Pan Mussjalowicz had as usual sent an extremely rambling letter asking for a loan of three roubles. Attached was a receipt together with a pledge to repay within three months; the receipt was also signed by Pan Wrublewski. Grushenka had already received many such letters from her ‘former’ one, enclosing similar receipts. It had begun about two weeks ago, just as Grushenka began to feel better. She knew, however, that the Poles had called during her illness to ask after her health. The first letter had been a long one, written on a large sheet of writing-paper and sealed with a large family seal; it was terribly vague and verbose, and Grushenka had only bothered to read half of it, and had thrown it away without understanding a thing. Anyway, there were other things on her mind at the time. That first letter had been followed the next day by a second one, in which Pan Mussjalowicz asked her for a loan of two thousand roubles over the shortest possible period of time. Grushenka had left this letter unanswered too. There followed a whole series of letters, one a day, each one just as pompous and long-winded, but in which the sum requested grew smaller and smaller, falling to a hundred roubles, then twenty-five, then ten, and finally Grushenka had received a letter in which the two gentlemen asked her for just one rouble; attached was a receipt signed by both of them. At that, Grushenka had been moved to pity, and after dark she had rushed over to see her Pole. She had found them both in dire poverty, almost destitute, without food, without firewood, without tobacco, and owing money to their landlady. The two hundred roubles they had won from Mitya in Mokroye had simply vanished into thin air. What had surprised Grushenka, however, was that both gentlemen greeted her with affected superciliousness and self-confidence, and with a great deal of bombast and inflated speeches. Grushenka had simply laughed and given her ‘former one’ ten roubles. She had immediately told Mitya about it as a joke, and he had not been jealous in the least. Ever since then, the two Polish gentlemen had plagued Grushenka and bombarded her every day with begging letters, and she had continued to send them a little money every time. And now, lo and behold, today Mitya had decided to become jealous.
‘I was a fool for popping in to see him, it was only going to be for a second, on my way to Mitya’s, after all he was really ill, my former pan that is,’ Grushenka resumed again, disjointedly and hurriedly, ‘there I was, laughing, telling Mitya all about it: imagine, I told him my Polish friend thought that if he sang me our old songs again and played his guitar, I’d become all sentimental and marry him. And Mitya jumps up and starts swearing… So there, I shall send them some pirozhki! Fenya, where’s that girl they sent over? Here, give her these three roubles and a dozen pirozhki, wrap them in a piece of paper and let her take them, and you, Alyosha, make sure you tell Mitya I sent them some pirozhki.’
‘Not on your life,’ said Alyosha with a smile.
‘Ha, you think he cares? He’s just acting jealous, he couldn’t care less, really,’ said Grushenka bitterly.
‘What do you mean “acting”?’ asked Alyosha.
‘You are stupid, Alyoshenka, that’s what! You don’t understand anything about it, for all your brains! I don’t mind him being jealous, I’d have minded if he hadn’t been jealous. I’m like that. I don’t mind jealousy, I’ve got a cruel streak myself, I can be jealous too. What I would mind is if he didn’t love me at all and is just pretending to be jealous. Does he think I’m blind, that I can’t see or something? Suddenly he starts talking about that Katka. “That Katerina,” he says, “fancy getting a doctor from Moscow for the trial, to save me, and the top lawyer, the cleverest one of the lot.” That means he loves her, if he’s started to praise her to my face. He hasn’t got an ounce of shame, that man hasn’t! He knows he’s in the wrong, that’s why he keeps getting at me, he’s trying to make out that I’m the guilty one and blame me for everything. “You had your Pole before I came along,” he reckons, “so my relations with Katka are none of your business.” That’s the way it is! He wants me to take all the blame. He deliberately started getting at me, on purpose, I tell you, only I…’
Grushenka broke off, she put her handkerchief to her eyes and began to sob violently.
‘He doesn’t love Katerina Ivanovna,’ said Alyosha firmly.
‘Well, whether he loves her or not, I shall be able to find out for myself soon,’ Grushenka said, with a menacing note in her voice, and took the handkerchief away from her eyes. She was scowling. Alyosha sadly observed how quickly her expression changed—meek and serenely happy one second, sullenly hostile the next.
‘Enough of this nonsense!’ she pulled herself together. ‘This isn’t why I asked you to see me at all. Alyosha, darling, what about tomorrow, what’s going to happen tomorrow? That’s what’s preying on my mind! And I seem to be the only one who gives a damn! I look around me, and as far as I can see no one else is giving it a moment’s thought, no one cares. I hope you at least are thinking about it! Tomorrow’s the trial, for heaven’s sake! What do you think they’ll do to him? Surely it was the servant who did it, it must have been the servant! God! Is he going to be made a scapegoat, and isn’t any one going to stand up for him? They haven’t even questioned the servant, have they?’
‘Yes, they have. They interrogated him thoroughly,’ Alyosha observed thoughtfully, ‘but they all concluded it wasn’t him. And now he’s very ill in bed. He’s been ill ever since, ever since the fit. He really is ill,’ Alyosha added.
‘My God, why don’t you go to the lawyer yourself and tell him the whole story face to face? They say he was paid three thousand to come from St Petersburg.’
‘We paid the three thousand—I, Ivan and Katerina Ivanovna—and she paid the two thousand for the doctor from Moscow herself. The lawyer Fetyukovich would have asked for more, but the case has become a cause célèbre throughout Russia, all the papers are full of it. Fetyukovich agreed to take it on more for the prestige than anything else, because, after all, the case is the talk of the whole country now. I saw him yesterday.’
‘Well, what happened? Did you talk to him?’ Grushenka demanded eagerly.
‘He listened to what I had to say, but he didn’t really say anything. All he said was that he’s already prepared his defence. But he promised to take my comments into consideration.’
‘Consideration, my foot? What a bunch of rogues! He doesn’t stand a chance with that lot! What about the doctor, why did she want to engage a doctor?’
‘As an expert witness. They want to suggest that Mitya’s insane and that he committed the murder while the state of his mind was unbalanced, that he wasn’t responsible for his actions,’ Alyosha smiled gently, ‘only Dmitry is not going to stand for that.’
‘Ah, that’s true, except that he didn’t kill him!’ exclaimed Grushenka. ‘He was mad, quite mad, and it was me, me, hateful woman that I am, who’s to blame for it! Only he didn’t kill him, he didn’t! Everyone wants to believe he killed him, the whole town. Even Fenya testified against him. And in the shop, and that clerk, and what people heard him say in the tavern! Everybody, everybody’s against him, and they’re all baying for his blood.’
‘Yes, the evidence against him is overwhelming,’ Alyosha observed despondently.
‘And that Grigory, Grigory Vasilyevich, he won’t budge—as far as he’s concerned, the door was open, he saw it, that’s his story and he’s sticking to it. I went over to see him to have a word with him myself. He even swore at me!’
‘Yes, that’s probably the strongest item of evidence there is against my brother,’ said Alyosha.
‘And as to Mitya being out of his mind,’ Grushenka suddenly began, in an extraordinarily preoccupied and mysterious tone of voice, ‘that’s just what he is now. You know, Alyoshenka, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about this for a long time: I’ve been visiting him every day, and I simply can’t make him out. Tell me what you think: what’s he going on about now? I mean the way he talks—I can’t understand a thing. I tell myself it must be something clever—well, all right, so I’m stupid, perhaps it’s way over my h
ead, I say to myself. Now he’s suddenly started going on about some child—a bairn. “Why’s the bairn poor?” he says. “It’s on account of the bairn that I must go to Siberia. I didn’t commit the murder, but I will go to Siberia!” What’s all that about, what bairn? I couldn’t make head nor tail of it. I just started crying while he was speaking, he’s got such a way of talking, you know, he was crying himself, and I burst into tears too, and then he suddenly kissed me and made the sign of the cross over me with his hand. What was all that, Alyosha, tell me, what was all that about a “bairn”?’
‘Well, Rakitin’s been going to see him lately,’ smiled Alyosha, ‘but, come to think of it, however… that doesn’t sound like Rakitin. I didn’t go to see him yesterday, but I’m going today.’
‘No, it isn’t Rakitka, it’s Ivan Fyodorovich who’s been putting ideas into his head. He’s been going to see him, that’s what…’, said Grushenka, and suddenly stopped dead. Alyosha stared at her in bewilderment.
‘What do you mean, going to see him? Has he really been going to see him? Mitya told me that Ivan hadn’t been to see him at all.’
‘Oh dear… now I’ve put my foot in it! Why couldn’t I keep my mouth shut!’ exclaimed Grushenka in embarrassment, blushing all over. ‘Look, Alyosha, don’t say a word, all right, now that I’ve let the cat out of the bag I may as well tell you the whole truth: he’s been to see him twice. The first time was straight after he got back—you remember how he came rushing back from Moscow at the time, it was even before I went down with my illness—and then he went to see him again a week ago. He told Mitya not to tell you about it, whatever happened, nor anyone else for that matter. It was a secret visit.’
Alyosha sat deep in thought, turning something over in his mind. Clearly, the news had astonished him.
‘Ivan doesn’t talk to me about Mitya’s case,’ he said slowly, ‘in fact, he’s spoken to me very little these past two months, and whenever I’ve been over to see him he’s never been welcoming, so I’ve kept away from him altogether for three weeks. Hm… if he did go to see him a week ago, then… that explains the change in Mitya this past week.’
‘Yes, there has been a change!’ Grushenka echoed quickly. ‘They’ve got a secret, there’s some secret between them! Mitya told me himself it was a secret, and, you know, it’s such a secret that Mitya’s lost all his peace of mind. And yet he was quite cheerful before—not that he’s not cheerful now—it’s just that when he starts shaking his head like that and pacing up and down the room, fingering his hair just here, on his temple, I know there’s something troubling him… I knew it straight away!… Apart from that, he’s been cheerful; he was cheerful today too!’
‘Didn’t you say he was in a bad temper?’
‘In a bad temper, but cheerful at the same time. He gets irritated, but only for a second, then he’s cheerful, and a little later he’s irritated again. And you know, Alyosha, he never ceases to surprise me; he’s facing such an ordeal, and yet he laughs at the least excuse, just like a child.’
‘Is it true, though, that he forbade you to mention Ivan’s visit to me? Is that what he said, “Don’t mention it to him?”’
‘His very words, “Don’t mention it to him!” It’s you he’s afraid of most of all, Mitya that is. It’s all to do with this secret, that’s what he said—it’s a secret… Alyosha, my darling, go and try and find out for yourself what’s going on between them, and then come back and tell me,’ Grushenka pleaded anxiously. ‘Put me out of my misery, I want to know what the future holds in store! That’s why I sent for you!’
‘Do you think it’s something to do with you? But then, surely he wouldn’t have told you if it was meant to be a secret.’
‘I don’t know. Maybe he does want to tell me, but can’t bring himself to do it. He’s warning me. “There’s a secret,” he says, but what the secret is—he won’t tell me.’
‘So what do you think it is?’
‘How do I know? I’ve been ditched, that’s what I think. The three of them have got it in for me, and it’s that Katka’s doing. Katka’s behind it all, she’s the one. “She’s a fine woman,” he says—which means that I’m not, thank you very much. It’s his way of telling me, his way of warning me. He’s made up his mind to abandon me, that’s all there is to their secret! The three of them—Mitka, Katka, and Ivan Fyodorovich—are in it together. Alyosha, I’ve been meaning to ask you for a long time: about a week ago he suddenly told me that Ivan was in love with Katka—because he keeps going to see her so often. Was he telling me the truth or not? Tell me honestly, I won’t be upset.’
‘I won’t lie to you. Ivan’s not in love with Katerina Ivanovna, at least I don’t think so.’
‘Well, that’s what I thought at the time! He was pulling the wool over my eyes, the lying hound, that’s what! And his jealousy’s just an excuse to pin the blame on me later. He’s such a fool, you know, he hasn’t got an ounce of guile in him, he’s so transparently honest… But I’ll show him, I really will! “You think I killed him, don’t you?” he says to me. He says that to me, to me, he blames me for that now! God have mercy on him! You just wait, I’ll teach that Katka a lesson at the trial! I’ll know what to say… I’ll tell them everything at the trial!’
And she began to cry again bitterly.
‘Look here, Grushenka,’ said Alyosha, getting up, ‘this is what I know for sure: firstly, he loves you, he loves you above all else in the world, and nobody but you, believe me. I know it. Trust me. Secondly, I must tell you that I don’t wish to pry into his secret, but if he reveals it to me himself today, I’ll tell him frankly that I’ve promised to tell you. And then I’ll come back this very day and let you know. Only… the way I see it… it has nothing whatsoever to do with Katerina Ivanovna, this secret concerns something else entirely. I’m convinced of it. There’s much more behind this than Katerina Ivanovna, that’s how I see it. Well, goodbye for now!’
Alyosha shook her hand. Grushenka was still crying. He could see that she gave little credence to his words of comfort, but at least she had done herself some good by baring her soul and unburdening herself of her grief. He felt sorry for leaving her in such a state, but he had to hurry. There was still a lot he had to do.
2
PAINFUL FOOT
His first port of call was Mrs Khokhlakova’s, and he hurried straight over there to get things sorted out and not be late for Mitya. For three weeks now Mrs Khokhlakova had been indisposed: for some reason her foot had become swollen, and although she had not taken to her bed she had nevertheless spent the days reclining on a chaise-longue in her boudoir, in an attractive but perfectly decorous négligé. On a previous occasion Alyosha had already noted with a sense of innocent amusement that in spite of her indisposition, Mrs Khokhlakova had begun to prettify herself: suddenly there was an abundance of fancy hairbands, little ribbons and bows, and loose-fitting blouses, and though he could guess the reason for this, he immediately dismissed his thoughts as speculation. Amongst the guests whom Mrs Khokhlakova had entertained during the past two months was the young and eligible Perkhotin. It was now some four days since Alyosha’s last visit, and when he arrived he wanted to see Lise straight away. Just the day before Lise had sent her servant girl to him with an urgent request to call on her without delay about ‘a very important matter’, which for a variety of reasons had aroused his curiosity; he had therefore come especially to see her, but before the girl had informed Lise of his arrival Mrs Khokhlakova had already found out from someone else that he was there and had immediately requested him to see her ‘for just one second’. Alyosha decided that it was probably best to satisfy mama’s request first, since otherwise there were bound to be endless interruptions from her while he was with Lise. Mrs Khokhlakova was lying on her chaise-longue in particularly seductive attire and in an obvious state of acute agitation. She greeted Alyosha with exclamations of delight.
‘It’s been ages, simply ages since I’ve seen you! A whole week, would y
ou believe it, oh, to be sure you were here just four days ago, on Wednesday. You want to see Lise? I’m sure you wanted to tiptoe straight up to her, so that I wouldn’t hear. My dear, dear Aleksei Fyodorovich, if only you knew how much I worry about her! But more of that later. Although it’s the most important matter, it can wait. My dear Aleksei Fyodorovich, I entrust my Lise to you totally. Ever since Starets Zosima’s death—may God rest his soul! (she crossed herself)—ever since his death, I still regard you as a member of the strictest order of monks, even though you look most fetching in that suit of yours. Where on earth did you find such a tailor in these parts? But no, no, that’s not the main thing, it can wait till later. Excuse me calling you Alyosha sometimes, but I’m an old woman, I’m allowed to,’ she smiled coquettishly, ‘but that can wait too. The main thing is, I mustn’t forget about the main thing. Look here, don’t hesitate to remind me the minute I start rambling on, just say: “And what about the main thing?” Oh, how should I know what the main thing is now? Ever since Lise withdrew her promise—her childish promise, Aleksei Fyodorovich—to marry you—you must of course have realized that it was nothing but the childish, playful fantasy of a sick girl who’s spent a long time in an invalid chair—thank God, she’s able to walk now. This new doctor that Katya got from Moscow for your poor brother, who tomorrow… Oh dear, yes, tomorrow! Every time I think about tomorrow I just feel like dying! It’s my curiosity first and foremost… In a word, that doctor came to see us yesterday and he examined Lise… I paid him fifty roubles for the visit. But that’s not what I wanted to talk about either… You see, I’m going off at a tangent. I’m rushing ahead of myself. Why should I be in such a hurry? I don’t know. I’m beginning to lose track of things. Everything seems to have got tangled into a knot in my mind. I’m afraid that if I’m not careful I’ll bore you to death and you’ll run a mile from me, and that’ll be the last I’ll see of you. Oh, my God! Why are we just sitting here? But first, coffee—Yulia, Glafira, coffee!’
The Karamazov Brothers Page 86