The Brothers Karamazov
“foolish” ideas into words. For his opinion had struck him as awfully
foolish immediately after he had uttered it. He felt ashamed too of
having given so confident an opinion about a woman. It was with the
more amazement that he felt now, at the first glance at Katerina
Ivanovna as she ran in to him, that he had perhaps been utterly
mistaken. This time her face was beaming with spontaneous good-natured
kindliness, and direct warm-hearted sincerity. The “pride and
haughtiness,” which had struck Alyosha so much before, was only
betrayed now in a frank, generous energy and a sort of bright, strong
faith in herself. Alyosha realized at the first glance, at the first
word, that all the tragedy of her position in relation to the man she
loved so dearly was no secret to her; that she perhaps already knew
everything, positively everything. And yet, in spite of that, there was
such brightness in her face, such faith in the future. Alyosha felt at
once that he had gravely wronged her in his thoughts. He was conquered
and captivated immediately. Besides all this, he noticed at her first
words that she was in great excitement, an excitement perhaps quite
exceptional and almost approaching ecstasy.
“I was so eager to see you, because I can learn from you the whole
truth—from you and no one else.”
“I have come,” muttered Alyosha confusedly, “I—he sent me.”
“Ah, he sent you! I foresaw that. Now I know everything—everything!”
cried Katerina Ivanovna, her eyes flashing. “Wait a moment, Alexey
Fyodorovitch, I’ll tell you why I’ve been so longing to see you. You
see, I know perhaps far more than you do yourself, and there’s no need
for you to tell me anything. I’ll tell you what I want from you. I want
to know your own last impression of him. I want you to tell me most
directly, plainly, coarsely even (oh, as coarsely as you like!), what
you thought of him just now and of his position after your meeting with
him to-day. That will perhaps be better than if I had a personal
explanation with him, as he does not want to come to me. Do you
understand what I want from you? Now, tell me simply, tell me every
word of the message he sent you with (I knew he would send you).”
“He told me to give you his compliments—and to say that he would never
come again—but to give you his compliments.”
“His compliments? Was that what he said—his own expression?”
“Yes.”
“Accidentally perhaps he made a mistake in the word, perhaps he did not
use the right word?”
“No; he told me precisely to repeat that word. He begged me two or
three times not to forget to say so.”
Katerina Ivanovna flushed hotly.
“Help me now, Alexey Fyodorovitch. Now I really need your help. I’ll
tell you what I think, and you must simply say whether it’s right or
not. Listen! If he had sent me his compliments in passing, without
insisting on your repeating the words, without emphasizing them, that
would be the end of everything! But if he particularly insisted on
those words, if he particularly told you not to forget to repeat them
to me, then perhaps he was in excitement, beside himself. He had made
his decision and was frightened at it. He wasn’t walking away from me
with a resolute step, but leaping headlong. The emphasis on that phrase
may have been simply bravado.”
“Yes, yes!” cried Alyosha warmly. “I believe that is it.”
“And, if so, he’s not altogether lost. I can still save him. Stay! Did
he not tell you anything about money—about three thousand roubles?”
“He did speak about it, and it’s that more than anything that’s
crushing him. He said he had lost his honor and that nothing matters
now,” Alyosha answered warmly, feeling a rush of hope in his heart and
believing that there really might be a way of escape and salvation for
his brother. “But do you know about the money?” he added, and suddenly
broke off.
“I’ve known of it a long time; I telegraphed to Moscow to inquire, and
heard long ago that the money had not arrived. He hadn’t sent the
money, but I said nothing. Last week I learnt that he was still in need
of money. My only object in all this was that he should know to whom to
turn, and who was his true friend. No, he won’t recognize that I am his
truest friend; he won’t know me, and looks on me merely as a woman.
I’ve been tormented all the week, trying to think how to prevent him
from being ashamed to face me because he spent that three thousand. Let
him feel ashamed of himself, let him be ashamed of other people’s
knowing, but not of my knowing. He can tell God everything without
shame. Why is it he still does not understand how much I am ready to
bear for his sake? Why, why doesn’t he know me? How dare he not know me
after all that has happened? I want to save him for ever. Let him
forget me as his betrothed. And here he fears that he is dishonored in
my eyes. Why, he wasn’t afraid to be open with you, Alexey
Fyodorovitch. How is it that I don’t deserve the same?”
The last words she uttered in tears. Tears gushed from her eyes.
“I must tell you,” Alyosha began, his voice trembling too, “what
happened just now between him and my father.”
And he described the whole scene, how Dmitri had sent him to get the
money, how he had broken in, knocked his father down, and after that
had again specially and emphatically begged him to take his compliments
and farewell. “He went to that woman,” Alyosha added softly.
“And do you suppose that I can’t put up with that woman? Does he think
I can’t? But he won’t marry her,” she suddenly laughed nervously.
“Could such a passion last for ever in a Karamazov? It’s passion, not
love. He won’t marry her because she won’t marry him.” Again Katerina
Ivanovna laughed strangely.
“He may marry her,” said Alyosha mournfully, looking down.
“He won’t marry her, I tell you. That girl is an angel. Do you know
that? Do you know that?” Katerina Ivanovna exclaimed suddenly with
extraordinary warmth. “She is one of the most fantastic of fantastic
creatures. I know how bewitching she is, but I know too that she is
kind, firm and noble. Why do you look at me like that, Alexey
Fyodorovitch? Perhaps you are wondering at my words, perhaps you don’t
believe me? Agrafena Alexandrovna, my angel!” she cried suddenly to
some one, peeping into the next room, “come in to us. This is a friend.
This is Alyosha. He knows all about our affairs. Show yourself to him.”
“I’ve only been waiting behind the curtain for you to call me,” said a
soft, one might even say sugary, feminine voice.
The portière was raised and Grushenka herself, smiling and beaming,
came up to the table. A violent revulsion passed over Alyosha. He fixed
his eyes on her and could not take them off. Here she was, that awful
woman, the “beast,” as Ivan had called her half an hour before. And yet
one would have thought the creature standing before him most simple and
ordinary, a good-natured, kind woman, handsome certainly, but so like
other handsome ordinary women! It is true she was very, very
good-looking with that Russian beauty so passionately loved by many
men. She was a rather tall woman, though a little shorter than Katerina
Ivanovna, who was exceptionally tall. She had a full figure, with soft,
as it were, noiseless, movements, softened to a peculiar
over-sweetness, like her voice. She moved, not like Katerina Ivanovna,
with a vigorous, bold step, but noiselessly. Her feet made absolutely
no sound on the floor. She sank softly into a low chair, softly
rustling her sumptuous black silk dress, and delicately nestling her
milk-white neck and broad shoulders in a costly cashmere shawl. She was
twenty-two years old, and her face looked exactly that age. She was
very white in the face, with a pale pink tint on her cheeks. The
modeling of her face might be said to be too broad, and the lower jaw
was set a trifle forward. Her upper lip was thin, but the slightly
prominent lower lip was at least twice as full, and looked pouting. But
her magnificent, abundant dark brown hair, her sable-colored eyebrows
and charming gray-blue eyes with their long lashes would have made the
most indifferent person, meeting her casually in a crowd in the street,
stop at the sight of her face and remember it long after. What struck
Alyosha most in that face was its expression of childlike good nature.
There was a childlike look in her eyes, a look of childish delight. She
came up to the table, beaming with delight and seeming to expect
something with childish, impatient, and confiding curiosity. The light
in her eyes gladdened the soul—Alyosha felt that. There was something
else in her which he could not understand, or would not have been able
to define, and which yet perhaps unconsciously affected him. It was
that softness, that voluptuousness of her bodily movements, that
catlike noiselessness. Yet it was a vigorous, ample body. Under the
shawl could be seen full broad shoulders, a high, still quite girlish
bosom. Her figure suggested the lines of the Venus of Milo, though
already in somewhat exaggerated proportions. That could be divined.
Connoisseurs of Russian beauty could have foretold with certainty that
this fresh, still youthful beauty would lose its harmony by the age of
thirty, would “spread”; that the face would become puffy, and that
wrinkles would very soon appear upon her forehead and round the eyes;
the complexion would grow coarse and red perhaps—in fact, that it was
the beauty of the moment, the fleeting beauty which is so often met
with in Russian women. Alyosha, of course, did not think of this; but
though he was fascinated, yet he wondered with an unpleasant sensation,
and as it were regretfully, why she drawled in that way and could not
speak naturally. She did so evidently feeling there was a charm in the
exaggerated, honeyed modulation of the syllables. It was, of course,
only a bad, underbred habit that showed bad education and a false idea
of good manners. And yet this intonation and manner of speaking
impressed Alyosha as almost incredibly incongruous with the childishly
simple and happy expression of her face, the soft, babyish joy in her
eyes. Katerina Ivanovna at once made her sit down in an arm-chair
facing Alyosha, and ecstatically kissed her several times on her
smiling lips. She seemed quite in love with her.
“This is the first time we’ve met, Alexey Fyodorovitch,” she said
rapturously. “I wanted to know her, to see her. I wanted to go to her,
but I’d no sooner expressed the wish than she came to me. I knew we
should settle everything together—everything. My heart told me so—I was
begged not to take the step, but I foresaw it would be a way out of the
difficulty, and I was not mistaken. Grushenka has explained everything
to me, told me all she means to do. She flew here like an angel of
goodness and brought us peace and joy.”
“You did not disdain me, sweet, excellent young lady,” drawled
Grushenka in her sing-song voice, still with the same charming smile of
delight.
“Don’t dare to speak to me like that, you sorceress, you witch! Disdain
you! Here, I must kiss your lower lip once more. It looks as though it
were swollen, and now it will be more so, and more and more. Look how
she laughs, Alexey Fyodorovitch! It does one’s heart good to see the
angel.”
Alyosha flushed, and faint, imperceptible shivers kept running down
him.
“You make so much of me, dear young lady, and perhaps I am not at all
worthy of your kindness.”
“Not worthy! She’s not worthy of it!” Katerina Ivanovna cried again
with the same warmth. “You know, Alexey Fyodorovitch, we’re fanciful,
we’re self-willed, but proudest of the proud in our little heart. We’re
noble, we’re generous, Alexey Fyodorovitch, let me tell you. We have
only been unfortunate. We were too ready to make every sacrifice for an