The Brothers Karamazov
sleeping! He even took it into his head to be jealous of Kuzma last
week.”
“But he knew about the Pole before?”
“Yes, but there it is. He has known about him from the very beginning,
but to-day he suddenly got up and began scolding about him. I am
ashamed to repeat what he said. Silly fellow! Rakitin went in as I came
out. Perhaps Rakitin is egging him on. What do you think?” she added
carelessly.
“He loves you, that’s what it is: he loves you so much. And now he is
particularly worried.”
“I should think he might be, with the trial to-morrow. And I went to
him to say something about to-morrow, for I dread to think what’s going
to happen then. You say that he is worried, but how worried I am! And
he talks about the Pole! He’s too silly! He is not jealous of
Maximushka yet, anyway.”
“My wife was dreadfully jealous over me, too,” Maximov put in his word.
“Jealous of you?” Grushenka laughed in spite of herself. “Of whom could
she have been jealous?”
“Of the servant girls.”
“Hold your tongue, Maximushka, I am in no laughing mood now; I feel
angry. Don’t ogle the pies. I shan’t give you any; they are not good
for you, and I won’t give you any vodka either. I have to look after
him, too, just as though I kept an almshouse,” she laughed.
“I don’t deserve your kindness. I am a worthless creature,” said
Maximov, with tears in his voice. “You would do better to spend your
kindness on people of more use than me.”
“Ech, every one is of use, Maximushka, and how can we tell who’s of
most use? If only that Pole didn’t exist, Alyosha. He’s taken it into
his head to fall ill, too, to-day. I’ve been to see him also. And I
shall send him some pies, too, on purpose. I hadn’t sent him any, but
Mitya accused me of it, so now I shall send some! Ah, here’s Fenya with
a letter! Yes, it’s from the Poles—begging again!”
Pan Mussyalovitch had indeed sent an extremely long and
characteristically eloquent letter in which he begged her to lend him
three roubles. In the letter was enclosed a receipt for the sum, with a
promise to repay it within three months, signed by Pan Vrublevsky as
well. Grushenka had received many such letters, accompanied by such
receipts, from her former lover during the fortnight of her
convalescence. But she knew that the two Poles had been to ask after
her health during her illness. The first letter Grushenka got from them
was a long one, written on large notepaper and with a big family crest
on the seal. It was so obscure and rhetorical that Grushenka put it
down before she had read half, unable to make head or tail of it. She
could not attend to letters then. The first letter was followed next
day by another in which Pan Mussyalovitch begged her for a loan of two
thousand roubles for a very short period. Grushenka left that letter,
too, unanswered. A whole series of letters had followed—one every
day—all as pompous and rhetorical, but the loan asked for, gradually
diminishing, dropped to a hundred roubles, then to twenty-five, to ten,
and finally Grushenka received a letter in which both the Poles begged
her for only one rouble and included a receipt signed by both.
Then Grushenka suddenly felt sorry for them, and at dusk she went round
herself to their lodging. She found the two Poles in great poverty,
almost destitution, without food or fuel, without cigarettes, in debt
to their landlady. The two hundred roubles they had carried off from
Mitya at Mokroe had soon disappeared. But Grushenka was surprised at
their meeting her with arrogant dignity and self-assertion, with the
greatest punctilio and pompous speeches. Grushenka simply laughed, and
gave her former admirer ten roubles. Then, laughing, she told Mitya of
it and he was not in the least jealous. But ever since, the Poles had
attached themselves to Grushenka and bombarded her daily with requests
for money and she had always sent them small sums. And now that day
Mitya had taken it into his head to be fearfully jealous.
“Like a fool, I went round to him just for a minute, on the way to see
Mitya, for he is ill, too, my Pole,” Grushenka began again with nervous
haste. “I was laughing, telling Mitya about it. ‘Fancy,’ I said, ‘my
Pole had the happy thought to sing his old songs to me to the guitar.
He thought I would be touched and marry him!’ Mitya leapt up
swearing.... So, there, I’ll send them the pies! Fenya, is it that
little girl they’ve sent? Here, give her three roubles and pack a dozen
pies up in a paper and tell her to take them. And you, Alyosha, be sure
to tell Mitya that I did send them the pies.”
“I wouldn’t tell him for anything,” said Alyosha, smiling.
“Ech! You think he is unhappy about it. Why, he’s jealous on purpose.
He doesn’t care,” said Grushenka bitterly.
“On purpose?” queried Alyosha.
“I tell you you are silly, Alyosha. You know nothing about it, with all
your cleverness. I am not offended that he is jealous of a girl like
me. I would be offended if he were not jealous. I am like that. I am
not offended at jealousy. I have a fierce heart, too. I can be jealous
myself. Only what offends me is that he doesn’t love me at all. I tell
you he is jealous now _on purpose_. Am I blind? Don’t I see? He began
talking to me just now of that woman, of Katerina, saying she was this
and that, how she had ordered a doctor from Moscow for him, to try and
save him; how she had ordered the best counsel, the most learned one,
too. So he loves her, if he’ll praise her to my face, more shame to
him! He’s treated me badly himself, so he attacked me, to make out I am
in fault first and to throw it all on me. ‘You were with your Pole
before me, so I can’t be blamed for Katerina,’ that’s what it amounts
to. He wants to throw the whole blame on me. He attacked me on purpose,
on purpose, I tell you, but I’ll—”
Grushenka could not finish saying what she would do. She hid her eyes
in her handkerchief and sobbed violently.
“He doesn’t love Katerina Ivanovna,” said Alyosha firmly.
“Well, whether he loves her or not, I’ll soon find out for myself,”
said Grushenka, with a menacing note in her voice, taking the
handkerchief from her eyes. Her face was distorted. Alyosha saw
sorrowfully that from being mild and serene, it had become sullen and
spiteful.
“Enough of this foolishness,” she said suddenly; “it’s not for that I
sent for you. Alyosha, darling, to-morrow—what will happen to-morrow?
That’s what worries me! And it’s only me it worries! I look at every
one and no one is thinking of it. No one cares about it. Are you
thinking about it even? To-morrow he’ll be tried, you know. Tell me,
how will he be tried? You know it’s the valet, the valet killed him!
Good heavens! Can they condemn him in place of the valet and will no
one stand up for him? They haven’t troubled the valet at all, have
they?”
“He’s been severely cross-examined,” observed Alyosha thoughtfully;
“but every one came to the conclusion it was not he. Now he is lying
very ill. He has been ill ever since that attack. Really ill,” added
Alyosha.
“Oh, dear! couldn’t you go to that counsel yourself and tell him the
whole thing by yourself? He’s been brought from Petersburg for three
thousand roubles, they say.”
“We gave these three thousand together—Ivan, Katerina Ivanovna and
I—but she paid two thousand for the doctor from Moscow herself. The
counsel Fetyukovitch would have charged more, but the case has become
known all over Russia; it’s talked of in all the papers and journals.
Fetyukovitch agreed to come more for the glory of the thing, because
the case has become so notorious. I saw him yesterday.”
“Well? Did you talk to him?” Grushenka put in eagerly.
“He listened and said nothing. He told me that he had already formed
his opinion. But he promised to give my words consideration.”
“Consideration! Ah, they are swindlers! They’ll ruin him. And why did
she send for the doctor?”
“As an expert. They want to prove that Mitya’s mad and committed the
murder when he didn’t know what he was doing”; Alyosha smiled gently;
“but Mitya won’t agree to that.”
“Yes; but that would be the truth if he had killed him!” cried
Grushenka. “He was mad then, perfectly mad, and that was my fault,
wretch that I am! But, of course, he didn’t do it, he didn’t do it! And
they are all against him, the whole town. Even Fenya’s evidence went to
prove he had done it. And the people at the shop, and that official,
and at the tavern, too, before, people had heard him say so! They are
all, all against him, all crying out against him.”
“Yes, there’s a fearful accumulation of evidence,” Alyosha observed
grimly.
“And Grigory—Grigory Vassilyevitch—sticks to his story that the door
was open, persists that he saw it—there’s no shaking him. I went and
talked to him myself. He’s rude about it, too.”
“Yes, that’s perhaps the strongest evidence against him,” said Alyosha.
“And as for Mitya’s being mad, he certainly seems like it now,”
Grushenka began with a peculiarly anxious and mysterious air. “Do you
know, Alyosha, I’ve been wanting to talk to you about it for a long
time. I go to him every day and simply wonder at him. Tell me, now,
what do you suppose he’s always talking about? He talks and talks and I
can make nothing of it. I fancied he was talking of something
intellectual that I couldn’t understand in my foolishness. Only he
suddenly began talking to me about a babe—that is, about some child.
‘Why is the babe poor?’ he said. ‘It’s for that babe I am going to
Siberia now. I am not a murderer, but I must go to Siberia!’ What that
meant, what babe, I couldn’t tell for the life of me. Only I cried when
he said it, because he said it so nicely. He cried himself, and I
cried, too. He suddenly kissed me and made the sign of the cross over
me. What did it mean, Alyosha, tell me? What is this babe?”
“It must be Rakitin, who’s been going to see him lately,” smiled
Alyosha, “though ... that’s not Rakitin’s doing. I didn’t see Mitya
yesterday. I’ll see him to-day.”
“No, it’s not Rakitin; it’s his brother Ivan Fyodorovitch upsetting
him. It’s his going to see him, that’s what it is,” Grushenka began,
and suddenly broke off. Alyosha gazed at her in amazement.
“Ivan’s going? Has he been to see him? Mitya told me himself that Ivan
hasn’t been once.”
“There ... there! What a girl I am! Blurting things out!” exclaimed
Grushenka, confused and suddenly blushing. “Stay, Alyosha, hush! Since
I’ve said so much I’ll tell the whole truth—he’s been to see him twice,
the first directly he arrived. He galloped here from Moscow at once, of
course, before I was taken ill; and the second time was a week ago. He
told Mitya not to tell you about it, under any circumstances; and not
to tell any one, in fact. He came secretly.”
Alyosha sat plunged in thought, considering something. The news
evidently impressed him.
“Ivan doesn’t talk to me of Mitya’s case,” he said slowly. “He’s said
very little to me these last two months. And whenever I go to see him,
he seems vexed at my coming, so I’ve not been to him for the last three
weeks. H’m!... if he was there a week ago ... there certainly has been
a change in Mitya this week.”
“There has been a change,” Grushenka assented quickly. “They have a
secret, they have a secret! Mitya told me himself there was a secret,
and such a secret that Mitya can’t rest. Before then, he was
cheerful—and, indeed, he is cheerful now—but when he shakes his head
like that, you know, and strides about the room and keeps pulling at
the hair on his right temple with his right hand, I know there is
something on his mind worrying him.... I know! He was cheerful before,
though, indeed, he is cheerful to-day.”
“But you said he was worried.”
“Yes, he is worried and yet cheerful. He keeps on being irritable for a