The Brothers Karamazov
“Alyosha, tell me the whole truth, as you would before God. Do you
believe I did it? Do you, do you in yourself, believe it? The whole
truth, don’t lie!” he cried desperately.
Everything seemed heaving before Alyosha, and he felt something like a
stab at his heart.
“Hush! What do you mean?” he faltered helplessly.
“The whole truth, the whole, don’t lie!” repeated Mitya.
“I’ve never for one instant believed that you were the murderer!” broke
in a shaking voice from Alyosha’s breast, and he raised his right hand
in the air, as though calling God to witness his words.
Mitya’s whole face was lighted up with bliss.
“Thank you!” he articulated slowly, as though letting a sigh escape him
after fainting. “Now you have given me new life. Would you believe it,
till this moment I’ve been afraid to ask you, you, even you. Well, go!
You’ve given me strength for to-morrow. God bless you! Come, go along!
Love Ivan!” was Mitya’s last word.
Alyosha went out in tears. Such distrustfulness in Mitya, such lack of
confidence even to him, to Alyosha—all this suddenly opened before
Alyosha an unsuspected depth of hopeless grief and despair in the soul
of his unhappy brother. Intense, infinite compassion overwhelmed him
instantly. There was a poignant ache in his torn heart. “Love Ivan!”—he
suddenly recalled Mitya’s words. And he was going to Ivan. He badly
wanted to see Ivan all day. He was as much worried about Ivan as about
Mitya, and more than ever now.
Chapter V.
Not You, Not You!
On the way to Ivan he had to pass the house where Katerina Ivanovna was
living. There was light in the windows. He suddenly stopped and
resolved to go in. He had not seen Katerina Ivanovna for more than a
week. But now it struck him that Ivan might be with her, especially on
the eve of the terrible day. Ringing, and mounting the staircase, which
was dimly lighted by a Chinese lantern, he saw a man coming down, and
as they met, he recognized him as his brother. So he was just coming
from Katerina Ivanovna.
“Ah, it’s only you,” said Ivan dryly. “Well, good-by! You are going to
her?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t advise you to; she’s upset and you’ll upset her more.”
A door was instantly flung open above, and a voice cried suddenly:
“No, no! Alexey Fyodorovitch, have you come from him?”
“Yes, I have been with him.”
“Has he sent me any message? Come up, Alyosha, and you, Ivan
Fyodorovitch, you must come back, you must. Do you hear?”
There was such a peremptory note in Katya’s voice that Ivan, after a
moment’s hesitation, made up his mind to go back with Alyosha.
“She was listening,” he murmured angrily to himself, but Alyosha heard
it.
“Excuse my keeping my greatcoat on,” said Ivan, going into the
drawing-room. “I won’t sit down. I won’t stay more than a minute.”
“Sit down, Alexey Fyodorovitch,” said Katerina Ivanovna, though she
remained standing. She had changed very little during this time, but
there was an ominous gleam in her dark eyes. Alyosha remembered
afterwards that she had struck him as particularly handsome at that
moment.
“What did he ask you to tell me?”
“Only one thing,” said Alyosha, looking her straight in the face, “that
you would spare yourself and say nothing at the trial of what” (he was
a little confused) “... passed between you ... at the time of your
first acquaintance ... in that town.”
“Ah! that I bowed down to the ground for that money!” She broke into a
bitter laugh. “Why, is he afraid for me or for himself? He asks me to
spare—whom? Him or myself? Tell me, Alexey Fyodorovitch!”
Alyosha watched her intently, trying to understand her.
“Both yourself and him,” he answered softly.
“I am glad to hear it,” she snapped out maliciously, and she suddenly
blushed.
“You don’t know me yet, Alexey Fyodorovitch,” she said menacingly. “And
I don’t know myself yet. Perhaps you’ll want to trample me under foot
after my examination to-morrow.”
“You will give your evidence honorably,” said Alyosha; “that’s all
that’s wanted.”
“Women are often dishonorable,” she snarled. “Only an hour ago I was
thinking I felt afraid to touch that monster ... as though he were a
reptile ... but no, he is still a human being to me! But did he do it?
Is he the murderer?” she cried, all of a sudden, hysterically, turning
quickly to Ivan. Alyosha saw at once that she had asked Ivan that
question before, perhaps only a moment before he came in, and not for
the first time, but for the hundredth, and that they had ended by
quarreling.
“I’ve been to see Smerdyakov.... It was you, you who persuaded me that
he murdered his father. It’s only you I believed!” she continued, still
addressing Ivan. He gave her a sort of strained smile. Alyosha started
at her tone. He had not suspected such familiar intimacy between them.
“Well, that’s enough, anyway,” Ivan cut short the conversation. “I am
going. I’ll come to-morrow.” And turning at once, he walked out of the
room and went straight downstairs.
With an imperious gesture, Katerina Ivanovna seized Alyosha by both
hands.
“Follow him! Overtake him! Don’t leave him alone for a minute!” she
said, in a hurried whisper. “He’s mad! Don’t you know that he’s mad? He
is in a fever, nervous fever. The doctor told me so. Go, run after
him....”
Alyosha jumped up and ran after Ivan, who was not fifty paces ahead of
him.
“What do you want?” He turned quickly on Alyosha, seeing that he was
running after him. “She told you to catch me up, because I’m mad. I
know it all by heart,” he added irritably.
“She is mistaken, of course; but she is right that you are ill,” said
Alyosha. “I was looking at your face just now. You look very ill,
Ivan.”
Ivan walked on without stopping. Alyosha followed him.
“And do you know, Alexey Fyodorovitch, how people do go out of their
mind?” Ivan asked in a voice suddenly quiet, without a trace of
irritation, with a note of the simplest curiosity.
“No, I don’t. I suppose there are all kinds of insanity.”
“And can one observe that one’s going mad oneself?”
“I imagine one can’t see oneself clearly in such circumstances,”
Alyosha answered with surprise.
Ivan paused for half a minute.
“If you want to talk to me, please change the subject,” he said
suddenly.
“Oh, while I think of it, I have a letter for you,” said Alyosha
timidly, and he took Lise’s note from his pocket and held it out to
Ivan. They were just under a lamp-post. Ivan recognized the handwriting
at once.
“Ah, from that little demon!” he laughed maliciously, and, without
opening the envelope, he tore it into bits and threw it in the air. The
bits were scattered by the wind.
“She’s not sixteen yet, I believe, and already offering herself,” he
said contemptuously, striding along the street again.
“How do you mean, offering herself?” exclaimed Alyosha.
“As wanton women offer themselves, to be sure.”
“How can you, Ivan, how can you?” Alyosha cried warmly, in a grieved
voice. “She is a child; you are insulting a child! She is ill; she is
very ill, too. She is on the verge of insanity, too, perhaps.... I had
hoped to hear something from you ... that would save her.”
“You’ll hear nothing from me. If she is a child I am not her nurse. Be
quiet, Alexey. Don’t go on about her. I am not even thinking about it.”
They were silent again for a moment.
“She will be praying all night now to the Mother of God to show her how
to act to-morrow at the trial,” he said sharply and angrily again.
“You ... you mean Katerina Ivanovna?”
“Yes. Whether she’s to save Mitya or ruin him. She’ll pray for light
from above. She can’t make up her mind for herself, you see. She has
not had time to decide yet. She takes me for her nurse, too. She wants
me to sing lullabies to her.”
“Katerina Ivanovna loves you, brother,” said Alyosha sadly.
“Perhaps; but I am not very keen on her.”
“She is suffering. Why do you ... sometimes say things to her that give
her hope?” Alyosha went on, with timid reproach. “I know that you’ve
given her hope. Forgive me for speaking to you like this,” he added.
“I can’t behave to her as I ought—break off altogether and tell her so
straight out,” said Ivan, irritably. “I must wait till sentence is
passed on the murderer. If I break off with her now, she will avenge
herself on me by ruining that scoundrel to-morrow at the trial, for she
hates him and knows she hates him. It’s all a lie—lie upon lie! As long
as I don’t break off with her, she goes on hoping, and she won’t ruin
that monster, knowing how I want to get him out of trouble. If only
that damned verdict would come!”
The words “murderer” and “monster” echoed painfully in Alyosha’s heart.
“But how can she ruin Mitya?” he asked, pondering on Ivan’s words.
“What evidence can she give that would ruin Mitya?”
“You don’t know that yet. She’s got a document in her hands, in Mitya’s
own writing, that proves conclusively that he did murder Fyodor
Pavlovitch.”
“That’s impossible!” cried Alyosha.
“Why is it impossible? I’ve read it myself.”
“There can’t be such a document!” Alyosha repeated warmly. “There can’t
be, because he’s not the murderer. It’s not he murdered father, not
he!”
Ivan suddenly stopped.
“Who is the murderer then, according to you?” he asked, with apparent
coldness. There was even a supercilious note in his voice.
“You know who,” Alyosha pronounced in a low, penetrating voice.
“Who? You mean the myth about that crazy idiot, the epileptic,
Smerdyakov?”
Alyosha suddenly felt himself trembling all over.
“You know who,” broke helplessly from him. He could scarcely breathe.
“Who? Who?” Ivan cried almost fiercely. All his restraint suddenly
vanished.
“I only know one thing,” Alyosha went on, still almost in a whisper,
“_it wasn’t you_ killed father.”
“‘Not you’! What do you mean by ‘not you’?” Ivan was thunderstruck.
“It was not you killed father, not you!” Alyosha repeated firmly.
The silence lasted for half a minute.
“I know I didn’t. Are you raving?” said Ivan, with a pale, distorted
smile. His eyes were riveted on Alyosha. They were standing again under
a lamp-post.
“No, Ivan. You’ve told yourself several times that you are the
murderer.”
“When did I say so? I was in Moscow.... When have I said so?” Ivan
faltered helplessly.
“You’ve said so to yourself many times, when you’ve been alone during
these two dreadful months,” Alyosha went on softly and distinctly as
before. Yet he was speaking now, as it were, not of himself, not of his
own will, but obeying some irresistible command. “You have accused
yourself and have confessed to yourself that you are the murderer and
no one else. But you didn’t do it: you are mistaken: you are not the
murderer. Do you hear? It was not you! God has sent me to tell you so.”
They were both silent. The silence lasted a whole long minute. They
were both standing still, gazing into each other’s eyes. They were both
pale. Suddenly Ivan began trembling all over, and clutched Alyosha’s
shoulder.
“You’ve been in my room!” he whispered hoarsely. “You’ve been there at
night, when he came.... Confess ... have you seen him, have you seen
him?”
“Whom do you mean—Mitya?” Alyosha asked, bewildered.
“Not him, damn the monster!” Ivan shouted, in a frenzy. “Do you know
that he visits me? How did you find out? Speak!”
“Who is _he_! I don’t know whom you are talking about,” Alyosha
faltered, beginning to be alarmed.
“Yes, you do know ... or how could you—? It’s impossible that you don’t
know.”
Suddenly he seemed to check himself. He stood still and seemed to
reflect. A strange grin contorted his lips.
“Brother,” Alyosha began again, in a shaking voice, “I have said this
to you, because you’ll believe my word, I know that. I tell you once