She was gasping for breath. She may have wished to express her thoughts in a far more dignified, more accomplished and natural way, but she sounded far too uncompromising and far too agitated and blatant. There was much youthful insouciance, much that merely harked back to the previous day’s aggravation, a desire to show off, which she herself was only too well aware of. Her expression suddenly became overcast, and distress showed in her eyes. Alyosha noticed all this immediately, and compassion for her stirred in his heart. Just then Ivan saw fit to interject.
‘I was only expressing an opinion,’ he said. ‘Coming from any other woman all that would have sounded contrived and stilted, but not from you. Any other woman would have been in the wrong, but you are in the right. I don’t know how to account for it, but I can see that you are absolutely sincere, and that’s why you are quite right…’
‘Yes, but only at this particular moment… And what is this moment? Nothing but a direct consequence of yesterday’s insult!’ Mrs Khokhlakova, reluctant to get involved but unable to restrain herself, observed perceptively.
‘Quite so, quite so,’ Ivan broke in somewhat impatiently, evidently resentful at being interrupted, ‘quite so, but in any other woman that moment would have been confined to the previous day’s insult, a fleeting instant, whereas for someone of Katerina Ivanovna’s character that moment will persist throughout her life. What for some would be just a promise, will be for her an unending, exhausting, relentlessly onerous burden. And she’ll be forever sustained by the awareness that she’s fulfilling her duty! Your life, Katerina Ivanovna, will pass in painful contemplation of your personal feelings, your personal act of valour and your personal grief, but eventually this pain will ease, and then your life will turn into blissful contemplation of that firm and noble commitment to which you have pledged yourself once and for all, a decidedly noble commitment in its way, even if reckless, but one you will have come to terms with, and the awareness of it will give you the most perfect contentment and reconcile you to everything else in the world…’
He said this adamantly and with some acrimony, clearly fully aware of the effect this would have, and making no attempt at all to conceal his derision.
‘Oh God, this is so utterly misconceived!’ exclaimed Mrs Khokhlakova.
‘Aleksei Fyodorovich, why don’t you say something! I’m dying to know what you have to say to me!’ exclaimed Katerina Ivanovna, and suddenly burst into tears. Alyosha got up from the sofa.
‘It’s all right, it’s all right!’ she continued through tears. ‘It’s only nerves. I’ve been so upset since last night, but now, being with such friends as you and your brother, I feel strong… because I know… neither of you will ever abandon me…’
‘Unfortunately, I may have to go to Moscow tomorrow and leave you for a long time… And what’s more my plans can’t be changed,’ Ivan Fyodorovich said suddenly.
‘To Moscow, tomorrow!’ Katerina Ivanovna’s whole face was suddenly contorted. ‘But, my God, isn’t that fortunate!’ she exclaimed, her voice completely altered, all tears banished without trace. It was the suddenness of the transformation that so amazed Alyosha: in place of the poor insulted girl, weeping in heartbroken misery, here suddenly was a woman in full control of herself, even delighted somehow, as though she had just heard some good news.
‘What is fortunate is not that we’re parting, certainly not that,’ she said with a gracious smile, as though to correct herself. ‘A friend like you could not possibly think that; quite the contrary, I’m most unhappy to lose you.’ She suddenly dashed forward and, taking hold of Ivan’s hands, shook them warmly. ‘I’m so happy you’ll be able to tell Agasha and my aunt yourself, honestly, without hurting my dear aunt’s feelings, what a dreadful situation I’m in, and I’m sure you’ll find a way to do it. You cannot imagine how unhappy I was yesterday, and this morning I was racking my brains trying to think how to write this dreadful letter to them… because something like this just can’t be conveyed in a letter at all… Now, however, it’ll be easy for me to write it, because you’ll be there in person and will explain everything. Oh, how glad I am! But believe me, that’s the only thing I’m glad about. To me, of course, you are irreplaceable… I’ll go and write the letter at once,’ she concluded suddenly, and even took a step towards the door.
‘But what about Alyosha?’ exclaimed Mrs Khokhlakova. ‘What about Alyosha’s opinion that you were so anxious to hear?’ There was a sharp, angry edge to her words.
‘I’ve not forgotten him.’ Katerina Ivanovna stopped momentarily. ‘And why are you so hostile to me at such a time as this, Katerina Osipovna?’ she said, bitterly reproachful. ‘I stand by what I said; it’s vital for me to have his opinion; I’ll go further, I need him to decide for me! Whatever he says, I’ll abide by—that’s how badly I need to hear what you have to say, Aleksei Fyodorovich… But what’s wrong?’
‘I’d never have imagined this!’ Alyosha exclaimed suddenly, in sorrow.
‘Imagined what—what?’
‘He’s going to Moscow and you cried out that you were glad—you said that deliberately. Then you went on to explain that you weren’t really glad about it, but that, on the contrary, you were sorry… to be losing a friend—and that too was just deliberate play-acting… everything was play-acting, just as they do in the theatre!…’
‘The theatre? What?… What did you say?’ Katerina Ivanovna exclaimed, looking flushed, and frowned in utter amazement.
‘However much you insist that you’d miss him as a friend,’ Alyosha said, his voice almost breaking, ‘you nevertheless declared to his face that it was fortunate he was leaving…’ He remained standing by the table and did not sit down.
‘What are you talking about, I don’t understand…’
‘Nor do I… It’s as though I’d just had a revelation…’, Alyosha continued in the same shaking, faltering voice. ‘I know I’m not expressing myself clearly, but I’ll tell you everything anyway. This revelation means that you were never in love with my brother Dmitry at all… from the very beginning… And perhaps Dmitry has never loved you either… from the very beginning… only respected you… I really don’t know that I have the right, but someone must tell the truth… because nobody here wants to tell the truth…’
‘What truth?’ cried Katerina Ivanovna, her voice verging on the hysterical.
‘If you want to know,’ mumbled Alyosha, as though about to fall off a precipice, ‘send for Dmitry now—I’ll find him—and let him come here and take you and Ivan by the hand and let him join your hands. You are torturing Ivan only because you love him… and you’re torturing him because your love for Dmitry is an obsession… your love is a lie… you have simply persuaded yourself of it…’
Alyosha broke off and was silent.
‘You… you…’, Katerina Ivanovna snapped, her face blanching, her lips contorted with anger, ‘you’re a miserable, hair-shirted little fool, that’s what you are!’ Ivan Fyodorovich burst out laughing and stood up. He was holding his hat in his hands.
‘You’re wrong, my dear Alyosha,’ he said, with an expression on his face that Alyosha had never seen before—an expression of youthful candour and strong, irrepressible, undisguised emotion. ‘Katerina Ivanovna has never loved me! She knew all along that I loved her, even though I never said a word to her about my love—she knew it, but she didn’t love me. Nor have I been her friend, not even for one single day: she’s a proud woman who has no need of my friendship. She needed me only in order to satisfy her continual craving for vengeance. She was constantly taking revenge on me for all the insults she suffered at the hands of Dmitry, insults going back to their first meeting… Because, in her heart, she has come to regard their very first meeting as an insult. That’s what her heart is like! All I ever did was listen to her ranting on about her love for him. I’m leaving now, but understand this, Katerina Ivanovna: he’s the only man you really love. And the more he insults you, the more you love him. That’s your undoing. Yo
u love him precisely as he is, insulting you as he does. Were he to reform, you’d discard him immediately and stop loving him altogether. But you need him in order to glory continually in your feat of loyalty and to reproach him for his disloyalty. And it’s all because of your pride. Oh, I know there’s a lot of self-deprecation and humiliation in this, but it all stems from your pride… I’m too young and I’ve loved you too much. I realize I shouldn’t be telling you this, and that it would be more dignified for me simply to leave you now; also, it would be less insulting for you. But I’m going far away and I shall never return. This is for ever, you know… I’ve no wish to be witness to a pantomime. Besides, there’s nothing more I can say, I’ve said everything… Goodbye, Katerina Ivanovna, you mustn’t be angry with me, I’ve been punished a hundred times more than you have—punished, if only because I shall never see you again. Goodbye. No, don’t give me your hand. You’ve tortured me too deliberately for me to forgive you at this moment. Later I’ll forgive you, but I shan’t shake your hand now.
Den Dank, Dame, begehr ich nicht,’*
he added with a wry smile, thereby demonstrating quite unexpectedly that he too had read Schiller and had gone to the trouble of memorizing him by heart, something which Alyosha would not previously have imagined him doing. He left the room without even taking leave of Mrs Khokhlakova, his hostess. Alyosha was desperate.
‘Ivan,’ he shouted after him, distraught, ‘come back, Ivan! No, no, now he’ll never come back!’ he exclaimed with bitter realization. ‘I am to blame, it was my fault, I started it all! Ivan spoke in anger and bitterness. He’s been spiteful and malicious…’ Alyosha was ranting like one demented.
Katerina Ivanovna suddenly left the room.
‘You’ve done nothing wrong,’ whispered Mrs Khokhlakova excitedly to the dejected Alyosha, ‘you’ve acted wonderfully, like an angel. I shall make every effort to persuade Ivan Fyodorovich not to go away…’
To Alyosha’s great chagrin, her face shone with happiness; but then Katerina Ivanovna returned. In her hands were two hundred-rouble notes.
‘I’ve a great favour to ask of you, Aleksei Fyodorovich,’ she began, addressing Alyosha directly in an apparently calm and even voice, just as though nothing had happened the moment before. ‘A week—yes, it must have been a week ago—Dmitry Fyodorovich did something stupid and unjust, something very disgraceful. There’s a rather disreputable place, a tavern, where he met that retired Staff Captain who used to run errands for your father. For some reason Dmitry Fyodorovich quarrelled with this Captain, grabbed him by his beard, and humiliated him in front of everybody by dragging him out of the tavern and pulling him along the street, and, what’s more, they say that the Captain’s son, a little boy, a mere child who goes to the local school, saw it all and ran alongside, crying loudly, pleading on behalf of his father and appealing for help, but everyone just laughed. Forgive me, Aleksei Fyodorovich, I cannot recall this shameful behaviour of his without feeling indignant… it’s the sort of thing that only Dmitry Fyodorovich would be capable of, such is his anger… and his passion! I can’t describe it properly, I just can’t… words fail me. I’ve been making enquiries about this poor man and have found out that he’s living in poverty. His name’s Snegiryov. He got into trouble in the army and was cashiered. I can’t tell you more than that. Now he and his family are absolutely destitute, his wife, by all accounts, is mentally deranged, and his children are ill. He’s been living in the town quite a long time now, getting the occasional job; he was working as a copy-clerk somewhere, but hasn’t been earning anything recently. I thought of you because… that is, I thought—I don’t know, I’m rather confused—you see, I wanted to ask you, Aleksei Fyodorovich, my dear Aleksei Fyodorovich, to go to him, to find an excuse to visit them, the Staff Captain, that is—Oh God! I’m so confused—and discreetly, tactfully, as only you would be able to do it (Alyosha blushed suddenly), give him this small contribution, these two hundred roubles. He’ll probably accept it… that is, you must persuade him to accept it… No, that’s not what I meant! You see, it’s not really a bribe to appease him, to stop him lodging a complaint—it seems he was thinking of doing precisely that—but just a token of sympathy, a desire on my part to offer some assistance, purely from me as Dmitry Fyodorovich’s fiancée, and not in any way from him… that’s it in a word… you can do it… I’d have gone myself, but you’ll be able to handle it much better than I could. He lives in Ozernaya Street, in the house of a Mrs Kalmykova… I beg you, Aleksei Fyodorovich, do this for me… But now… I’m rather tired, so goodbye…’
She turned suddenly, and disappeared behind the door-curtain so quickly that Alyosha could not even utter a word—and he certainly wanted to say something to her. He wanted to ask her forgiveness, to reproach himself, to say anything at all, because his heart was full to overflowing, and he did not under any circumstances wish to leave the room without saying something. But Mrs Khokhlakova grabbed him by the arm and led him out herself. In the entrance hall she stopped him again.
‘She’s proud, she’s struggling against something deep down,’ said Mrs Khokhlakova in a half-whisper, ‘but she’s kind and charming and magnanimous! Oh, how I love her, sometimes beyond all reason, and how glad, how delighted I am once more about everything! You, of course, my dear Aleksei Fyodorovich, know nothing of this: but let me assure you that all of us, I, both her aunts—well, everyone, even Lise—have been hoping and praying for a whole month for only one thing, that she should give up your precious Dmitry Fyodorovich, who doesn’t love her and doesn’t want to have anything to do with her at all, and marry Ivan Fyodorovich, that nice, educated young man, who loves her more than anything in the world. We’ve all conspired in this, and perhaps that’s the only thing that’s preventing my leaving…’
‘But she was weeping, she’s still feeling hurt!’ Alyosha exclaimed.
‘Never believe a woman’s tears, Aleksei Fyodorovich—in such cases I’m always against the women and side with the men.’
‘Mama, you’re misleading him and not helping him at all,’ Lise’s thin voice came from the adjacent room.
‘No, I’m to blame for everything, it’s all my fault!’ repeated Alyosha inconsolably; he was deeply ashamed of his outburst, and even buried his face in his hands.
‘On the contrary, you acted like an angel, just like an angel, I don’t mind repeating it.’
‘Mama, what do you mean, like an angel?’ Lise’s faint voice was heard again.
‘When I saw what was going on,’ Alyosha continued as though he had not even heard Lise, ‘for some reason I suddenly imagined that she loved Ivan, and I said a very stupid thing… and now what will happen?’
‘Happen to whom?’ Lise called out. ‘Mama, you’ll surely be the end of me. I keep asking you—and you don’t want to answer.’
At that moment the maid ran in.
‘Katerina Ivanovna’s poorly… She’s crying… she’s having a fit, she’ll do herself an injury.’
‘What’s going on?’ Lise cried out with a note of alarm in her voice. ‘It’s me who’ll be having a fit, mama, not her!’
‘For God’s sake, Lise, stop shouting, have some consideration for me. You’re still too young to be told everything that concerns grown-ups; I’ll come back and tell you everything I can. Oh, my God! I’m coming, I’m coming… Hysteria—that’s a good sign, Aleksei Fyodorovich, it’s excellent that she’s hysterical. It’ll do her good. When things get to this stage, I always take a stand against women, what with all their hysterical fits and tantrums. Yulia, run along and say that I’ll be with them just as soon as I can. And it’s her own fault that Ivan Fyodorovich left as he did. But he’s not going to go away. Lise, for goodness sake, stop yelling! Oh, it’s not you who’s yelling, it’s me; forgive your loving mother, but I’m so excited, oh dear, I’m so excited, so excited! And did you notice, Aleksei Fyodorovich, how splendid young Ivan Fyodorovich looked as he went out of the room. He had his say and just left! I mistake
nly took him to be merely a scholar, just a dull academic, but he turned out to be so delightfully passionate, so sincere and virile, spontaneous and manly, and it was all such a delight to watch, so fascinating, just as though… and the way he came out with that line of German verse too, precisely as I expect you’d have done! But I must fly, I must fly. Aleksei Fyodorovich, do hurry up with that errand of yours and come back quickly. Lise, can I get you anything? For goodness sake, don’t hold up Aleksei Fyodorovich a second longer, he’ll come back to you straight away…’
At last Mrs Khokhlakova hurried off. Before Alyosha too left, he thought he would try to open the door and have a look at Lise.
‘Not on your life!’ Lise yelled out. ‘Now it’s come to this, stay where you are! Say what you have to say through the door. What I’d like to know is how you came to be known as an angel?’
‘By doing a terribly stupid thing, Lise! Goodbye.’
‘Don’t you dare go away just like that!’ cried Lise.
‘Lise, I must! I can’t tell you how desperate I am! I’m worried out of my mind, but I’ll be back as soon as I can!’
And he dashed out of the room.
6
CRISIS IN THE TENEMENT
HE was indeed desperately worried, as he had seldom ever been before. In his eagerness he had blundered—and where had he gone wrong? In matters of the heart! ‘I’m absolutely ignorant about such things, I don’t know the first thing about them!’ he repeated to himself for the hundredth time, blushing. ‘Embarrassment wouldn’t matter so much, embarrassment would be a fitting punishment for me—the trouble is that now I’m going to be the cause of further misfortunes… But the starets sent me forth to reconcile and to unite. Is this the right way to unite?’ Here he suddenly recalled again just how he had ‘joined their hands’, and once again he was overcome with embarrassment. ‘Though I’ve been acting in all sincerity, I ought to be wiser in future,’ he concluded suddenly, without even the ghost of a smile at his own reasoning.
The Karamazov Brothers Page 31