The Brothers Karamazov
She slept either in the church porch or climbed over a hurdle (there
are many hurdles instead of fences to this day in our town) into a
kitchen garden. She used at least once a week to turn up “at home,”
that is at the house of her father’s former employers, and in the
winter went there every night, and slept either in the passage or the
cowhouse. People were amazed that she could stand such a life, but she
was accustomed to it, and, although she was so tiny, she was of a
robust constitution. Some of the townspeople declared that she did all
this only from pride, but that is hardly credible. She could hardly
speak, and only from time to time uttered an inarticulate grunt. How
could she have been proud?
It happened one clear, warm, moonlight night in September (many years
ago) five or six drunken revelers were returning from the club at a
very late hour, according to our provincial notions. They passed
through the “back-way,” which led between the back gardens of the
houses, with hurdles on either side. This way leads out on to the
bridge over the long, stinking pool which we were accustomed to call a
river. Among the nettles and burdocks under the hurdle our revelers saw
Lizaveta asleep. They stopped to look at her, laughing, and began
jesting with unbridled licentiousness. It occurred to one young
gentleman to make the whimsical inquiry whether any one could possibly
look upon such an animal as a woman, and so forth.... They all
pronounced with lofty repugnance that it was impossible. But Fyodor
Pavlovitch, who was among them, sprang forward and declared that it was
by no means impossible, and that, indeed, there was a certain piquancy
about it, and so on.... It is true that at that time he was overdoing
his part as a buffoon. He liked to put himself forward and entertain
the company, ostensibly on equal terms, of course, though in reality he
was on a servile footing with them. It was just at the time when he had
received the news of his first wife’s death in Petersburg, and, with
crape upon his hat, was drinking and behaving so shamelessly that even
the most reckless among us were shocked at the sight of him. The
revelers, of course, laughed at this unexpected opinion; and one of
them even began challenging him to act upon it. The others repelled the
idea even more emphatically, although still with the utmost hilarity,
and at last they went on their way. Later on, Fyodor Pavlovitch swore
that he had gone with them, and perhaps it was so, no one knows for
certain, and no one ever knew. But five or six months later, all the
town was talking, with intense and sincere indignation, of Lizaveta’s
condition, and trying to find out who was the miscreant who had wronged
her. Then suddenly a terrible rumor was all over the town that this
miscreant was no other than Fyodor Pavlovitch. Who set the rumor going?
Of that drunken band five had left the town and the only one still
among us was an elderly and much respected civil councilor, the father
of grown-up daughters, who could hardly have spread the tale, even if
there had been any foundation for it. But rumor pointed straight at
Fyodor Pavlovitch, and persisted in pointing at him. Of course this was
no great grievance to him: he would not have troubled to contradict a
set of tradespeople. In those days he was proud, and did not condescend
to talk except in his own circle of the officials and nobles, whom he
entertained so well.
At the time, Grigory stood up for his master vigorously. He provoked
quarrels and altercations in defense of him and succeeded in bringing
some people round to his side. “It’s the wench’s own fault,” he
asserted, and the culprit was Karp, a dangerous convict, who had
escaped from prison and whose name was well known to us, as he had
hidden in our town. This conjecture sounded plausible, for it was
remembered that Karp had been in the neighborhood just at that time in
the autumn, and had robbed three people. But this affair and all the
talk about it did not estrange popular sympathy from the poor idiot.
She was better looked after than ever. A well-to-do merchant’s widow
named Kondratyev arranged to take her into her house at the end of
April, meaning not to let her go out until after the confinement. They
kept a constant watch over her, but in spite of their vigilance she
escaped on the very last day, and made her way into Fyodor Pavlovitch’s
garden. How, in her condition, she managed to climb over the high,
strong fence remained a mystery. Some maintained that she must have
been lifted over by somebody; others hinted at something more uncanny.
The most likely explanation is that it happened naturally—that
Lizaveta, accustomed to clambering over hurdles to sleep in gardens,
had somehow managed to climb this fence, in spite of her condition, and
had leapt down, injuring herself.
Grigory rushed to Marfa and sent her to Lizaveta, while he ran to fetch
an old midwife who lived close by. They saved the baby, but Lizaveta
died at dawn. Grigory took the baby, brought it home, and making his
wife sit down, put it on her lap. “A child of God—an orphan is akin to
all,” he said, “and to us above others. Our little lost one has sent us
this, who has come from the devil’s son and a holy innocent. Nurse him
and weep no more.”
So Marfa brought up the child. He was christened Pavel, to which people
were not slow in adding Fyodorovitch (son of Fyodor). Fyodor Pavlovitch
did not object to any of this, and thought it amusing, though he
persisted vigorously in denying his responsibility. The townspeople
were pleased at his adopting the foundling. Later on, Fyodor Pavlovitch
invented a surname for the child, calling him Smerdyakov, after his
mother’s nickname.
So this Smerdyakov became Fyodor Pavlovitch’s second servant, and was
living in the lodge with Grigory and Marfa at the time our story
begins. He was employed as cook. I ought to say something of this
Smerdyakov, but I am ashamed of keeping my readers’ attention so long
occupied with these common menials, and I will go back to my story,
hoping to say more of Smerdyakov in the course of it.
Chapter III.
The Confession Of A Passionate Heart—In Verse
Alyosha remained for some time irresolute after hearing the command his
father shouted to him from the carriage. But in spite of his uneasiness
he did not stand still. That was not his way. He went at once to the
kitchen to find out what his father had been doing above. Then he set
off, trusting that on the way he would find some answer to the doubt
tormenting him. I hasten to add that his father’s shouts, commanding
him to return home “with his mattress and pillow” did not frighten him
in the least. He understood perfectly that those peremptory shouts were
merely “a flourish” to produce an effect. In the same way a tradesman
in our town who was celebrating his name-day with a party of friends,
getting angry at being refused more vodka, smashed up his own crockery
and furniture and tore his own and his wife’s clothes, and finally
broke his windows, all for the sake of effect. Next day, of course,
when he was sober, he regretted the broken cups and saucers. Alyosha
knew that his father would let him go back to the monastery next day,
possibly even that evening. Moreover, he was fully persuaded that his
father might hurt any one else, but would not hurt him. Alyosha was
certain that no one in the whole world ever would want to hurt him,
and, what is more, he knew that no one could hurt him. This was for him
an axiom, assumed once for all without question, and he went his way
without hesitation, relying on it.
But at that moment an anxiety of a different sort disturbed him, and
worried him the more because he could not formulate it. It was the fear
of a woman, of Katerina Ivanovna, who had so urgently entreated him in
the note handed to him by Madame Hohlakov to come and see her about
something. This request and the necessity of going had at once aroused
an uneasy feeling in his heart, and this feeling had grown more and
more painful all the morning in spite of the scenes at the hermitage
and at the Father Superior’s. He was not uneasy because he did not know
what she would speak of and what he must answer. And he was not afraid
of her simply as a woman. Though he knew little of women, he had spent
his life, from early childhood till he entered the monastery, entirely
with women. He was afraid of that woman, Katerina Ivanovna. He had been
afraid of her from the first time he saw her. He had only seen her two
or three times, and had only chanced to say a few words to her. He
thought of her as a beautiful, proud, imperious girl. It was not her
beauty which troubled him, but something else. And the vagueness of his
apprehension increased the apprehension itself. The girl’s aims were of
the noblest, he knew that. She was trying to save his brother Dmitri
simply through generosity, though he had already behaved badly to her.
Yet, although Alyosha recognized and did justice to all these fine and
generous sentiments, a shiver began to run down his back as soon as he
drew near her house.
He reflected that he would not find Ivan, who was so intimate a friend,
with her, for Ivan was certainly now with his father. Dmitri he was
even more certain not to find there, and he had a foreboding of the
reason. And so his conversation would be with her alone. He had a great
longing to run and see his brother Dmitri before that fateful
interview. Without showing him the letter, he could talk to him about
it. But Dmitri lived a long way off, and he was sure to be away from
home too. Standing still for a minute, he reached a final decision.
Crossing himself with a rapid and accustomed gesture, and at once
smiling, he turned resolutely in the direction of his terrible lady.
He knew her house. If he went by the High Street and then across the
market-place, it was a long way round. Though our town is small, it is
scattered, and the houses are far apart. And meanwhile his father was
expecting him, and perhaps had not yet forgotten his command. He might
be unreasonable, and so he had to make haste to get there and back. So
he decided to take a short cut by the back-way, for he knew every inch
of the ground. This meant skirting fences, climbing over hurdles, and
crossing other people’s back-yards, where every one he met knew him and
greeted him. In this way he could reach the High Street in half the
time.
He had to pass the garden adjoining his father’s, and belonging to a
little tumbledown house with four windows. The owner of this house, as
Alyosha knew, was a bedridden old woman, living with her daughter, who
had been a genteel maid-servant in generals’ families in Petersburg.
Now she had been at home a year, looking after her sick mother. She
always dressed up in fine clothes, though her old mother and she had
sunk into such poverty that they went every day to Fyodor Pavlovitch’s
kitchen for soup and bread, which Marfa gave readily. Yet, though the
young woman came up for soup, she had never sold any of her dresses,
and one of these even had a long train—a fact which Alyosha had learned
from Rakitin, who always knew everything that was going on in the town.
He had forgotten it as soon as he heard it, but now, on reaching the
garden, he remembered the dress with the train, raised his head, which
had been bowed in thought, and came upon something quite unexpected.
Over the hurdle in the garden, Dmitri, mounted on something, was
leaning forward, gesticulating violently, beckoning to him, obviously
afraid to utter a word for fear of being overheard. Alyosha ran up to
the hurdle.
“It’s a good thing you looked up. I was nearly shouting to you,” Mitya
said in a joyful, hurried whisper. “Climb in here quickly! How splendid