so much for that adventure with Katarina Ivanovna. So now Ivanov knows of it, and you, and no one else. Dimitri got up, took a step or two in his excitement, pulled out his anchorchief, and mopped his forehead, then sat down again. Not in the same place as before, but on the opposite side, so that Alyosha had to turn quite round to face him. This ends Chapter 4. Book 3. Chapter 5. Of the Brothers Kermazov. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Kara McIntosh. The Brothers Kermazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Translated by Konstantin Skarnit. Book 3. Chapter 5. The Confession of a Passionate Heart Heals Up. Now, said Alyosha, I understand the first half. You understand the first half. That half is a drama, and it was played out there. The second half is a tragedy, and it is being acted here. And I understand nothing of that second half so far, said Alyosha. And I? Do you suppose I understand it? Stop, Dmitri. There's one important question. Tell me. You were betrothed. Betrothed still? We weren't betrothed at once, not for three months after that adventure. The next day I told myself that the incident was closed, concluded. It seemed to me caddish to make her an offer. On her side she gave no sign of life for the six weeks that she remained in the town, except indeed for one action. The day after her visit, the maid-servant slipped around with an envelope addressed to me. I tore it open. It contained the change out of the bank note. Only 4,500 rubles was needed, but there was a discount of about 200 on chaining it. She only sent me about 260. I don't remember exactly, but not a note, not a word of explanation. I searched the packet for a pencil mark, and nothing. Well I spent the rest of the money on such an orgy that the new major was obliged to reprimand me. Well the Lieutenant Colonel produced the battalion money to the astonishment of everyone, for nobody believed that he had the money untouched. He'd no sooner paid it than he fell ill, took to his bed, and, three weeks later, softening of the brain set in, and he died five days afterwards. He was buried with military honors, for he had not had time to receive his discharge. Ten days after his funeral, Katarina Ivanova, with her aunt and sister, went to Moscow. And behold, on the very day they went away, I hadn't seen them, didn't see them off or take leave. I received a tiny note, a sheet of thin blue paper, and on it only one line in pencil. I will write to you, wait, kay, and that was all. I'll explain the rest now in two words. In Moscow their fortunes changed with the swiftness of lightning and the unexpectedness of an Arabian fairytale. That general's widow, their nearest relation, suddenly lost the two nieces who were her heiresses and necks of kin. Both died in the same week of smallpox. The old lady, prostrated with grief, welcomed Katya as a daughter, as her one hope, clutched at her, altered her will and Katya's favor. But that concerned the future, meanwhile she gave her, for present use, eighty thousand rubles as a marriage portion to do what she liked with. She was an hysterical woman. I saw something of her in Moscow later. While suddenly I received by post four thousand five hundred rubles. I was speechless with surprise, as you may suppose. Three days later came the promised letter. I have it with me now. You must read it. She offers to be my wife, offers herself to me. I love you madly, she says. Even if you don't love me, never mind. Be my husband, don't be afraid. I won't hamper you in any way. I will be your chattel, I will be the carpet under your feet. I want to love you forever. I want to save you from yourself. Alyosha, I am not worthy to repeat those lines in my vulgar words and in my vulgar tone, my everlasting vulgar tone, and I can never cure myself of it. That letter stabs me even now. Do you think I don't mind, that I don't mind still? I wrote her an answer at once, but it was impossible for me to go to Moscow. I wrote to her with tears. One thing I shall be ashamed of forever. I referred to her being rich and having a dowry, while I was only a stuck-up beggar. I mentioned money. I ought to have borne it in silence, but it slipped for my pen. Then I wrote at once to Ivan, and told him all I could about it in a letter of six pages, and sent him to her. Do you look like that? Why do you look like that? Why are you staring at me? Yes, Ivan fell in love with her. He's in love with her still. I know that. I did a stupid thing in the world's opinion. Perhaps that one stupid thing may be the saving of us all now. Ooh, don't you see what a lot she thinks of Ivan? How she respects him? When she compares us, do you suppose she can love a man like me, especially after all that has happened here? But I'm convinced that she does love a man like you, and not a man like him. She loves her own virtue, not me. The words broken voluntarily, and almost malignantly from Drametri. He laughed. But a minute later, his eyes gleamed. He flushed crimson, and struck the table violently with his fist. I swear, Al-Yoshia, he cried, with intense and genuine anger at himself. You may not believe me, but as God is holy, and as Christ is God, I swear that though I smiled at her lofty sentiments just now, I know that I am a million times baser and soul than she, and that these lofty sentiments of hers are as sincere as the heavenly angels. That's the tragedy of it, that I know that for certain. What if anyone does show off a bit? Don't I do it myself? Yet I'm sincere. I'm sincere. As for Ivan, I can understand how he must be cursing nature now, with his intellect, too. To see the preference given, to whom, to what? To a monster who, though he is betrothed and all eyes are fixed on him, can restrain his debaucheries and before the very eyes of his betrothed. And a man like me is preferred while he is rejected. And why? Because a girl wants to sacrifice her life and destiny out of gratitude. It's ridiculous. I've never said a word of this to Ivan. And Ivan, of course, has never dropped a hint of the sort to me. But destiny will be accomplished, and the best man will hold his ground while the undeserving one will vanish into the back alley forever. His filthy back alley, his beloved back alley, where he is at home and where he will sink and filth and stench at his own free will and with enjoyment. I've been talking foolishly. I have no words left. I use them at random, but it will be as I have said. I shall drown in the back alley, and she will marry Ivan. Stop, Demetri, Alyosha interrupted again with great anxiety. There's one thing you haven't made clear yet. You are still betrothed all the same, are you not? Can you break off the engagement if she, your betrothed, doesn't want to? Yes, formally and solemnly betrothed. It was all done on my arrival in Moscow, with great ceremony, with icons, all in fine style. The General's wife blessed us, and, would you believe it, congratulated Katya. You've made a good choice, she said. I see right through him. And would you believe it? She didn't like Ivan, and hardly greeted him. I had a lot of talk with Katya in Moscow. I told her about myself, sincerely, honorably. She listened to everything. There was sweet confusion. There were tender words. Though there were proud words, too, she wrung out of me a mighty promise to reform. I gave my promise, and here. What? Why, I called you and brought you out here today. This very day, remember it, to send you, this very day again, to Katarina Ivanova, and to tell her that I shall never come see her again, say, he sends you his compliments. But is that possible? That's just the reason I'm sending you and my place, because it's impossible. And how could I tell her myself? And where are you going? To the back alley. To Grushanka, then, although she'd explained more fully, clasping his hands. Can Rakuten really have told truth? I thought you had just visited her, and that was all. Can a betrothed man pay such visits? Is such a thing possible, with such a betrothed, and before the eyes of all the world? Confounded, I have some honor. As soon as I began visiting Grushanka, I ceased to be betrothed, and to be an honest man. I understand that. Why do you look at me? You see, I went in the first place to beat her. I had heard, and I know for a fact now, that that captain, father's agent, had given Grushanka an IOU of mine for her to sue me for payment, so as to put an end to me. They wanted to scare me. I went to beat her. I had had a glimpse of her before. She doesn't strike one at first sight. I knew about her old merchant, who's lying ill now, paralyzed. But he's leaving for a decent little son. I knew, too, that she was fond of money, that she hoarded it, and lent it at a wicked rate of interest. That she's a merciless cheat and swindler. I went to beat her, and I stayed. The storm broke. It struck me down like the plague. I'm plague-stricken still, and know that everything is over. There will never be anything more for me. The cycle of the ages is accomplished. That's my position, and though I'm a beggar, as fate would have it, I had three thousand just then in my pocket. I drove with Grushanka to Makro, a place twenty-five versed from here. I got gypsies there, and champagne, and made all the peasants there drunk on it, and all the women and girls. I sent the thousands flying. In three days' time I was stripped bare, but a hero. Do you suppose the hero had gained his end? Not a sign of it from her. I tell you that rogue Grushanka has a supple curve all over her body. You can see it in her little foot, even in her little toe. I saw it, and kissed it. But that was all, I swear. I'll marry you if you like, she said. You're a beggar, you know. Say that you won't beat me, and you will let me do anything I choose, and perhaps I will marry you, she laughed, and she's laughing still. Dmitry leapt up with a sort of fury. He seemed all at once as though he were drunk. His eyes became suddenly bloodshot. And do you really mean to marry her? At once, if she will, and if she won't, I shall stay all the same. I'll be the porter at her gate, Alyosha, he cried. He stopped short before him, and taking him by the shoulders began shaking him violently. Do you know, you innocent boy, that this is all delirium, senseless delirium? For there's a tragedy here. Let me tell you, Alexei, that I must be a low man, with low and degraded passions. But a thief and a pickpocket Dmitry Karamazov never can be. Well, then, let me tell you that I am a thief and a pickpocket. That very morning, just before I went to beat Grushanka, Katerina Ivanova sent for me, and in strict secrecy, why I don't know, I suppose she had some reason, asked me to go to the cheap town of the province, and to post 3,000 rubles to Gafya Ivanova in Moscow, so that nothing should be known of it in the town here. So I had that 3,000 rubles in my pocket when I went to seek Grushanka, and it was that money we spent at Makro. Afterwards, I pretended I had been to the town, but did not show her the post office receipt. I said I had sent the money and would bring the receipt, and so far I haven't brought it. I've forgotten it. Now what do you think you're going to her today to say? He sends his compliments, and she'll ask you, what about the money? You might still have said to her, he's a degraded sensualist and a low creature with uncontrolled passions. He didn't send her money then, but wasted it because, like a low brute, he couldn't control himself. But still you might have added, isn't a thief though? Here's your 3,000, he sends it back. Send it to Gafya Ivanova. But he told me to say he sends his compliments. But as it is, she will ask, but where is the money? Misha, you are unhappy, yes, but not as unhappy as you think. Don't worry yourself to death with despair. What, do you suppose I'd shoot myself because I can't get 3,000 to pay back? That's just it. I shan't shoot myself. I haven't the strength now. Afterwards, perhaps. But now I'm going to Grushenka. I don't care what happens. And what then? I'll be her husband if she deigns to have me. And when lovers come, I'll go into the next room. I'll clean her friend's galoshes. Blow up their samovar, run their errands. Katarina Ivanova will understand it all, Alyosha said solemnly. She'll understand how great this trouble is, and she will forgive. She has a lofty mind, and no one could be more unhappy than you. She'll see that for herself. She won't forgive anything, said Dmitry with the grin. There's something in it, brother, that no woman could forgive. Do you know what would be the best thing to do? What? Pay back 3,000. Where can we get it from? I say I have 2,000. Ivan will give you another 1,000. That makes 3. Take it, and pay it back. And when would you get it, your 3,000? You're not of age, besides. And you must, you absolutely must, take my farewell to her today, with money or without it, for I can't drag on any longer. Things have come to such a pass. Tomorrow is too late. I shall send you to father. To father? Yes, to father first. Ask him for 3,000. But, Mitya, he won't give it. As though he would, I know he won't. Do you know the meaning of despair, Alexi? Yes. Listen, legally he owes me nothing. I've had it all from him, I know that. But morally he owes me something, doesn't he? You know he started with 28,000 of my mother's money and made 100,000 with it. Let him give me back only 3 of the 28,000, and he'll draw my soul out of hell, and it will atone for many of my sins. For that 3,000, I shall give you solemn word. I'll make an end of everything, and he shall hear nothing more of me. For the last time I give him the chance to be a father. Tell him God himself sends him this chance. Mitya, he won't give it for anything. I know he won't. I know it perfectly well. Now especially. That's not all. I know something more. Now only a few days ago, perhaps only yesterday, he found out for the first time in earnest, underlined in earnest, that Grushenka is really perhaps not joking, and really means to marry me. He knows her nature. He knows the cat. He's supposed he's going to give me money to help to bring that about when he's crazy about her himself. And that's not all either. I can tell you more than that. Now that for the last five days, he has had 3,000 drawn out of the bank, changed into notes of a hundred rubles, packed into a large envelope, sealed with five seals, and tied across with red tape. You see how well I know it all about it? On the envelope is written, To my angel Grushenka, when she will come to me. He scrawled it himself in silence and in secret, and no one knows that the money is there, except the valet. Smyrtakov, whom we trust like himself. So now he has been expecting Grushenka for the last three or four days. He hopes she'll come for the money. He has sent her word of it, and she has sent him word that perhaps she'll come. And if she does go to the old man, can I marry her after that? You understand now why I'm here in secret and what I'm on the watch for. For her? Yes, for her. Foma has a room in the house of these sluts here. Foma comes from our parts. He was a soldier in our regiment. He does jobs for them. He's a watchman at night, and goes grouse shooting in the daytime, and that's how he lives. I've established myself in his room. Neither he nor the women of the house know the secret that is, that I am on the watch here. No one but Smyrtakov knows then. No one else. He will let me know if she goes to the old man. It was he told you about the money then? Yes, it's a dead secret. Even Ivan doesn't know about the money or anything. The old man is sending Ivan Chermishnaya on a two or three days journey. A purchaser has churned up for the copes. He'll give eight thousand for the timber, so the old man keeps asking Ivan to help him by going to arrange it. It will take him two or three days. That's what the old man wants so that Grushenka can come while he's away. Then he's expecting Grushenka to-day. No, she won't come to-day. There are signs. She's certain not to come, cried Mitya suddenly. Smyrtakov thinks so too. Father is drinking now. He's sitting at a table with Ivan. Go to him, Alyosha, and ask for the three thousand. Mitya dear, what's the matter with you, cried Alyosha, jumping up from his place and looking keenly at his brother's frenzied face? For one moment the thought struck him that Dmitry was mad. What is it? I'm not insane, said Dmitry, looking intently and earnestly at him. No fear. I'm sending you to father, and I know what I'm saying. I believe in miracles. In miracles? In a miracle of divine providence. God knows my heart. He sees my despair. He sees the whole picture. Surely he won't let something awful happen. Alyosha, I believe in miracles. Go. I'm going. Tell me. Will you wait for me here? Yes. I know it will take some time. You can't go at him point blank. He's drunk now. I'll wait three hours. Four, five, six, seven. Only remember you must go to Katerina Ivanova today. If it has to be at midnight with the money or without the money and say he sends his compliments to you, I want you to say that verse to her. He sends his compliments to you. Mitya, and what if Grushenko comes today? If not today or the next day? Grushenko? I shall see her. I shall rush out and prevent it. And if... If there's an if, it will be murder. I couldn't endure it. Who will be murdered? The old man. I shan't kill her. Brother, what are you saying? Oh, I don't know. I don't know. Perhaps I shan't kill, and perhaps I shall. I'm afraid that he will suddenly become so loathsome to me with his face at that moment. I hate his ugly throat, his eyes, his nose, his shameless snigger. I feel a physical repulsion. That's what I'm afraid of. That's what may be too much for me. I'll go, Mitya. I believe that God will order things for the best. That nothing awful may happen. And I will sit and wait for the miracle. And if it doesn't come to pass, Alyosha went thoughtfully towards his father's house. End of Chapter 5. Book 3 Chapter 6 Of the Brothers Karamazov This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Brothers Karamazov By Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky Translated by Konstantin Skarnet Book 3 Chapter 6 Smerdiakov He did in fact find his father still at table. Though there was a dining-room in the house, the table was laid as usual in the drawing-room, which was the largest room, and furnished with old-fashioned ostentation. The furniture was white and very old, upholstered in old red silky material. In the spaces between the windows there were mirrors in elaborate white and gilt frames of old-fashioned carving. On the walls covered with white paper, which was torn in many places, there hung two large portraits, one of some prints who had been governor of the district 30 years before, and the other of some bishop also long since dead. In the corner opposite the door there were several icons, before which a lamp was lighted at nightfall, not so much for devotional purposes as to light the room. Fyodor Pavlovich used to go to bed very late, at three or four o'clock in the morning, and would wander about the room at night, or sit in an armchair thinking. This had become a habit with him. He often slept quite alone in the house, sending his servants to the lodge, but usually Smerdiakov remained, sleeping on a bench in the hall. When Alyosha came in, dinner was over, but coffee and preserves had been served. Fyodor Pavlovich liked sweet things with brandy after dinner. Yvonne was also at table, sipping coffee. The servants Grigorian Smerdiakov were standing by. Both the gentleman and the servant seemed in singularly good spirits. Fyodor Pavlovich was roaring with laughter. Before he entered the room, Alyosha heard the shrill laugh he knew so well, and could tell from the sound of it that his father had only reached the good-humored stage, and was far from being completely drunk. Here he is! Here he is! yelled Fyodor Pavlovich, highly delighted at seeing Alyosha. Join us! Sit down! Coffee is a lentin dish, but it's hot. I don't offer you brandy, you're keeping the fast. But would you like some? No. I'd better give you some of our famous liqueur. Smerdiakov, go to the cupboard, the second shelf on the right. Here are the keys. Look sharp. Alyosha began refusing the liqueur. Never mind. If you won't have it, we will, said Fyodor Pavlovich, beaming. But stay. Have you dined? Yes, answered Alyosha, who had in truth only eaten a piece of bread, and drunk a glass of kvass in the father's superior's kitchen. Though I should be pleased to have some hot coffee. Bravo, my darling! He'll have some coffee. Does it want warming? No, it's boiling. It's capital coffee. Smerdiakov's making. My Smerdiakov's an artist at coffee, and at fish patties, and at fish soup, too. You must come one day and have some fish soup. Let me know beforehand. But stay. Didn't I tell you this morning to come home with your mattress and pillow and all? Have you brought your mattress? No, I haven't, said Alyosha, smiling, too. Ah, but you were frightened. You were frightened this morning, weren't you? There, my darling, I couldn't do anything to vex you. Do you know, Yvonne, I can't resist the way he looks once straight in the face and laughs? It makes me laugh all over. I'm so fond of him. Alyosha, let me give you my blessing. A father's blessing. Alyosha rose. But Fyodor Pavlovich had already changed his mind. No, no, he said. I'll just make the sign of the cross over you for now. Sit still. Now we have a treat for you. In your own line, too. It'll make you laugh. Balam's ass has begun talking to us here. And how he talks, how he talks! Balam's ass, it appeared, was the valet, Smerjakov. He was a young man of about four and twenty, remarkably unsocial and taciturn. Not that he was shy or bashful. On the contrary, he was conceited, and seemed to despise everybody. But we must pause to say a few words about him now. He was brought up by Gregorian Marfa, but the boy grew up with no sense of gratitude, as Gregorian expressed it. He was an unfriendly boy, and seemed to look at the world mistrustfully. In his childhood he was very fond of hanging cats, and burying them with great ceremony. He used to dress up in a sheet as though it were a surplus, and sang and waved some object over the dead cat as though it were a censor. All this he did on the sly, with the greatest secrecy. Gregorian caught him once at this diversion, and gave him a good beating. He shrank into a corner, and sulked there for a week. He doesn't care for you or me, the monster. Gregorian used to say to Marfa, and he doesn't care for anyone. Are you a human being? he said, addressing the boy directly. You're not a human being. You grew from the mildew in the bath-house. That's what you are. Smeared your cough it appeared afterwards, could never forgive him those words. Gregorian taught him to read and write, and when he was twelve years old began teaching him the scriptures. But this teaching came to nothing. At the second or third lesson the boy suddenly grinned. What's that for? asked Gregorian, looking at him threateningly from under his spectacles. Oh nothing! God created light on the first day, and the sun, moon, and stars on the fourth day. Where did the light come from on the first day? Gregorian was thunderstruck. The boy looked sarcastically at his teacher. There was something positively condescending in his expression. Gregorian could not restrain himself. I'll show you where! he cried and gave the boy a violent slap on the cheek. The boy took the slap without a word, but withdrew into his corner again for some days. A week later he had his first attack of the disease to which he was subject all the rest of his life. Epilepsy. When Fyodor Pavlovich heard of it, his attitude to the boy seemed changed at once. Till then he had taken no notice of him, though he never scolded and always gave him a co-pack when he met him. Sometimes when he was in good humour he would send the boy something sweet from his table. But as soon as he heard of his illness he showed an active interest in him, sent for a doctor, and tried remedies, but the disease turned out to be incurable. The fits occurred on an average once a month, but at various intervals. The fits varied too in violence. Some were light, and some were very severe. Fyodor Pavlovich strictly forbade Grigory to use corporal punishment to the boy and began allowing him to come upstairs to him. He forbade him to be taught anything whatever for a time too. One day when the boy was about fifteen, Fyodor Pavlovich noticed him lingering by the bookcase and reading the titles through the glass. Fyodor Pavlovich had a fair number of books, over a hundred, but no one ever saw him reading. He at once gave Smetchikov the key to the bookcase. Come, read. You shall be my librarian. You'll be better sitting reading than hanging about the courtyard. Come, read this, said Fyodor Pavlovich, gave him evenings in a cottage near Tikanka. He read a little but didn't like it. He did not once smile and ended by frowning. Why, isn't it funny? asked Fyodor Pavlovich. Smetchikov did not speak. Answer stupid. It's all untrue. Mumbled the boy with a grin. Then go to the devil. You have the soul of a lackey. Stay. Here's Smaragoud's universal history. That's all true. Read that. But Smetchikov did not get through ten pages of it. He thought it dull, so the bookcase was closed again. Shortly afterwards Marfa and Grigory reported to Fyodor Pavlovich that Smetchikov was gradually beginning to show an extraordinary fastidiousness. He would sit before his soup, take up his spoon and look into the soup, bend over it, examine it, take a spoonful and hold it to the light. What is it, a beetle? Grigory would ask. A fly, perhaps, observed Marfa. The squeamish youth never answered, but he did the same with his bread, his meat and everything he ate. He would hold a piece on his fork to the light, scrutinize it microscopically, and only after long deliberation decide to put it in his mouth. Ugh! What fine gentleman's heirs! Grigory muttered, looking at him. When Fyodor Pavlovich heard of this development in Smetchikov, he determined to make him his cook, and sent him to Moscow to be trained. He spent some years there, and came back remarkably changed in appearance. He looked extraordinarily old for his age. His face had grown wrinkled, yellow, and strangely emasculate. In character he seemed almost exactly the same as before he went away. He was just as unsocial, and showed not the slightest inclination for any companionship. In Moscow, too, as we heard afterwards, he had always been silent. Moscow itself had little interest for him. He saw very little there, and took scarcely any notice of anything. He went once to the theatre, but returned silent and displeased with it. On the other hand he came back to us from Moscow well-dressed, in a clean coat and clean linen. He brushed his clothes most scrupulously twice a day invariably, and was very fond of cleaning his smart calf boots with a special English polish so that they shone like mirrors. He turned out a first-rate cook. Fyodor Pavlovich paid him a salary, almost the whole of which Smetchikov spent on clothes, pomade, perfumes, and such things. But he seemed to have as much contempt for the female sex as for men. He was discreet, almost unapproachable with them. Fyodor Pavlovich began to regard him rather differently. His fits were becoming more frequent, and on the days he was ill Marfa cooked, which did not suit Fyodor Pavlovich at all. Why are your fits getting worse? asked Fyodor Pavlovich, looking as scant at his new cook. Would you like to get married? Shall I find you a wife? But Smetchikov turned pale with anger and made no reply. Fyodor Pavlovich left him with an impatient gesture. The great thing was that he had absolute confidence in his honesty. It happened once when Fyodor Pavlovich was drunk, that he dropped in the muddy courtyard three hundred rubal notes which he had only just received. He only missed them next day, and was just hastening to search his pockets when he saw the notes lying on the table. Where had they come from? Smetchikov had picked them up and brought them in the day before. Well, my lad, I've never met anyone like you! Fyodor Pavlovich said shortly, and gave him ten rubles. We may add that he not only believed in his honesty, but had for some reason a liking for him, although the young man looked as morosely at him as at everyone and was always silent. He rarely spoke. If it had occurred to anyone to wonder at the time what the young man was interested in and what was in his mind, it would have been impossible to tell by looking at him. Yet he used sometimes to stop suddenly in the house or even in the yard or street, and would stand still for ten minutes lost in thought. A physiognomist studying his face would have said that there was no thought in it, no reflection, but only a sort of contemplation. There is a remarkable picture by the painter Krumskoy called the contemplation. There is a forest in winter, and on a roadway through the forest, in absolute solitude, stands a peasant in a torn kaftan and barks shoes. He stands as it were, lost in thought. Yet he is not thinking. He is contemplating. If anyone touched him, he would start and look at one as though awakening and bewildered. It's true he would come to himself immediately, but if he were asked what he had been thinking about, he would remember nothing. Yet probably he has hidden within himself the impression which had dominated him during the period of contemplation. Those impressions are dear to him, and no doubt he hoards them imperceptively, and even unconsciously. How and why, of course, he does not know either. He may suddenly, after hoarding impressions for many years, abandon everything and go off to Jerusalem on a pilgrimage for his soul's salvation, or perhaps he will suddenly set fire to his native village, and perhaps do both. There are a good many contemplatives among the peasantry. Well, Smeryakov was probably one of them, and he probably was greedily hoarding up his impressions, hardly knowing why. This ends Chapter 6.