The Brothers Karamazov
most intimate friend, who is privileged to give orders in the house.
“Candles ... of course, candles.... Fenya, fetch him a candle.... Well,
you have chosen a moment to bring him!” she exclaimed again, nodding
towards Alyosha, and turning to the looking-glass she began quickly
fastening up her hair with both hands. She seemed displeased.
“Haven’t I managed to please you?” asked Rakitin, instantly almost
offended.
“You frightened me, Rakitin, that’s what it is.” Grushenka turned with
a smile to Alyosha. “Don’t be afraid of me, my dear Alyosha, you cannot
think how glad I am to see you, my unexpected visitor. But you
frightened me, Rakitin, I thought it was Mitya breaking in. You see, I
deceived him just now, I made him promise to believe me and I told him
a lie. I told him that I was going to spend the evening with my old
man, Kuzma Kuzmitch, and should be there till late counting up his
money. I always spend one whole evening a week with him making up his
accounts. We lock ourselves in and he counts on the reckoning beads
while I sit and put things down in the book. I am the only person he
trusts. Mitya believes that I am there, but I came back and have been
sitting locked in here, expecting some news. How was it Fenya let you
in? Fenya, Fenya, run out to the gate, open it and look about whether
the captain is to be seen! Perhaps he is hiding and spying, I am
dreadfully frightened.”
“There’s no one there, Agrafena Alexandrovna, I’ve just looked out, I
keep running to peep through the crack, I am in fear and trembling
myself.”
“Are the shutters fastened, Fenya? And we must draw the curtains—that’s
better!” She drew the heavy curtains herself. “He’d rush in at once if
he saw a light. I am afraid of your brother Mitya to-day, Alyosha.”
Grushenka spoke aloud, and, though she was alarmed, she seemed very
happy about something.
“Why are you so afraid of Mitya to-day?” inquired Rakitin. “I should
have thought you were not timid with him, you’d twist him round your
little finger.”
“I tell you, I am expecting news, priceless news, so I don’t want Mitya
at all. And he didn’t believe, I feel he didn’t, that I should stay at
Kuzma Kuzmitch’s. He must be in his ambush now, behind Fyodor
Pavlovitch’s, in the garden, watching for me. And if he’s there, he
won’t come here, so much the better! But I really have been to Kuzma
Kuzmitch’s, Mitya escorted me there. I told him I should stay there
till midnight, and I asked him to be sure to come at midnight to fetch
me home. He went away and I sat ten minutes with Kuzma Kuzmitch and
came back here again. Ugh, I was afraid, I ran for fear of meeting
him.”
“And why are you so dressed up? What a curious cap you’ve got on!”
“How curious you are yourself, Rakitin! I tell you, I am expecting a
message. If the message comes, I shall fly, I shall gallop away and you
will see no more of me. That’s why I am dressed up, so as to be ready.”
“And where are you flying to?”
“If you know too much, you’ll get old too soon.”
“Upon my word! You are highly delighted ... I’ve never seen you like
this before. You are dressed up as if you were going to a ball.”
Rakitin looked her up and down.
“Much you know about balls.”
“And do you know much about them?”
“I have seen a ball. The year before last, Kuzma Kuzmitch’s son was
married and I looked on from the gallery. Do you suppose I want to be
talking to you, Rakitin, while a prince like this is standing here.
Such a visitor! Alyosha, my dear boy, I gaze at you and can’t believe
my eyes. Good heavens, can you have come here to see me! To tell you
the truth, I never had a thought of seeing you and I didn’t think that
you would ever come and see me. Though this is not the moment now, I am
awfully glad to see you. Sit down on the sofa, here, that’s right, my
bright young moon. I really can’t take it in even now.... Eh, Rakitin,
if only you had brought him yesterday or the day before! But I am glad
as it is! Perhaps it’s better he has come now, at such a moment, and
not the day before yesterday.”
She gayly sat down beside Alyosha on the sofa, looking at him with
positive delight. And she really was glad, she was not lying when she
said so. Her eyes glowed, her lips laughed, but it was a good-hearted
merry laugh. Alyosha had not expected to see such a kind expression in
her face.... He had hardly met her till the day before, he had formed
an alarming idea of her, and had been horribly distressed the day
before by the spiteful and treacherous trick she had played on Katerina
Ivanovna. He was greatly surprised to find her now altogether different
from what he had expected. And, crushed as he was by his own sorrow,
his eyes involuntarily rested on her with attention. Her whole manner
seemed changed for the better since yesterday, there was scarcely any
trace of that mawkish sweetness in her speech, of that voluptuous
softness in her movements. Everything was simple and good-natured, her
gestures were rapid, direct, confiding, but she was greatly excited.
“Dear me, how everything comes together to-day!” she chattered on
again. “And why I am so glad to see you, Alyosha, I couldn’t say
myself! If you ask me, I couldn’t tell you.”
“Come, don’t you know why you’re glad?” said Rakitin, grinning. “You
used to be always pestering me to bring him, you’d some object, I
suppose.”
“I had a different object once, but now that’s over, this is not the
moment. I say, I want you to have something nice. I am so good-natured
now. You sit down, too, Rakitin; why are you standing? You’ve sat down
already? There’s no fear of Rakitin’s forgetting to look after himself.
Look, Alyosha, he’s sitting there opposite us, so offended that I
didn’t ask him to sit down before you. Ugh, Rakitin is such a one to
take offense!” laughed Grushenka. “Don’t be angry, Rakitin, I’m kind
to-day. Why are you so depressed, Alyosha? Are you afraid of me?” She
peeped into his eyes with merry mockery.
“He’s sad. The promotion has not been given,” boomed Rakitin.
“What promotion?”
“His elder stinks.”
“What? You are talking some nonsense, you want to say something nasty.
Be quiet, you stupid! Let me sit on your knee, Alyosha, like this.” She
suddenly skipped forward and jumped, laughing, on his knee, like a
nestling kitten, with her right arm about his neck. “I’ll cheer you up,
my pious boy. Yes, really, will you let me sit on your knee? You won’t
be angry? If you tell me, I’ll get off?”
Alyosha did not speak. He sat afraid to move, he heard her words, “If
you tell me, I’ll get off,” but he did not answer. But there was
nothing in his heart such as Rakitin, for instance, watching him
malignantly from his corner, might have expected or fancied. The great
grief in his heart swallowed up every sensation that might have been
aroused, and, if only he could have thought clearly at that moment, he
would have realized that he had now the strongest armor to protect him
from every lust and temptation. Yet in spite of the vague
irresponsiveness of his spiritual condition and the sorrow that
overwhelmed him, he could not help wondering at a new and strange
sensation in his heart. This woman, this “dreadful” woman, had no
terror for him now, none of that terror that had stirred in his soul at
any passing thought of woman. On the contrary, this woman, dreaded
above all women, sitting now on his knee, holding him in her arms,
aroused in him now a quite different, unexpected, peculiar feeling, a
feeling of the intensest and purest interest without a trace of fear,
of his former terror. That was what instinctively surprised him.
“You’ve talked nonsense enough,” cried Rakitin, “you’d much better give
us some champagne. You owe it me, you know you do!”
“Yes, I really do. Do you know, Alyosha, I promised him champagne on
the top of everything, if he’d bring you? I’ll have some too! Fenya,
Fenya, bring us the bottle Mitya left! Look sharp! Though I am so
stingy, I’ll stand a bottle, not for you, Rakitin, you’re a toadstool,
but he is a falcon! And though my heart is full of something very
different, so be it, I’ll drink with you. I long for some dissipation.”
“But what is the matter with you? And what is this message, may I ask,
or is it a secret?” Rakitin put in inquisitively, doing his best to
pretend not to notice the snubs that were being continually aimed at
him.
“Ech, it’s not a secret, and you know it, too,” Grushenka said, in a
voice suddenly anxious, turning her head towards Rakitin, and drawing a
little away from Alyosha, though she still sat on his knee with her arm
round his neck. “My officer is coming, Rakitin, my officer is coming.”
“I heard he was coming, but is he so near?”
“He is at Mokroe now; he’ll send a messenger from there, so he wrote; I
got a letter from him to-day. I am expecting the messenger every
minute.”
“You don’t say so! Why at Mokroe?”
“That’s a long story, I’ve told you enough.”
“Mitya’ll be up to something now—I say! Does he know or doesn’t he?”
“He know! Of course he doesn’t. If he knew, there would be murder. But
I am not afraid of that now, I am not afraid of his knife. Be quiet,
Rakitin, don’t remind me of Dmitri Fyodorovitch, he has bruised my
heart. And I don’t want to think of that at this moment. I can think of
Alyosha here, I can look at Alyosha ... smile at me, dear, cheer up,
smile at my foolishness, at my pleasure.... Ah, he’s smiling, he’s
smiling! How kindly he looks at me! And you know, Alyosha, I’ve been
thinking all this time you were angry with me, because of the day
before yesterday, because of that young lady. I was a cur, that’s the
truth.... But it’s a good thing it happened so. It was a horrid thing,
but a good thing too.” Grushenka smiled dreamily and a little cruel
line showed in her smile. “Mitya told me that she screamed out that I
‘ought to be flogged.’ I did insult her dreadfully. She sent for me,
she wanted to make a conquest of me, to win me over with her
chocolate.... No, it’s a good thing it did end like that.” She smiled
again. “But I am still afraid of your being angry.”
“Yes, that’s really true,” Rakitin put in suddenly with genuine
surprise. “Alyosha, she is really afraid of a chicken like you.”
“He is a chicken to you, Rakitin ... because you’ve no conscience,
that’s what it is! You see, I love him with all my soul, that’s how it
is! Alyosha, do you believe I love you with all my soul?”
“Ah, you shameless woman! She is making you a declaration, Alexey!”
“Well, what of it, I love him!”
“And what about your officer? And the priceless message from Mokroe?”
“That is quite different.”
“That’s a woman’s way of looking at it!”
“Don’t you make me angry, Rakitin.” Grushenka caught him up hotly.
“This is quite different. I love Alyosha in a different way. It’s true,
Alyosha, I had sly designs on you before. For I am a horrid, violent
creature. But at other times I’ve looked upon you, Alyosha, as my
conscience. I’ve kept thinking ‘how any one like that must despise a
nasty thing like me.’ I thought that the day before yesterday, as I ran
home from the young lady’s. I have thought of you a long time in that
way, Alyosha, and Mitya knows, I’ve talked to him about it. Mitya
understands. Would you believe it, I sometimes look at you and feel
ashamed, utterly ashamed of myself.... And how, and since when, I began
to think about you like that, I can’t say, I don’t remember....”
Fenya came in and put a tray with an uncorked bottle and three glasses
of champagne on the table.
“Here’s the champagne!” cried Rakitin. “You’re excited, Agrafena
Alexandrovna, and not yourself. When you’ve had a glass of champagne,
you’ll be ready to dance. Eh, they can’t even do that properly,” he
added, looking at the bottle. “The old woman’s poured it out in the