The Brothers Karamazov
in his hands except when the Commander made his visits of inspection.
He used to lend it to a trustworthy person, a merchant of our town
called Trifonov, an old widower, with a big beard and gold-rimmed
spectacles. He used to go to the fair, do a profitable business with
the money, and return the whole sum to the colonel, bringing with it a
present from the fair, as well as interest on the loan. But this time
(I heard all about it quite by chance from Trifonov’s son and heir, a
driveling youth and one of the most vicious in the world)—this time, I
say, Trifonov brought nothing back from the fair. The
lieutenant-colonel flew to him. ‘I’ve never received any money from
you, and couldn’t possibly have received any.’ That was all the answer
he got. So now our lieutenant-colonel is confined to the house, with a
towel round his head, while they’re all three busy putting ice on it.
All at once an orderly arrives on the scene with the book and the order
to ‘hand over the battalion money immediately, within two hours.’ He
signed the book (I saw the signature in the book afterwards), stood up,
saying he would put on his uniform, ran to his bedroom, loaded his
double-barreled gun with a service bullet, took the boot off his right
foot, fixed the gun against his chest, and began feeling for the
trigger with his foot. But Agafya, remembering what I had told her, had
her suspicions. She stole up and peeped into the room just in time. She
rushed in, flung herself upon him from behind, threw her arms round
him, and the gun went off, hit the ceiling, but hurt no one. The others
ran in, took away the gun, and held him by the arms. I heard all about
this afterwards. I was at home, it was getting dusk, and I was just
preparing to go out. I had dressed, brushed my hair, scented my
handkerchief, and taken up my cap, when suddenly the door opened, and
facing me in the room stood Katerina Ivanovna.
“It’s strange how things happen sometimes. No one had seen her in the
street, so that no one knew of it in the town. I lodged with two
decrepit old ladies, who looked after me. They were most obliging old
things, ready to do anything for me, and at my request were as silent
afterwards as two cast-iron posts. Of course I grasped the position at
once. She walked in and looked straight at me, her dark eyes
determined, even defiant, but on her lips and round her mouth I saw
uncertainty.
“‘My sister told me,’ she began, ‘that you would give me 4,500 roubles
if I came to you for it—myself. I have come ... give me the money!’
“She couldn’t keep it up. She was breathless, frightened, her voice
failed her, and the corners of her mouth and the lines round it
quivered. Alyosha, are you listening, or are you asleep?”
“Mitya, I know you will tell the whole truth,” said Alyosha in
agitation.
“I am telling it. If I tell the whole truth just as it happened I
shan’t spare myself. My first idea was a—Karamazov one. Once I was
bitten by a centipede, brother, and laid up a fortnight with fever from
it. Well, I felt a centipede biting at my heart then—a noxious insect,
you understand? I looked her up and down. You’ve seen her? She’s a
beauty. But she was beautiful in another way then. At that moment she
was beautiful because she was noble, and I was a scoundrel; she in all
the grandeur of her generosity and sacrifice for her father, and I—a
bug! And, scoundrel as I was, she was altogether at my mercy, body and
soul. She was hemmed in. I tell you frankly, that thought, that
venomous thought, so possessed my heart that it almost swooned with
suspense. It seemed as if there could be no resisting it; as though I
should act like a bug, like a venomous spider, without a spark of pity.
I could scarcely breathe. Understand, I should have gone next day to
ask for her hand, so that it might end honorably, so to speak, and that
nobody would or could know. For though I’m a man of base desires, I’m
honest. And at that very second some voice seemed to whisper in my ear,
‘But when you come to-morrow to make your proposal, that girl won’t
even see you; she’ll order her coachman to kick you out of the yard.
“Publish it through all the town,” she would say, “I’m not afraid of
you.”’ I looked at the young lady, my voice had not deceived me. That
is how it would be, not a doubt of it. I could see from her face now
that I should be turned out of the house. My spite was roused. I longed
to play her the nastiest swinish cad’s trick: to look at her with a
sneer, and on the spot where she stood before me to stun her with a
tone of voice that only a shopman could use.
“‘Four thousand! What do you mean? I was joking. You’ve been counting
your chickens too easily, madam. Two hundred, if you like, with all my
heart. But four thousand is not a sum to throw away on such frivolity.
You’ve put yourself out to no purpose.’
“I should have lost the game, of course. She’d have run away. But it
would have been an infernal revenge. It would have been worth it all.
I’d have howled with regret all the rest of my life, only to have
played that trick. Would you believe it, it has never happened to me
with any other woman, not one, to look at her at such a moment with
hatred. But, on my oath, I looked at her for three seconds, or five
perhaps, with fearful hatred—that hate which is only a hair’s-breadth
from love, from the maddest love!
“I went to the window, put my forehead against the frozen pane, and I
remember the ice burnt my forehead like fire. I did not keep her long,
don’t be afraid. I turned round, went up to the table, opened the
drawer and took out a banknote for five thousand roubles (it was lying
in a French dictionary). Then I showed it her in silence, folded it,
handed it to her, opened the door into the passage, and, stepping back,
made her a deep bow, a most respectful, a most impressive bow, believe
me! She shuddered all over, gazed at me for a second, turned horribly
pale—white as a sheet, in fact—and all at once, not impetuously but
softly, gently, bowed down to my feet—not a boarding-school curtsey,
but a Russian bow, with her forehead to the floor. She jumped up and
ran away. I was wearing my sword. I drew it and nearly stabbed myself
with it on the spot; why, I don’t know. It would have been frightfully
stupid, of course. I suppose it was from delight. Can you understand
that one might kill oneself from delight? But I didn’t stab myself. I
only kissed my sword and put it back in the scabbard—which there was no
need to have told you, by the way. And I fancy that in telling you
about my inner conflict I have laid it on rather thick to glorify
myself. But let it pass, and to hell with all who pry into the human
heart! Well, so much for that ‘adventure’ with Katerina Ivanovna. So
now Ivan knows of it, and you—no one else.”
Dmitri got up, took a step or two in his excitement, pulled out his
handkerchief and mopped his forehead, then sat down again, not in the
same place as before, but on the opposite side, so that Alyosha had to
turn quite round to face him.
Chapter V.
The Confession Of A Passionate Heart—“Heels Up”
“Now,” said Alyosha, “I understand the first half.”
“You understand the first half. That half is a drama, and it was played
out there. The second half is a tragedy, and it is being acted here.”
“And I understand nothing of that second half so far,” said Alyosha.
“And I? Do you suppose I understand it?”
“Stop, Dmitri. There’s one important question. Tell me, you were
betrothed, you are betrothed still?”
“We weren’t betrothed at once, not for three months after that
adventure. The next day I told myself that the incident was closed,
concluded, that there would be no sequel. It seemed to me caddish to
make her an offer. On her side she gave no sign of life for the six
weeks that she remained in the town; except, indeed, for one action.
The day after her visit the maid-servant slipped round with an envelope
addressed to me. I tore it open: it contained the change out of the
banknote. Only four thousand five hundred roubles was needed, but there
was a discount of about two hundred on changing it. She only sent me
about two hundred and sixty. I don’t remember exactly, but not a note,
not a word of explanation. I searched the packet for a pencil
mark—n-nothing! Well, I spent the rest of the money on such an orgy
that the new major was obliged to reprimand me.
“Well, the lieutenant-colonel produced the battalion money, to the
astonishment of every one, for nobody believed that he had the money
untouched. He’d no sooner paid it than he fell ill, took to his bed,
and, three weeks later, softening of the brain set in, and he died five
days afterwards. He was buried with military honors, for he had not had
time to receive his discharge. Ten days after his funeral, Katerina
Ivanovna, with her aunt and sister, went to Moscow. And, behold, on the
very day they went away (I hadn’t seen them, didn’t see them off or
take leave) I received a tiny note, a sheet of thin blue paper, and on
it only one line in pencil: ‘I will write to you. Wait. K.’ And that
was all.
“I’ll explain the rest now, in two words. In Moscow their fortunes
changed with the swiftness of lightning and the unexpectedness of an
Arabian fairy-tale. That general’s widow, their nearest relation,
suddenly lost the two nieces who were her heiresses and
next-of-kin—both died in the same week of small-pox. The old lady,
prostrated with grief, welcomed Katya as a daughter, as her one hope,
clutched at her, altered her will in Katya’s favor. But that concerned
the future. Meanwhile she gave her, for present use, eighty thousand
roubles, as a marriage portion, to do what she liked with. She was an
hysterical woman. I saw something of her in Moscow, later.
“Well, suddenly I received by post four thousand five hundred roubles.
I was speechless with surprise, as you may suppose. Three days later
came the promised letter. I have it with me now. You must read it. She
offers to be my wife, offers herself to me. ‘I love you madly,’ she
says, ‘even if you don’t love me, never mind. Be my husband. Don’t be
afraid. I won’t hamper you in any way. I will be your chattel. I will
be the carpet under your feet. I want to love you for ever. I want to
save you from yourself.’ Alyosha, I am not worthy to repeat those lines
in my vulgar words and in my vulgar tone, my everlastingly vulgar tone,
that I can never cure myself of. That letter stabs me even now. Do you
think I don’t mind—that I don’t mind still? I wrote her an answer at
once, as it was impossible for me to go to Moscow. I wrote to her with
tears. One thing I shall be ashamed of for ever. I referred to her
being rich and having a dowry while I was only a stuck-up beggar! I
mentioned money! I ought to have borne it in silence, but it slipped
from my pen. Then I wrote at once to Ivan, and told him all I could
about it in a letter of six pages, and sent him to her. Why do you look
like that? Why are you staring at me? Yes, Ivan fell in love with her;
he’s in love with her still. I know that. I did a stupid thing, in the
world’s opinion; but perhaps that one stupid thing may be the saving of
us all now. Oo! Don’t you see what a lot she thinks of Ivan, how she
respects him? When she compares us, do you suppose she can love a man
like me, especially after all that has happened here?”
“But I am convinced that she does love a man like you, and not a man
like him.”
“She loves her own _virtue_, not me.” The words broke involuntarily,
and almost malignantly, from Dmitri. He laughed, but a minute later his
eyes gleamed, he flushed crimson and struck the table violently with
his fist.
“I swear, Alyosha,” he cried, with intense and genuine anger at
himself; “you may not believe me, but as God is holy, and as Christ is