The Brothers Karamazov
that. Such heavy burdens are not for all men. For some they are
impossible. These are my thoughts about it, if you want them so much.
If other men would have to answer for your escape, officers or
soldiers, then I would not have ‘allowed’ you,” smiled Alyosha. “But
they declare—the superintendent of that _étape_ told Ivan himself—that
if it’s well managed there will be no great inquiry, and that they can
get off easily. Of course, bribing is dishonest even in such a case,
but I can’t undertake to judge about it, because if Ivan and Katya
commissioned me to act for you, I know I should go and give bribes. I
must tell you the truth. And so I can’t judge of your own action. But
let me assure you that I shall never condemn you. And it would be a
strange thing if I could judge you in this. Now I think I’ve gone into
everything.”
“But I do condemn myself!” cried Mitya. “I shall escape, that was
settled apart from you; could Mitya Karamazov do anything but run away?
But I shall condemn myself, and I will pray for my sin for ever. That’s
how the Jesuits talk, isn’t it? Just as we are doing?”
“Yes.” Alyosha smiled gently.
“I love you for always telling the whole truth and never hiding
anything,” cried Mitya, with a joyful laugh. “So I’ve caught my Alyosha
being Jesuitical. I must kiss you for that. Now listen to the rest;
I’ll open the other side of my heart to you. This is what I planned and
decided. If I run away, even with money and a passport, and even to
America, I should be cheered up by the thought that I am not running
away for pleasure, not for happiness, but to another exile as bad,
perhaps, as Siberia. It is as bad, Alyosha, it is! I hate that America,
damn it, already. Even though Grusha will be with me. Just look at her;
is she an American? She is Russian, Russian to the marrow of her bones;
she will be homesick for the mother country, and I shall see every hour
that she is suffering for my sake, that she has taken up that cross for
me. And what harm has she done? And how shall I, too, put up with the
rabble out there, though they may be better than I, every one of them?
I hate that America already! And though they may be wonderful at
machinery, every one of them, damn them, they are not of my soul. I
love Russia, Alyosha, I love the Russian God, though I am a scoundrel
myself. I shall choke there!” he exclaimed, his eyes suddenly flashing.
His voice was trembling with tears. “So this is what I’ve decided,
Alyosha, listen,” he began again, mastering his emotion. “As soon as I
arrive there with Grusha, we will set to work at once on the land, in
solitude, somewhere very remote, with wild bears. There must be some
remote parts even there. I am told there are still Redskins there,
somewhere, on the edge of the horizon. So to the country of the _Last
of the Mohicans_, and there we’ll tackle the grammar at once, Grusha
and I. Work and grammar—that’s how we’ll spend three years. And by that
time we shall speak English like any Englishman. And as soon as we’ve
learnt it—good-by to America! We’ll run here to Russia as American
citizens. Don’t be uneasy—we would not come to this little town. We’d
hide somewhere, a long way off, in the north or in the south. I shall
be changed by that time, and she will, too, in America. The doctors
shall make me some sort of wart on my face—what’s the use of their
being so mechanical!—or else I’ll put out one eye, let my beard grow a
yard, and I shall turn gray, fretting for Russia. I dare say they won’t
recognize us. And if they do, let them send us to Siberia. I don’t
care. It will show it’s our fate. We’ll work on the land here, too,
somewhere in the wilds, and I’ll make up as an American all my life.
But we shall die on our own soil. That’s my plan, and it shan’t be
altered. Do you approve?”
“Yes,” said Alyosha, not wanting to contradict him. Mitya paused for a
minute and said suddenly:
“And how they worked it up at the trial! Didn’t they work it up!”
“If they had not, you would have been convicted just the same,” said
Alyosha, with a sigh.
“Yes, people are sick of me here! God bless them, but it’s hard,” Mitya
moaned miserably. Again there was silence for a minute.
“Alyosha, put me out of my misery at once!” he exclaimed suddenly.
“Tell me, is she coming now, or not? Tell me? What did she say? How did
she say it?”
“She said she would come, but I don’t know whether she will come
to-day. It’s hard for her, you know,” Alyosha looked timidly at his
brother.
“I should think it is hard for her! Alyosha, it will drive me out of my
mind. Grusha keeps looking at me. She understands. My God, calm my
heart: what is it I want? I want Katya! Do I understand what I want?
It’s the headstrong, evil Karamazov spirit! No, I am not fit for
suffering. I am a scoundrel, that’s all one can say.”
“Here she is!” cried Alyosha.
At that instant Katya appeared in the doorway. For a moment she stood
still, gazing at Mitya with a dazed expression. He leapt impulsively to
his feet, and a scared look came into his face. He turned pale, but a
timid, pleading smile appeared on his lips at once, and with an
irresistible impulse he held out both hands to Katya. Seeing it, she
flew impetuously to him. She seized him by the hands, and almost by
force made him sit down on the bed. She sat down beside him, and still
keeping his hands pressed them violently. Several times they both
strove to speak, but stopped short and again gazed speechless with a
strange smile, their eyes fastened on one another. So passed two
minutes.
“Have you forgiven me?” Mitya faltered at last, and at the same moment
turning to Alyosha, his face working with joy, he cried, “Do you hear
what I am asking, do you hear?”
“That’s what I loved you for, that you are generous at heart!” broke
from Katya. “My forgiveness is no good to you, nor yours to me; whether
you forgive me or not, you will always be a sore place in my heart, and
I in yours—so it must be....” She stopped to take breath. “What have I
come for?” she began again with nervous haste: “to embrace your feet,
to press your hands like this, till it hurts—you remember how in Moscow
I used to squeeze them—to tell you again that you are my god, my joy,
to tell you that I love you madly,” she moaned in anguish, and suddenly
pressed his hand greedily to her lips. Tears streamed from her eyes.
Alyosha stood speechless and confounded; he had never expected what he
was seeing.
“Love is over, Mitya!” Katya began again, “but the past is painfully
dear to me. Know that you will always be so. But now let what might
have been come true for one minute,” she faltered, with a drawn smile,
looking into his face joyfully again. “You love another woman, and I
love another man, and yet I shall love you for ever, and you will love
me; do you know that? Do you hear? Love me, love me all your life!” she
cried, with a quiver almost of menace in her voice.
“I shall love you, and ... do you know, Katya,” Mitya began, drawing a
deep breath at each word, “do you know, five days ago, that same
evening, I loved you.... When you fell down and were carried out ...
All my life! So it will be, so it will always be—”
So they murmured to one another frantic words, almost meaningless,
perhaps not even true, but at that moment it was all true, and they
both believed what they said implicitly.
“Katya,” cried Mitya suddenly, “do you believe I murdered him? I know
you don’t believe it now, but then ... when you gave evidence....
Surely, surely you did not believe it!”
“I did not believe it even then. I’ve never believed it. I hated you,
and for a moment I persuaded myself. While I was giving evidence I
persuaded myself and believed it, but when I’d finished speaking I left
off believing it at once. Don’t doubt that! I have forgotten that I
came here to punish myself,” she said, with a new expression in her
voice, quite unlike the loving tones of a moment before.
“Woman, yours is a heavy burden,” broke, as it were, involuntarily from
Mitya.
“Let me go,” she whispered. “I’ll come again. It’s more than I can bear
now.”
She was getting up from her place, but suddenly uttered a loud scream
and staggered back. Grushenka walked suddenly and noiselessly into the
room. No one had expected her. Katya moved swiftly to the door, but
when she reached Grushenka, she stopped suddenly, turned as white as
chalk and moaned softly, almost in a whisper:
“Forgive me!”
Grushenka stared at her and, pausing for an instant, in a vindictive,
venomous voice, answered:
“We are full of hatred, my girl, you and I! We are both full of hatred!
As though we could forgive one another! Save him, and I’ll worship you
all my life.”
“You won’t forgive her!” cried Mitya, with frantic reproach.
“Don’t be anxious, I’ll save him for you!” Katya whispered rapidly, and
she ran out of the room.
“And you could refuse to forgive her when she begged your forgiveness
herself?” Mitya exclaimed bitterly again.
“Mitya, don’t dare to blame her; you have no right to!” Alyosha cried
hotly.
“Her proud lips spoke, not her heart,” Grushenka brought out in a tone
of disgust. “If she saves you I’ll forgive her everything—”
She stopped speaking, as though suppressing something. She could not
yet recover herself. She had come in, as appeared afterwards,
accidentally, with no suspicion of what she would meet.
“Alyosha, run after her!” Mitya cried to his brother; “tell her ... I
don’t know ... don’t let her go away like this!”
“I’ll come to you again at nightfall,” said Alyosha, and he ran after
Katya. He overtook her outside the hospital grounds. She was walking
fast, but as soon as Alyosha caught her up she said quickly:
“No, before that woman I can’t punish myself! I asked her forgiveness
because I wanted to punish myself to the bitter end. She would not
forgive me.... I like her for that!” she added, in an unnatural voice,
and her eyes flashed with fierce resentment.
“My brother did not expect this in the least,” muttered Alyosha. “He
was sure she would not come—”
“No doubt. Let us leave that,” she snapped. “Listen: I can’t go with
you to the funeral now. I’ve sent them flowers. I think they still have
money. If necessary, tell them I’ll never abandon them.... Now leave
me, leave me, please. You are late as it is—the bells are ringing for
the service.... Leave me, please!”
Chapter III.
Ilusha’s Funeral. The Speech At The Stone
He really was late. They had waited for him and had already decided to
bear the pretty flower-decked little coffin to the church without him.
It was the coffin of poor little Ilusha. He had died two days after
Mitya was sentenced. At the gate of the house Alyosha was met by the
shouts of the boys, Ilusha’s schoolfellows. They had all been
impatiently expecting him and were glad that he had come at last. There
were about twelve of them, they all had their school-bags or satchels
on their shoulders. “Father will cry, be with father,” Ilusha had told
them as he lay dying, and the boys remembered it. Kolya Krassotkin was
the foremost of them.
“How glad I am you’ve come, Karamazov!” he cried, holding out his hand
to Alyosha. “It’s awful here. It’s really horrible to see it. Snegiryov
is not drunk, we know for a fact he’s had nothing to drink to-day, but
he seems as if he were drunk ... I am always manly, but this is awful.
Karamazov, if I am not keeping you, one question before you go in?”
“What is it, Kolya?” said Alyosha.
“Is your brother innocent or guilty? Was it he killed your father or
was it the valet? As you say, so it will be. I haven’t slept for the
last four nights for thinking of it.”
“The valet killed him, my brother is innocent,” answered Alyosha.
“That’s what I said,” cried Smurov.