The Karamazov Brothers

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

  ‘Your outburst on this occasion, Varvara Nikolavna, is totally justified, and I shall accede to your request forthwith. Be so kind as to don your cap, Aleksei Fyodorovich, and I’ll take mine too—and off we go. I’ve something important to say to you, only not within these four walls. The young lady seated here is my daughter, Nina Nikolavna, I forgot to introduce her… one of God’s angels in the flesh… descended from heaven… if you could but see what I mean…’

  ‘He’s shaking all over, as though he’s got the ague,’ Varvara Nikolavna continued, full of indignation.

  ‘And as for her, who’s been stamping her foot at me and denounced me as a buffoon just now, she’s also one of God’s angels in the flesh, sir, and is quite within her rights to call me names. Let’s go, Aleksei Fyodorovich, we need to settle this matter…’

  And grabbing Alyosha by the arm, he led him from the room straight out into the street.

  7

  AND IN THE FRESH AIR

  ‘IT’S nice and fresh outside—not like in that palace of mine, where it’s pretty stuffy in every sense of the word. Let’s take a short walk, sir. I’d really like to discuss something with you.’

  ‘I too have come on a rather extraordinary errand…’, remarked Alyosha, ‘only I don’t know how to begin.’

  ‘It’s quite obvious you’ve come on business. You were hardly likely to pay me a social call. Unless perhaps you came to complain about my young son? But that’s impossible. Talking about my boy, I couldn’t explain the situation when we were indoors, but now I can describe the whole incident to you. Look—only a week ago this loofah of mine used to be much thicker—I’m talking about my beard; it’s mainly the schoolboys who call it a loofah. So, there was your brother Dmitry Fyodorovich dragging me along by this beard of mine, right out of the tavern and into the square, and just then the schoolboys, Ilyusha amongst them, came out of school. As soon as he saw my predicament he rushed towards me, crying: “Papa, papa!” He kept reaching out, trying to put his arms around me to drag me free, and shouting at my attacker: “Let go, let go, it’s my papa, my papa, forgive him”—that’s just what he said, “forgive him”. He flung his arms around him too and was kissing his hand, the same hand which… I can remember him at that instant, the expression on his face, I haven’t forgotten it, nor ever will!…’

  ‘I swear’, Alyosha vowed, ‘my brother will demonstrate to you the most sincere, the most heartfelt repentance… on his knees, if you wish, on that same square… I’ll make him do it, or I’ll disown him as my brother!’

  ‘Ah, so this is still all talk. And you haven’t actually come on his behalf, but simply out of the goodness of your heart. You should have said so. Well, in that case, let me tell you more about the sense of honour and chivalry displayed on that occasion by your officer brother. He stopped pulling me by the beard and let me go: “You’re an officer,” he said, “so am I. If you can find a decent second, tell him to come—I’ll give you full satisfaction, even though you’re a proper scoundrel!” That’s what he said. Now wasn’t that truly chivalrous! Ilyusha and I left, but that picture of our family honour will for ever be imprinted in Ilyusha’s memory. How can we still call ourselves honourable after that? Judge for yourself, you’ve just come from my home—what did you see there? Three ladies, one completely lame and mentally deranged, the other also lame and hunchbacked, and the third, though able to walk, too clever by half, a student,* what’s more, aching to get back to St Petersburg again to seek justice for Russian women on the banks of the Neva.* That’s not to mention Ilyusha, who’s only nine years old, my only son. What if I died—what would become of our hovel, I ask you? And if I challenged him to a duel and he killed me on the spot, what then? What would become of them all? Even worse, if instead of killing me he merely injured me, then I’d be out of work, but there’d still be an extra mouth to feed, my mouth, and who’d be there to look after the rest of them? Unless I sent Ilyusha out each day to beg. That’s what would happen if I were to challenge him to a duel, it’s a stupid idea, doesn’t bear thinking about.’

  ‘He shall ask your forgiveness, he shall kneel before you in the middle of the square,’ Alyosha exclaimed again, his eyes blazing.

  ‘I thought of taking him to court,’ the Staff Captain continued, ‘but you only have to look at our legal system to see how much compensation I’d be likely to get from my assailant. And then there’s Agrafena Aleksandrovna, who summoned me and shouted: “Don’t you dare! If you take him to court, I’ll make it look for all the world as if he beat you for your misdeeds, then you’ll end up in the dock yourself.” And the Lord above knows who’s responsible for all this villainy and who I was acting for, small fry that I am—was it not for her and for Fyodor Pavlovich, too? “And what’s more,” she went on, “I’ll give you the push for good, and you’ll not get any more work from me in future. And I’ll tell my friend the merchant,” that’s what she calls the old man, “my friend the merchant”. “He’ll also give you the push.” So I thought to myself: if the merchant gives me the push, what then, who else is going to employ me? They’re the only two who still give me any work, because not only has your father Fyodor Pavlovich stopped trusting me, due to some matter between us, but he’s even thinking of taking me to court on account of some IOUs. As a result of all this I’m having to lie low, and you’ve seen the hovel I live in. And now let me ask you: did he hurt that finger of yours very badly, my Ilyusha? When we were in the house I didn’t dare to enquire too deeply.’

  ‘Yes, it hurt a lot, and he was most upset. He picked on me as a Karamazov to avenge you, I can see that now. But you should have seen him and his schoolmates throwing stones at one another. That’s very dangerous, he could get killed, they’re just children, they don’t realize a stone can crack a skull.’

  ‘They’ve already hit him with a stone, not in the head but in the chest, just above the heart, there’s a bruise there now. He came home crying and groaning with pain, now he’s fallen ill.’

  ‘And do you know, he’s always the first one to attack, he’s so upset on your account that they say he stabbed a boy called Krasotkin in the side with his penknife…’

  ‘I heard about that too, it’s dangerous, his father’s a local civil servant, it could lead to repercussions…’

  ‘My advice to you’, Alyosha said animatedly, ‘would be to keep him at home for some time until he calms down… and his anger subsides…’

  ‘Anger!’ the Staff Captain quickly retorted. ‘That’s right, anger. He may be small, but he’s got a lot of pent-up anger. You don’t know the half of it. Let me tell you the full story. The point is that after this incident, all his schoolmates started calling him loofah. Schoolchildren are a cruel lot: individually they’re God’s little angels, but as a group, especially at school, they’re very often completely merciless. So, the more they teased him, the more his noble spirit rebelled within him. Any other less spirited boy would have given in, would have felt embarrassed for his father, but this one turned on them and stood up for his father—for his father and for justice and truth. God only knows what he suffered when he was kissing your brother’s hands and imploring him: “Forgive my papa, forgive my papa.” Yes, that’s how our children—not yours, mark you, but ours, the children of despised but honourable paupers—learn to understand the world by the time they’re nine. It’s all right for the rich: they probably never have to plumb such depths in their lives, but that occasion on the square when my Ilyusha was kissing his hands, at that instant he fathomed the truth in its entirety. He was confronted by the truth, and it dealt him a mortifying blow,’ the Staff Captain continued in a state of feverish excitement, hitting the palm of his left hand with the clenched fist of his right, as though to demonstrate the blow that ‘the truth’ had dealt his Ilyusha. ‘He was in a state of delirium during the day and was raving the whole night. He hardly spoke to me the whole day, wouldn’t say a word, but I noticed him peering at me from the corner of the room. He sat near the window
for most of the time, pretending he was doing his lessons, though I could see his mind wasn’t on his lessons. Next day, overcome with sorrow, I went and got drunk, sinner that I am, and couldn’t quite follow what was going on. My good lady wife was in one of her crying moods just then—I do love her ever so much—so, in sorrow, I blew my last kopeck on drink. Don’t despise me for that, sir: the best people in Russia are the ones who drink the most. So, while I lay drunk that day, my mind was not wholly on Ilyusha, and it was that very morning that the schoolboys started taunting him. “Loofah,” they shouted at him, “your father was dragged out of the tavern by his beard and you ran alongside asking for forgiveness.” On the third day he came home from school looking pale, like death warmed up. “What’s the matter?” I asked. Not a peep out of him. Couldn’t talk indoors, else my good lady and the girls would have wanted to join in. Varvara Nikolavna was already muttering: “Clowns, buffoons, can’t you ever do anything right?” “That’s just the point, Varvara Nikolavna,” I said. “Can we ever do anything right?” And that was that, for the time being. Come evening, I went for a walk with the boy. I should tell you, we used to go out for a walk together every night, along exactly the same route that we’re taking now, from our front gate as far as that huge, solitary stone by the wattle fence, where the common pasture land begins: a desolate, wonderful place. So there we were, both of us walking along, his hand in mine as usual; he’s got a tiny hand and thin cold fingers—it’s his chest, you know. “Papa,” he said to me, “papa!” “What?” I replied. I could see his eyes were burning. “Papa, the way he treated you that time, papa!” “What’s to be done, Ilyusha?” I said. “Don’t make it up with him, papa, don’t. The boys at school are saying he offered you ten roubles for that.” “No, Ilyusha,” I said, “I wouldn’t take money from him under any circumstances.” His whole body began to shake, he took my hand in both of his and started kissing it. “Papa,” he said, “papa, why don’t you challenge him to a duel, they’re teasing me at school that you’re a coward and won’t challenge him, they say you’ll accept the ten roubles instead.” “Ilyusha,” I replied, “I can’t challenge him to a duel,” and I explained to him briefly what I’ve just said to you about that matter. He listened. “Papa,” he said, “papa, don’t make it up with him all the same: I’ll grow up I’ll challenge him myself and I’ll kill him!” His eyes were glinting and burning. Well, I am his father after all, and it was up to me to tell him the truth. “It’s a sin to kill,” I said to him, “even in a duel.” “Papa,” he said, “papa, when I’m grown up I’ll throw him to the ground, I’ll knock his sword out of his hand with my sword, I’ll attack him, I’ll knock him down, I’ll raise my sword and say to him: ‘I could kill you now, but I forgive you, so there!’” Do you see what must have been going on in his mind in those two days, he must have been thinking day and night about this revenge with the sword, and probably raving about it at night too. He started coming home from school badly bruised; the other day I found out everything, and you’re right, I shan’t send him to that school any more. I discovered that he tries to fight the whole class and provokes everybody; he’s angry, his heart is seething with hatred. I was frightened for him. We continued walking. “Papa,” he asked me, “papa, the rich are the most powerful people in the world, aren’t they?” “Yes, Ilyusha,” I said, “there’s no one in the world more powerful than a rich man.” “Papa,” he said, “I’ll be a rich man and become an officer, and I’ll defeat everybody, the Tsar will reward me, I’ll come along and nobody will dare to…” He stopped for a while and said, his lips still trembling as before: “Papa, isn’t our town a nasty, horrible place, papa!” “Yes, Ilyushechka,” I said, “it’s really not a nice place at all.” “Papa,” he said, “let’s move to another town, to a nice town where nobody knows about us.” “So we shall, Ilyusha,” I said, “so we shall; just let me save some money.” I was glad of the opportunity to take his mind off the depressing subject, and we started day-dreaming about how we’d move to another town, buy our own horse and cart. We’d settle mother and the girls on the cart, tuck them in, and the two of us would walk alongside, though occasionally I’d lift him on to the cart, but I’d walk to spare the horse, it wouldn’t do for us all to ride, and so we’d be on our way. He was over the moon about it, especially the fact that we’d have a horse of our own and he himself would ride on it. There’s nothing a Russian boy is more fond of than a horse, that’s for sure. We went on chatting for a long time. “Thank God,” I thought, “I’ve managed to cheer him up, I’ve consoled him.” This was the evening of the day before yesterday, but last night everything changed. In the morning he went to school again, and returned all depressed and gloomy. In the evening I took him by the hand and we went for a walk, but we walked in silence, not saying a word. The wind picked up, the sun went in, there was a hint of autumn and, besides, it was getting dark; we kept on walking, both of us dejected. “Well, my boy,” I said, “how shall you and I get ready for the move?” The intention was to return to the conversation of the day before. Not a word. All I felt were his fingers tightening in my hand. We reached that same stone, I sat down on it; there were kites flying in the sky, flapping and rustling, I could see about thirty. It’s the kite season. “Look here, Ilyusha,” I said, “it’s about time we flew that kite we made last year. I’ll mend it, where have you hidden it?” Not a word from my little boy, he just kept gazing into the distance, refusing to look at me and standing with his back to me. Just then the wind began to howl and raise the dust… He rushed towards me suddenly, flung his arms round my neck, and held me tightly. You know how children who are proud and reserved and have been fighting back their tears for a long time will suddenly be unable to contain them any longer, if the grief is bad enough, and the tears won’t just flow, but will gush forth in torrents. A veritable flood of warm tears poured down my face. He was convulsed with sobs, trembling all over, pressing himself tightly against me as I sat on the stone. “Papa,” he exclaimed, “papa, dear papa, the way he humiliated you!” That’s when I began to cry too; we just sat and cried, hugging each other. “Papa,” he said, “papa!” “Ilyusha,” I said to him, “Ilyushechka!” No one saw us then, only God, perhaps He’ll make a note of it in my record. Thank your brother for me, Aleksei Fyodorovich. No, I shan’t give my boy a thrashing just to please you!’

  As he finished this speech, he reverted to his former abrupt manner. Alyosha sensed, however, that he trusted him, and that had he been anyone else he would not have talked so freely and would not have confided in him as he had just done. This heartened Alyosha and moved him to tears.

  ‘Oh, how I wish I could be friends with your little boy!’ he exclaimed. ‘If only you could do something…’

  ‘Certainly,’ the Staff Captain mumbled.

  ‘But that’s not the important thing now, not at all, listen,’ Alyosha continued with passion, ‘listen. I’ve come on an errand: that same brother of mine, Dmitry, insulted his fiancée too, a most honourable girl whom you’ve probably heard of. I feel justified in telling you that she was insulted, in fact I must, because when she found out about the way you had been mistreated and all the other details of your unfortunate circumstances, she instructed me now… today… to give you some money as a small token of help… it’s just from her, you know, not from Dmitry, he abandoned her, it’s certainly not from him, nor from me, his brother, nor from anyone else, but just from her and her alone! She begs you to accept an offer of help from her… you’ve both been wronged at the hands of one and the same person… As it happens, she thought of you only after she herself had been insulted by him every bit as badly as you were! In other words, a sister coming to her brother’s assistance… She specifically asked me to try and persuade you to accept these two hundred roubles from her as if she were your sister. Nobody shall know of this, there’s no danger of any malicious gossip… here’s the two hundred roubles, I do urge you to accept it, or else… or else that would mean the world was peopled with en
emies! There must be brothers too in this world… You have a noble soul… you must understand this, you really must!…’

  Whereupon Alyosha offered him two brand-new hundred-rouble notes. They were both standing by that very same large stone by the fence, and there was no one around. The banknotes seemed to have an electrifying effect upon the Staff Captain: he shuddered, at first apparently in sheer surprise; he could never have imagined or anticipated such a development. Not in his wildest dreams could he have expected help from anyone, especially help on such a generous scale. He took the notes and, for about a minute, was almost speechless, then something altogether new flitted across his face.

  ‘Is it all for me? All this money? Two hundred roubles! My word! It must be four years since I’ve seen so much money, my God! And she said she’s my sister, did she?… Can that be true, can that really be true!’

  ‘I swear all I’ve told you is the truth!’ Alyosha exclaimed. The Staff Captain’s face flushed.

  ‘Listen, my friend, listen to me. If I were to accept this money, surely I’d be a scoundrel. In your eyes, Aleksei Fyodorovich, wouldn’t I be a scoundrel? No, Aleksei Fyodorovich, hear what I have to say, hear me out,’ the Staff Captain continued excitedly, every now and again touching Alyosha with both hands, ‘you are trying to talk me into taking this money because it comes from my “sister”, but deep down, in your heart of hearts, wouldn’t you despise me if I took it, eh?’

  ‘No, not at all! I swear to you on my life I wouldn’t! And no one would ever find out, it’s strictly between the three of us: you, me, and her—and one other lady, a great friend of hers…’

  ‘Oh, never mind the lady! Listen, Aleksei Fyodorovich, just listen to me, it’s about time you heard what I’ve got to say, because you can’t even imagine what these two hundred roubles could do for me,’ continued the poor man, gradually succumbing to a kind of grotesque, almost frantic elation. He appeared thoroughly disoriented, and went on talking in great haste and passion, as though afraid that he would not be allowed to have his say. ‘Not only has this money been honestly acquired from an esteemed and revered “sister”, sir, but do you realize that now I’ll be able to get medical treatment for my lady wife and for Ninochka, my humpbacked angel, my daughter? Doctor Herzenstube came to us out of the goodness of his heart and spent a whole hour examining them both: “Can’t make anything out at all,” he said. Nevertheless, the mineral water at our chemist’s should certainly do some good (he prescribed some of that); he also prescribed medicinal foot-baths. But mineral water costs thirty kopecks, and she has to drink perhaps forty jugs of it. So I just put the prescription on the shelf, under an icon, and haven’t touched it since. As for Ninochka, he instructed us to bathe her in some kind of solution, and make sure that she took hot baths every morning and evening, but how can we arrange such treatment for her where we live, in our mansion, with no maids, no help, no facilities, not even any water? What’s more, Ninochka’s crippled with rheumatism—I hadn’t told you that, had I?—she suffers at night, the whole of her right side hurts, but would you believe it, the darling angel puts on a brave face so as not to disturb us, she doesn’t even groan, so as not to wake us. We eat whatever’s available, anything we can lay our hands on, and yet she always takes the last of the leftovers, which are only fit for a dog: “I don’t deserve it,” she seems to say, “I’m depriving you of your last morsel, I’m a burden to you.” That’s what her angel eyes are trying to say. We look after her, but it embarrasses her: “I’m not worthy, I’m not, I’m a worthless cripple, I’m useless.” How can she be useless if in her angelic humility she’s been praying to God for all of us, for without her, without her gentle supplication, it would have been sheer hell at home—even Varya’s heart has softened. And please don’t blame Varvara Nikolavna either, she too is an angel, but she’s been hard done by. She came home this summer with sixteen roubles in her pocket which she’d saved giving lessons and had put by for when she returned to St Petersburg in September, which will be soon. But we took her money and lived off it, and now she can’t return because she’s got nothing left, that’s what’s happened. She can’t possibly go back because she works for us like a slave—we’ve harnessed and saddled her like a workhorse, she looks after everybody, darns, washes, scrubs the floor, puts her mother to bed, and, don’t forget, mother’s capricious, mother’s tearful, mother’s not all there!… Now, with these two hundred roubles I can employ a housemaid you understand, Aleksei Fyodorovich, I can start getting treatment for my dear ones, I’ll send the girl back to St Petersburg, I’ll buy some beef, we’ll have proper meals at last. My God, it’s all a dream!’