Poor Folk Anthology

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

  Chapter 9 The Sensualists

  GRIGORY and Smerdyakov ran into the room after Dmitri. They had been struggling with him in the passage, refusing to admit him, acting on instructions given them by Fyodor Pavlovitch some days before. Taking advantage of the fact that Dmitri stopped a moment on entering the room to look about him, Grigory ran round the table, closed the double doors on the opposite side of the room leading to the inner apartments, and stood before the closed doors, stretching wide his arms, prepared to defend the entrance, so to speak, with the last drop of his blood. Seeing this, Dmitri uttered a scream rather than a shout and rushed at Grigory.

  "Then she's there! She's hidden there! Out of the way, scoundrel!"

  He tried to pull Grigory away, but the old servant pushed him back. Beside himself with fury, Dmitri struck out, and hit Grigory with all his might. The old man fell like a log, and Dmitri, leaping over him, broke in the door. Smerdyakov remained pale and trembling at the other end of the room, huddling close to Fyodor Pavlovitch.

  "She's here!" shouted Dmitri. "I saw her turn towards the house just now, but I couldn't catch her. Where is she? Where is she?"

  That shout, "She's here!" produced an indescribable effect on Fyodor Pavlovitch. All his terror left him.

  "Hold him! Hold him!" he cried, and dashed after Dmitri. Meanwhile Grigory had got up from the floor, but still seemed stunned. Ivan and Alyosha ran after their father. In the third room something was heard to fall on the floor with a ringing crash: it was a large glass vase- not an expensive one- on a marble pedestal which Dmitri had upset as he ran past it.

  "At him!" shouted the old man. "Help!"

  Ivan and Alyosha caught the old man and were forcibly bringing him back.

  "Why do you run after him? He'll murder you outright," Ivan cried wrathfully at his father.

  "Ivan! Alyosha! She must be here. Grushenka's here. He said he saw her himself, running."

  He was choking. He was not expecting Grushenka at the time, and the sudden news that she was here made him beside himself. He was trembling all over. He seemed frantic.

  "But you've seen for yourself that she hasn't come," cried Ivan.

  "But she may have come by that other entrance."

  "You know that entrance is locked, and you have the key."

  Dmitri suddenly reappeared in the drawing-room. He had, of course, found the other entrance locked, and the key actually was in Fyodor Pavlovitch's pocket. The windows of all rooms were also closed, so Grushenka could not have come in anywhere nor have run out anywhere.

  "Hold him!" shrieked Fyodor Pavlovitch, as soon as he saw him again. "He's been stealing money in my bedroom." And tearing himself from Ivan he rushed again at Dmitri. But Dmitri threw up both hands and suddenly clutched the old man by the two tufts of hair that remained on his temples, tugged at them, and flung him with a crash on the floor. He kicked him two or three times with his heel in the face. The old man moaned shrilly. Ivan, though not so strong as Dmitri, threw his arms round him, and with all his might pulled him away. Alyosha helped him with his slender strength, holding Dmitri in front.

  "Madman! You've killed him!" cried Ivan.

  "Serve him right!" shouted Dmitri breathlessly. "If I haven't killed him, I'll come again and kill him. You can't protect him!"

  "Dmitri! Go away at once!" cried Alyosha commandingly.

  "Alexey! You tell me. It's only you I can believe; was she here just now, or not? I saw her myself creeping this way by the fence from the lane. I shouted, she ran away."

  "I swear she's not been here, and no one expected her."

  "But I saw her… . So she must… I'll find out at once where she is… . Good-bye, Alexey! Not a word to Aesop about the money now. But go to Katerina Ivanovna at once and be sure to say, 'He sends his compliments to you!' Compliments, his compliments! just compliments and farewell! Describe the scene to her."

  Meanwhile Ivan and Grigory had raised the old man and seated him in an arm-chair. His face was covered with blood, but he was conscious and listened greedily to Dmitri's cries. He was still fancying that Grushenka really was somewhere in the house. Dmitri looked at him with hatred as he went out.

  "I don't repent shedding your blood!" he cried. "Beware, old man, beware of your dream, for I have my dream, too. I curse you, and disown you altogether."

  He ran out of the room.

  "She's here. She must be here. Smerdyakov! Smerdyakov!" the old man wheezed, scarcely audibly, beckoning to him with his finger.

  "No, she's not here, you old lunatic!" Ivan shouted at him angrily. "Here, he's fainting? Water! A towel! Make haste, Smerdyakov!"

  Smerdyakov ran for water. At last they got the old man undressed, and put him to bed. They wrapped a wet towel round his head. Exhausted by the brandy, by his violent emotion, and the blows he had received, he shut his eyes and fell asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow. Ivan and Alyosha went back to the drawing-room. Smerdyakov removed the fragments of the broken vase, while Grigory stood by the table looking gloomily at the floor.

  "Shouldn't you put a wet bandage on your head and go to bed, too?" Alyosha said to him. "We'll look after him. My brother gave you a terrible blow- on the head."

  "He's insulted me!" Grigory articulated gloomily and distinctly.

  "He's 'insulted' his father, not only you," observed Ivan with a forced smile.

  "I used to wash him in his tub. He's insulted me," repeated Grigory.

  "Damn it all, if I hadn't pulled him away perhaps he'd have murdered him. It wouldn't take much to do for Aesop, would it?" whispered Ivan to Alyosha.

  "God forbid!" cried Alyosha.

  "Why should He forbid?" Ivan went on in the same whisper, with a malignant grimace. "One reptile will devour the other. And serve them both right, too."

  Alyosha shuddered.

  "Of course I won't let him be murdered as I didn't just now. Stay here, Alyosha, I'll go for a turn in the yard. My head's begun to ache."

  Alyosha went to his father's bedroom and sat by his bedside behind the screen for about an hour. The old man suddenly opened his eyes and gazed for a long while at Alyosha, evidently remembering and meditating. All at once his face betrayed extraordinary excitement.

  "Alyosha," he whispered apprehensively, "where's Ivan?"

  "In the yard. He's got a headache. He's on the watch."

  "Give me that looking-glass. It stands over there. Give it me."

  Alyosha gave him a little round folding looking-glass which stood on the chest of drawers. The old man looked at himself in it; his nose was considerably swollen, and on the left side of his forehead there was a rather large crimson bruise.