The Brothers Karamazov
not screaming. It’s I am screaming. Forgive your mamma; but I am
delighted, delighted, delighted! Did you notice, Alexey Fyodorovitch,
how young, how young Ivan Fyodorovitch was just now when he went out,
when he said all that and went out? I thought he was so learned, such a
_savant_, and all of a sudden he behaved so warmly, openly, and
youthfully, with such youthful inexperience, and it was all so fine,
like you.... And the way he repeated that German verse, it was just
like you! But I must fly, I must fly! Alexey Fyodorovitch, make haste
to carry out her commission, and then make haste back. Lise, do you
want anything now? For mercy’s sake, don’t keep Alexey Fyodorovitch a
minute. He will come back to you at once.”
Madame Hohlakov at last ran off. Before leaving, Alyosha would have
opened the door to see Lise.
“On no account,” cried Lise. “On no account now. Speak through the
door. How have you come to be an angel? That’s the only thing I want to
know.”
“For an awful piece of stupidity, Lise! Good-by!”
“Don’t dare to go away like that!” Lise was beginning.
“Lise, I have a real sorrow! I’ll be back directly, but I have a great,
great sorrow!”
And he ran out of the room.
Chapter VI.
A Laceration In The Cottage
He certainly was really grieved in a way he had seldom been before. He
had rushed in like a fool, and meddled in what? In a love-affair. “But
what do I know about it? What can I tell about such things?” he
repeated to himself for the hundredth time, flushing crimson. “Oh,
being ashamed would be nothing; shame is only the punishment I deserve.
The trouble is I shall certainly have caused more unhappiness.... And
Father Zossima sent me to reconcile and bring them together. Is this
the way to bring them together?” Then he suddenly remembered how he had
tried to join their hands, and he felt fearfully ashamed again. “Though
I acted quite sincerely, I must be more sensible in the future,” he
concluded suddenly, and did not even smile at his conclusion.
Katerina Ivanovna’s commission took him to Lake Street, and his brother
Dmitri lived close by, in a turning out of Lake Street. Alyosha decided
to go to him in any case before going to the captain, though he had a
presentiment that he would not find his brother. He suspected that he
would intentionally keep out of his way now, but he must find him
anyhow. Time was passing: the thought of his dying elder had not left
Alyosha for one minute from the time he set off from the monastery.
There was one point which interested him particularly about Katerina
Ivanovna’s commission; when she had mentioned the captain’s son, the
little schoolboy who had run beside his father crying, the idea had at
once struck Alyosha that this must be the schoolboy who had bitten his
finger when he, Alyosha, asked him what he had done to hurt him. Now
Alyosha felt practically certain of this, though he could not have said
why. Thinking of another subject was a relief, and he resolved to think
no more about the “mischief” he had done, and not to torture himself
with remorse, but to do what he had to do, let come what would. At that
thought he was completely comforted. Turning to the street where Dmitri
lodged, he felt hungry, and taking out of his pocket the roll he had
brought from his father’s, he ate it. It made him feel stronger.
Dmitri was not at home. The people of the house, an old cabinet-maker,
his son, and his old wife, looked with positive suspicion at Alyosha.
“He hasn’t slept here for the last three nights. Maybe he has gone
away,” the old man said in answer to Alyosha’s persistent inquiries.
Alyosha saw that he was answering in accordance with instructions. When
he asked whether he were not at Grushenka’s or in hiding at Foma’s
(Alyosha spoke so freely on purpose), all three looked at him in alarm.
“They are fond of him, they are doing their best for him,” thought
Alyosha. “That’s good.”
At last he found the house in Lake Street. It was a decrepit little
house, sunk on one side, with three windows looking into the street,
and with a muddy yard, in the middle of which stood a solitary cow. He
crossed the yard and found the door opening into the passage. On the
left of the passage lived the old woman of the house with her old
daughter. Both seemed to be deaf. In answer to his repeated inquiry for
the captain, one of them at last understood that he was asking for
their lodgers, and pointed to a door across the passage. The captain’s
lodging turned out to be a simple cottage room. Alyosha had his hand on
the iron latch to open the door, when he was struck by the strange hush
within. Yet he knew from Katerina Ivanovna’s words that the man had a
family. “Either they are all asleep or perhaps they have heard me
coming and are waiting for me to open the door. I’d better knock
first,” and he knocked. An answer came, but not at once, after an
interval of perhaps ten seconds.
“Who’s there?” shouted some one in a loud and very angry voice.
Then Alyosha opened the door and crossed the threshold. He found
himself in a regular peasant’s room. Though it was large, it was
cumbered up with domestic belongings of all sorts, and there were
several people in it. On the left was a large Russian stove. From the
stove to the window on the left was a string running across the room,
and on it there were rags hanging. There was a bedstead against the
wall on each side, right and left, covered with knitted quilts. On the
one on the left was a pyramid of four print-covered pillows, each
smaller than the one beneath. On the other there was only one very
small pillow. The opposite corner was screened off by a curtain or a
sheet hung on a string. Behind this curtain could be seen a bed made up
on a bench and a chair. The rough square table of plain wood had been
moved into the middle window. The three windows, which consisted each
of four tiny greenish mildewy panes, gave little light, and were close
shut, so that the room was not very light and rather stuffy. On the
table was a frying-pan with the remains of some fried eggs, a
half-eaten piece of bread, and a small bottle with a few drops of
vodka.
A woman of genteel appearance, wearing a cotton gown, was sitting on a
chair by the bed on the left. Her face was thin and yellow, and her
sunken cheeks betrayed at the first glance that she was ill. But what
struck Alyosha most was the expression in the poor woman’s eyes—a look
of surprised inquiry and yet of haughty pride. And while he was talking
to her husband, her big brown eyes moved from one speaker to the other
with the same haughty and questioning expression. Beside her at the
window stood a young girl, rather plain, with scanty reddish hair,
poorly but very neatly dressed. She looked disdainfully at Alyosha as
he came in. Beside the other bed was sitting another female figure. She
was a very sad sight, a young girl of about twenty, but hunchback and
crippled “with withered legs,” as Alyosha was told afterwards. Her
crutches stood in the corner close by. The strikingly beautiful and
gentle eyes of this poor girl looked with mild serenity at Alyosha. A
man of forty-five was sitting at the table, finishing the fried eggs.
He was spare, small and weakly built. He had reddish hair and a scanty
light-colored beard, very much like a wisp of tow (this comparison and
the phrase “a wisp of tow” flashed at once into Alyosha’s mind for some
reason, he remembered it afterwards). It was obviously this gentleman
who had shouted to him, as there was no other man in the room. But when
Alyosha went in, he leapt up from the bench on which he was sitting,
and, hastily wiping his mouth with a ragged napkin, darted up to
Alyosha.
“It’s a monk come to beg for the monastery. A nice place to come to!”
the girl standing in the left corner said aloud. The man spun round
instantly towards her and answered her in an excited and breaking
voice:
“No, Varvara, you are wrong. Allow me to ask,” he turned again to
Alyosha, “what has brought you to—our retreat?”
Alyosha looked attentively at him. It was the first time he had seen
him. There was something angular, flurried and irritable about him.
Though he had obviously just been drinking, he was not drunk. There was
extraordinary impudence in his expression, and yet, strange to say, at
the same time there was fear. He looked like a man who had long been
kept in subjection and had submitted to it, and now had suddenly turned
and was trying to assert himself. Or, better still, like a man who
wants dreadfully to hit you but is horribly afraid you will hit him. In
his words and in the intonation of his shrill voice there was a sort of
crazy humor, at times spiteful and at times cringing, and continually
shifting from one tone to another. The question about “our retreat” he
had asked as it were quivering all over, rolling his eyes, and skipping
up so close to Alyosha that he instinctively drew back a step. He was
dressed in a very shabby dark cotton coat, patched and spotted. He wore
checked trousers of an extremely light color, long out of fashion, and
of very thin material. They were so crumpled and so short that he
looked as though he had grown out of them like a boy.
“I am Alexey Karamazov,” Alyosha began in reply.
“I quite understand that, sir,” the gentleman snapped out at once to
assure him that he knew who he was already. “I am Captain Snegiryov,
sir, but I am still desirous to know precisely what has led you—”
“Oh, I’ve come for nothing special. I wanted to have a word with you—if
only you allow me.”
“In that case, here is a chair, sir; kindly be seated. That’s what they
used to say in the old comedies, ‘kindly be seated,’” and with a rapid
gesture he seized an empty chair (it was a rough wooden chair, not
upholstered) and set it for him almost in the middle of the room; then,
taking another similar chair for himself, he sat down facing Alyosha,
so close to him that their knees almost touched.
“Nikolay Ilyitch Snegiryov, sir, formerly a captain in the Russian
infantry, put to shame for his vices, but still a captain. Though I
might not be one now for the way I talk; for the last half of my life
I’ve learnt to say ‘sir.’ It’s a word you use when you’ve come down in
the world.”
“That’s very true,” smiled Alyosha. “But is it used involuntarily or on
purpose?”
“As God’s above, it’s involuntary, and I usen’t to use it! I didn’t use
the word ‘sir’ all my life, but as soon as I sank into low water I
began to say ‘sir.’ It’s the work of a higher power. I see you are
interested in contemporary questions, but how can I have excited your
curiosity, living as I do in surroundings impossible for the exercise
of hospitality?”
“I’ve come—about that business.”
“About what business?” the captain interrupted impatiently.
“About your meeting with my brother Dmitri Fyodorovitch,” Alyosha
blurted out awkwardly.
“What meeting, sir? You don’t mean that meeting? About my ‘wisp of
tow,’ then?” He moved closer so that his knees positively knocked
against Alyosha. His lips were strangely compressed like a thread.
“What wisp of tow?” muttered Alyosha.
“He is come to complain of me, father!” cried a voice familiar to
Alyosha—the voice of the schoolboy—from behind the curtain. “I bit his
finger just now.” The curtain was pulled, and Alyosha saw his assailant
lying on a little bed made up on the bench and the chair in the corner
under the ikons. The boy lay covered by his coat and an old wadded
quilt. He was evidently unwell, and, judging by his glittering eyes, he
was in a fever. He looked at Alyosha without fear, as though he felt he
was at home and could not be touched.
“What! Did he bite your finger?” The captain jumped up from his chair.
“Was it your finger he bit?”