The Karamazov Brothers

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

  ‘But on the whole, all the same, you’ll bless life.’

  ‘Exactly! Hurrah! You’re a prophet! Oh, we shall understand each other, Karamazov. You know, what delights me most of all is that you treat me as an equal. But we’re not equal, no, we’re not equal, you’re higher! But we shall come to understand each other. You know, all this last month I’ve been saying to myself, “Either we’ll hit it off straight away and be friends, or we’ll hate each other on sight and be enemies to the grave!”’

  ‘And so saying, of course, you loved me,’ Alyosha laughed merrily.

  ‘Yes, I loved you, I loved you and dreamed about you! And how do you know all this in advance? Ah, here’s the doctor. My God, I wonder what he’s going to say? Look at his face!’

  7

  ILYUSHA

  THE doctor was leaving, having already donned his fur coat and with his fur hat on his head. He looked irritated and almost apprehensive, as if he was afraid all the time of being contaminated. He cast his eyes around the entrance hallway and glanced sternly at Alyosha and Kolya. Alyosha signalled from the doorway, and the carriage that had brought the doctor drove up to the front door. The Staff Captain rushed out behind the doctor and, bowing almost obsequiously before him, detained him for a final word. The poor man’s expression was devastated, his eyes terrified.

  ‘Your Excellency, Your Excellency, isn’t it possible?…’ he began, but he broke off, wringing his hands in despair and gazing imploringly at the doctor, as if one last word from him now might reprieve the poor child from his death sentence.

  ‘What can I do? I’m not God,’ the doctor replied dismissively, but in his usual impressive tone.

  ‘Doctor… Your Excellency… will it be soon, how long?’

  ‘It could be any time,’ the doctor enunciated, stressing every syllable, and, lowering his gaze, he prepared to cross the threshold and enter his carriage.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Your Excellency!’ the terrified man detained him once more. ‘Your Excellency!… Surely… Won’t anything, anything at all, save him now?…’

  ‘It’s out of my hands now,’ said the doctor impatiently, ‘but, however, um,’ he stopped suddenly, ‘if, for example, you could… send… the invalid… immediately, without delay’ (so sternly, not to say angrily, did the doctor pronounce the words ‘immediately, without delay’, that the Staff Captain even shook), ‘to Sy-racuse, then… because of the change of climate and conditions… it could, perhaps, produce…’

  ‘To Syracuse!’ shrieked the Staff Captain, still completely uncomprehending.

  ‘Syracuse—it’s in Sicily,’ Kolya interjected loudly, by way of explanation. The doctor glanced at him.

  ‘Send him to Sicily! But, sir, Your Excellency,’ the Staff Captain floundered, ‘you saw for yourself, didn’t you…’, he made a sweeping gesture indicating his quarters, ‘my dear wife, my family?’

  ‘No, don’t send your family to Sicily, send them to the Caucasus instead, early in the spring… send your daughter to the Caucasus… and your wife should take the cure… at a spa…also in the Caucasus, for her rheumatism… and then straight after that send her to Paris, to Dr Le-pel-let-ier’s psychiatric clinic, I could give you a referral note, and then… perhaps it would…’

  ‘But doctor, doctor… can’t you see!’ the Staff Captain suddenly gestured again despairingly, indicating the bare log walls of the hallway.

  ‘Oh, that’s not my business,’ the doctor smiled coldly, ‘I only gave you my pro-fess-ional opinion in answer to your question about what to do as a last resort, but for the rest… unfortunately, I…’

  ‘Don’t worry, quack, my dog won’t bite you,’ Kolya interposed loudly, having noticed the doctor glancing uneasily several times at Perezvon, who was standing on the doorstep. An undertone of anger sounded in Kolya’s voice. He had said ‘quack’ instead of ‘doctor’ quite deliberately, and, as he himself said later, ‘I said it to insult him.’

  ‘What was that?’ the doctor jerked his head up, and stared at Kolya in astonishment. ‘Who is that?’ he turned suddenly to Alyosha, as though asking him for an explanation.

  ‘That’s Perezvon’s master, quack, there’s no need to know who I am,’ Kolya rapped out.

  ‘Zvon?’ repeated the doctor, not having understood what was meant by ‘Perezvon’.

  ‘Gone, gone is Perezvon. Goodbye, quack, see you in Syracuse.’

  ‘Who is that, who, who?’ the doctor suddenly spluttered angrily.

  ‘He’s a local schoolboy, doctor, a scallywag, don’t take any notice,’ said Alyosha hurriedly, with a frown. ‘Kolya, shut up!’ he shouted to Krasotkin. ‘You mustn’t take any notice, doctor,’ he repeated, this time somewhat more impatiently.

  ‘He should be whipped, whipped, that’s what,’ the doctor stamped his foot in an altogether excessive show of fury.

  ‘But you know, quack, this Perezvon of mine might bite after all!’ Kolya had paled, his voice shook, and his eyes flashed. ‘Here boy!’

  ‘Kolya, if you say another word, I’ll never have anything more to do with you,’ shouted Alyosha furiously.

  ‘Quack, there is only one person in the whole world who can give orders to Nikolai Krasotkin—that gentleman there,’ Kolya pointed to Alyosha, ‘that’s whom I obey, goodbye!’

  He turned away, opened the door, and entered the room quickly. Perezvon rushed after him. The doctor stood gazing at Alyosha for about five seconds, as if stunned, then suddenly he spat and walked to his carriage, repeating loudly, ‘This, this, this is too much!’ The Staff Captain rushed to help him into his carriage. Alyosha followed Kolya into the room. The latter was already standing by Ilyusha’s bed. Ilyusha was holding his hand and calling his father. A minute later, the Staff Captain returned as well.

  ‘Papa, papa, come here… we…’, Ilyusha, terribly excited but obviously unable to go on, suddenly stretched out his two wasted arms in front of him and hugged both Kolya and his father as tightly as he could, uniting them in a single embrace and pressing himself against them. The Staff Captain was suddenly shaken by silent sobs, and Kolya’s lips and chin began to tremble.

  ‘Papa, papa! I’m so sorry for you, papa!’ Ilyusha groaned miserably.

  ‘Ilyushechka… my darling…’, the Staff Captain faltered, ‘the doctor says… you’ll get better… we’ll be happy… the doctor…’

  ‘Oh, papa! I know what the new doctor told you about me… I could see!’ exclaimed Ilyusha, and he clasped them to him again with all his strength and buried his face in his father’s shoulder.

  ‘Don’t cry, papa… and when I die, get a good little boy, another one… choose him yourself, from all of them, choose a good one, call him Ilyusha, and love him instead of me…’

  ‘Be quiet, old chap, you’re going to get better!’ snapped Krasotkin suddenly, as if angry.

  ‘But don’t forget me, papa, never forget me,’ Ilyusha went on. ‘Come and visit my grave… yes, that’s it, papa, bury me by our big stone, where we used to go for walks, and come and visit me there with Krasotkin, in the evening… Perezvon too. I’ll be expecting you… Papa, papa!’

  His voice broke, all three remained in a silent embrace. Ninochka was crying quietly too in her chair, and suddenly, seeing everyone else crying, the mother also burst into tears.

  ‘Ilyushechka! Ilyushechka!’ she cried.

  Krasotkin released himself suddenly from Ilyusha’s embrace.

  ‘Goodbye, old chap, my mother’s expecting me for lunch,’ he said quickly. ‘What a pity I didn’t warn her! She’ll be very worried… But after lunch I’ll come straight back and stay the whole afternoon and evening, and I’ll tell you such a lot of things, such a lot! And I’ll bring Perezvon too, but I’ll take him with me now, because without me he’d start howling and would be a nuisance; goodbye!’

  He ran out into the hallway. He didn’t want to cry, but nevertheless he burst into tears in the hall. Alyosha found him crying his heart out.

  ‘Kolya, you must
keep your word and come back, or he’ll be terribly upset,’ said Alyosha urgently.

  ‘I promise! Oh, how I curse myself for not coming sooner,’ Kolya muttered, weeping and no longer embarrassed by his tears. At that moment the Staff Captain practically burst from the room, shutting the door behind him. His face was haggard, his lips trembling. He stood before the two young men and threw up his arms.

  ‘I don’t want a good little boy! I don’t want another little boy!’ he muttered in a desperate whisper, gritting his teeth. ‘If I forget thee, Jerusalem, let my tongue cleave…’*

  He broke off, as if choking, and fell to his knees helplessly by the wooden bench. Clasping his head with both hands, he began to sob, emitting absurd little cries, but trying desperately not to be heard inside the room. Kolya rushed out on to the street.

  ‘Goodbye, Karamazov! Are you coming back yourself?’ he called sharply and angrily to Alyosha.

  ‘I’ll be there for certain this evening.’

  ‘What was that about Jerusalem? What did he mean?’

  ‘It’s from the Bible: “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem”—that is, if I forget all that I hold most dear, if I abandon it for anything else, may I be struck down…’

  ‘That’s enough, I understand! You must come back too! Perezvon, here boy!’ he called to the dog, this time really sharply, and strode off homewards.

  BOOK ELEVEN

  Ivan Fyodorovich

  1

  AT GRUSHENKA’S

  ALYOSHA set out for the house of Mrs Morozova, the merchant’s widow, on Cathedral Square to see Grushenka. The latter had already sent Fenya to him that morning, insisting that he come and see her. Alyosha had questioned Fenya and learned that her mistress had been in a considerable state of panic ever since the previous day. Throughout the two months following Mitya’s arrest, Alyosha had gone frequently to Morozova’s, both of his own accord and at Mitya’s behest. About three days after Mitya’s arrest Grushenka had become very sick and was ill for about the next five weeks. One week, she had lain unconscious in her bed. Now, although she had been up and about for nearly two weeks, her appearance had changed a great deal, her complexion had become sallow and she had lost weight. But, in Alyosha’s eyes, her face had become even more attractive, and every time he came to see her he enjoyed meeting her gaze. There was something hard and determined in her eyes. One sensed that she had undergone a spiritual crisis and had emerged full of a new, tranquil, benevolent, and unwavering resolve. On her forehead, between her eyes, there was now a short vertical line which lent her sweet face an aspect of inward contemplation bordering, at first glance, almost on the severe. Gone completely was her former frivolity. Alyosha found it strange, too, that in spite of all the misfortune which had befallen the poor woman—her sweetheart arrested for a dreadful crime, almost at the very moment of their engagement—and in spite of her subsequent illness and the almost inevitable verdict looming over Mitya, she had nevertheless lost none of her former youthful gaiety. Her formerly challenging gaze was now aglow with something akin to serenity, and yet… and yet a vicious flame would occasionally flare up in those eyes of hers whenever she remembered a former preoccupation—a preoccupation which not only remained unabated but had even intensified in her heart. The object of this preoccupation was as always Katerina Ivanovna, whom Grushenka, even when she lay delirious on her sickbed, had been unable to exorcise from her mind. Alyosha was aware that she was terribly jealous of her because of Mitya, Mitya the convict, despite the fact that Katerina Ivanovna had not visited him in prison even once, and not for any lack of opportunity. All these factors presented a delicate problem for Alyosha, the more so since he was the only person in whom Grushenka confided and since she continually sought his advice; he, on the other hand, was sometimes at a loss for anything to say to her.

  When he arrived at the house he was very worried. She was already at home, having returned from visiting Mitya only an hour previously, and from the alacrity with which she leapt from her chair behind the table to greet him, Alyosha immediately concluded that she had been waiting for him with extreme impatience. On the table was a pack of cards, dealt for a game of ‘fools’. Beyond the table some bedding had been spread out on a leather sofa, on which Maksimov reclined in a dressing-gown and cotton nightcap, ill and debilitated, but nevertheless smiling sweetly. Ever since he had left Mokroye with her about two months ago, this destitute little old man had never left her side. When they had returned that time in the rain and the mud he had sat down on the sofa, soaked to the skin and terrified, just staring at her in silence, smiling meekly and pleadingly. Grushenka, preoccupied by her terrible grief and already ill from the onset of fever, had, for half an hour or so after their return, almost forgotten about him—all of a sudden, however, she had looked at him intently: he just smiled back at her in pitiful resignation. She called Fenya and told her to give him something to eat. All that day he remained rooted there and hardly stirred; after dark, when the shutters had been closed, Fenya asked her mistress:

  ‘What about him, Miss, is he really going to stay the night?’

  ‘Yes, make up a bed for him on the sofa,’ Grushenka replied.

  After questioning him closely, Grushenka learned that he really had nowhere to go at all, and that ‘my benefactor Mr Kalganov told me to my face he never wanted to see me again, and gave me five roubles.’ ‘Well, what’s to be done; stay here if you like,’ Grushenka decided resignedly, smiling at him with compassion. That smile struck a deep chord in him, tears welled up in his eyes, and his lips began to tremble. And the itinerant pickthank* had stayed put at her place ever since. He did not even move out of the house during her illness. Fenya and her mother, Grushenka’s cook,* did not try to get rid of him either, but continued to feed him and make up his bed on the sofa. Subsequently, Grushenka had even got used to him, and whenever she came back from visiting Mitya (she began to visit him the moment she felt slightly better, though long before she had fully recovered)—in order to assuage her grief by taking her mind off the whole affair—she would sit down and start talking to ‘Maksimushka’ about all sorts of trifles. It turned out that the old fellow could tell a good story, so that he even became indispensable to her in the end. Grushenka entertained hardly anyone except Alyosha, and even he did not visit her every day and he did not stay long. Her old merchant friend was seriously ill by this time, ‘failing’, as they used to say in the town, and in fact he died within a week of Mitya’s trial. Three weeks before his death, sensing his imminent end, he finally summoned his sons upstairs, together with their wives and children, and asked them to remain with him. As for Grushenka, he gave his servants strict orders not to admit her henceforth, under any circumstances, and if she were to come, to tell her: ‘The master wishes you a long life full of good cheer, but says you should forget about him altogether.’ Nearly every day, however, Grushenka would enquire after his health.

  ‘Here you are at last!’ she exclaimed, throwing down the cards and welcoming Alyosha. ‘And there was Maksimushka trying to frighten me by saying that you’d probably never come. Ah, I’m so pleased to see you! Come and sit by the table! Well, what will you have, coffee?’

  ‘Yes please,’ said Alyosha, pulling a chair up to the table, ‘I’m starving.’

  ‘Fenya, Fenya, coffee!’ Grushenka called. ‘It’s piping hot, I kept it for you; and bring some pirozhki, Fenya; make sure they’re hot though. You know, Alyosha, we had an almighty row today because of those pirozhki. I took them to the prison for him, and would you believe it, he threw them in my face and wouldn’t eat them. He even threw one on the floor and stamped on it. So I said to him, “I’ll leave them with the guard. If you haven’t eaten them by this evening, you can choke on your own spite!” and I just left him to it. So we’ve fallen out again, would you believe it. Every time I go to see him we have a row.’

  Grushenka rattled all this off in an outburst of agitation. Maksimov, who had quailed at her tone, was smiling nervously, his eyes dow
ncast.

  ‘So what did you quarrel about this time?’ asked Alyosha.

  ‘It came as a total surprise! Imagine, he’s become jealous of my ex. “Why”, he says to me, “are you looking after him? You are looking after him, aren’t you?” He’s so jealous, it’s not true! He’s got jealousy coming out of his ears. Last week he even tackled me over Kuzma.’

  ‘But he knew all about your officer, didn’t he?’

  ‘Exactly. He’s known from the very beginning, but that didn’t stop him abusing me all of a sudden today. I’m too ashamed to repeat the things he said. The fool! As I was leaving, Rakitka was just going in to see him. Maybe it’s Rakitka who keeps putting him up to it, eh? What do you think?’ she added, somewhat absent-mindedly.

  ‘He loves you, that’s what, he’s very fond of you. But he’s upset just now.’

  ‘So would anybody be, the trial’s tomorrow. I went to see him especially to reassure him about tomorrow, because, Alyosha, I daren’t even think what’s going to happen then! You say he’s upset, what about me! And all he can think of is that Pole! What a fool! He’ll be getting jealous of Maksimushka next.’

  ‘My wife was awfully jealous,’ Maksimov joined in the conversation.

  ‘Was she now,’ Grushenka could not suppress a chuckle, ‘who could she have been jealous of?’

  ‘The chambermaids.’

  ‘Shut up, Maksimushka, this is not the time for jokes, you’ll make me lose my temper. And stop ogling those pirozhki, you’re not going to get any, they’re bad for you, and that goes for the drink too. Now I’ve got him on my hands too; you’d think this was an old people’s home or something,’ she said, laughing.

  ‘I’m not worthy of your kindness, I’m a nobody,’ Maksimov said pathetically. ‘You’d do better to shower your bounty on those who are of more use than me.’

  ‘Oh, Maksimushka, everyone’s got his own use, and who knows who’s more useful than another? That Pole is the last thing I need now, Alyosha, and today he too has gone and fallen ill. I went to see him. Now I’ve made up my mind, I’m going to send him too some pirozhki; I haven’t sent him any before, but seeing as Mitya’s accused me of having done so, I’m going to send him some now, on purpose, that’s right, on purpose! Ah, here’s Fenya with a letter! Just as I thought, it’s from him, he and the other one, they’re after money again!’