The Brothers Karamazov
It was a tiny silver ikon on a cord, such as is sometimes worn next the
skin with a cross.
“This is from Kiev, Dmitri Fyodorovitch,” she went on reverently, “from
the relics of the Holy Martyr, Varvara. Let me put it on your neck
myself, and with it dedicate you to a new life, to a new career.”
And she actually put the cord round his neck, and began arranging it.
In extreme embarrassment, Mitya bent down and helped her, and at last
he got it under his neck-tie and collar through his shirt to his chest.
“Now you can set off,” Madame Hohlakov pronounced, sitting down
triumphantly in her place again.
“Madam, I am so touched. I don’t know how to thank you, indeed ... for
such kindness, but ... If only you knew how precious time is to me....
That sum of money, for which I shall be indebted to your generosity....
Oh, madam, since you are so kind, so touchingly generous to me,” Mitya
exclaimed impulsively, “then let me reveal to you ... though, of
course, you’ve known it a long time ... that I love somebody here.... I
have been false to Katya ... Katerina Ivanovna I should say.... Oh,
I’ve behaved inhumanly, dishonorably to her, but I fell in love here
with another woman ... a woman whom you, madam, perhaps, despise, for
you know everything already, but whom I cannot leave on any account,
and therefore that three thousand now—”
“Leave everything, Dmitri Fyodorovitch,” Madame Hohlakov interrupted in
the most decisive tone. “Leave everything, especially women. Gold-mines
are your goal, and there’s no place for women there. Afterwards, when
you come back rich and famous, you will find the girl of your heart in
the highest society. That will be a modern girl, a girl of education
and advanced ideas. By that time the dawning woman question will have
gained ground, and the new woman will have appeared.”
“Madam, that’s not the point, not at all....” Mitya clasped his hands
in entreaty.
“Yes, it is, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, just what you need; the very thing
you’re yearning for, though you don’t realize it yourself. I am not at
all opposed to the present woman movement, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. The
development of woman, and even the political emancipation of woman in
the near future—that’s my ideal. I’ve a daughter myself, Dmitri
Fyodorovitch, people don’t know that side of me. I wrote a letter to
the author, Shtchedrin, on that subject. He has taught me so much, so
much about the vocation of woman. So last year I sent him an anonymous
letter of two lines: ‘I kiss and embrace you, my teacher, for the
modern woman. Persevere.’ And I signed myself, ‘A Mother.’ I thought of
signing myself ‘A contemporary Mother,’ and hesitated, but I stuck to
the simple ‘Mother’; there’s more moral beauty in that, Dmitri
Fyodorovitch. And the word ‘contemporary’ might have reminded him of
‘_The Contemporary_’—a painful recollection owing to the censorship....
Good Heavens, what is the matter!”
“Madam!” cried Mitya, jumping up at last, clasping his hands before her
in helpless entreaty. “You will make me weep if you delay what you have
so generously—”
“Oh, do weep, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, do weep! That’s a noble feeling ...
such a path lies open before you! Tears will ease your heart, and later
on you will return rejoicing. You will hasten to me from Siberia on
purpose to share your joy with me—”
“But allow me, too!” Mitya cried suddenly. “For the last time I entreat
you, tell me, can I have the sum you promised me to-day, if not, when
may I come for it?”
“What sum, Dmitri Fyodorovitch?”
“The three thousand you promised me ... that you so generously—”
“Three thousand? Roubles? Oh, no, I haven’t got three thousand,” Madame
Hohlakov announced with serene amazement. Mitya was stupefied.
“Why, you said just now ... you said ... you said it was as good as in
my hands—”
“Oh, no, you misunderstood me, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. In that case you
misunderstood me. I was talking of the gold-mines. It’s true I promised
you more, infinitely more than three thousand, I remember it all now,
but I was referring to the gold-mines.”
“But the money? The three thousand?” Mitya exclaimed, awkwardly.
“Oh, if you meant money, I haven’t any. I haven’t a penny, Dmitri
Fyodorovitch. I’m quarreling with my steward about it, and I’ve just
borrowed five hundred roubles from Miüsov, myself. No, no, I’ve no
money. And, do you know, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, if I had, I wouldn’t give
it to you. In the first place I never lend money. Lending money means
losing friends. And I wouldn’t give it to you particularly. I wouldn’t
give it you, because I like you and want to save you, for all you need
is the gold-mines, the gold-mines, the gold-mines!”
“Oh, the devil!” roared Mitya, and with all his might brought his fist
down on the table.
“Aie! Aie!” cried Madame Hohlakov, alarmed, and she flew to the other
end of the drawing-room.
Mitya spat on the ground, and strode rapidly out of the room, out of
the house, into the street, into the darkness! He walked like one
possessed, and beating himself on the breast, on the spot where he had
struck himself two days previously, before Alyosha, the last time he
saw him in the dark, on the road. What those blows upon his breast
signified, _on that spot_, and what he meant by it—that was, for the
time, a secret which was known to no one in the world, and had not been
told even to Alyosha. But that secret meant for him more than disgrace;
it meant ruin, suicide. So he had determined, if he did not get hold of
the three thousand that would pay his debt to Katerina Ivanovna, and so
remove from his breast, from _that spot on his breast_, the shame he
carried upon it, that weighed on his conscience. All this will be fully
explained to the reader later on, but now that his last hope had
vanished, this man, so strong in appearance, burst out crying like a
little child a few steps from the Hohlakovs’ house. He walked on, and
not knowing what he was doing, wiped away his tears with his fist. In
this way he reached the square, and suddenly became aware that he had
stumbled against something. He heard a piercing wail from an old woman
whom he had almost knocked down.
“Good Lord, you’ve nearly killed me! Why don’t you look where you’re
going, scapegrace?”
“Why, it’s you!” cried Mitya, recognizing the old woman in the dark. It
was the old servant who waited on Samsonov, whom Mitya had particularly
noticed the day before.
“And who are you, my good sir?” said the old woman, in quite a
different voice. “I don’t know you in the dark.”
“You live at Kuzma Kuzmitch’s. You’re the servant there?”
“Just so, sir, I was only running out to Prohoritch’s.... But I don’t
know you now.”
“Tell me, my good woman, is Agrafena Alexandrovna there now?” said
Mitya, beside himself with suspense. “I saw her to the house some time
ago.”
“She has been there, sir. She stayed a little while, and went off
again.”
“What? Went away?” cried Mitya. “When did she go?”
“Why, as soon as she came. She only stayed a minute. She only told
Kuzma Kuzmitch a tale that made him laugh, and then she ran away.”
“You’re lying, damn you!” roared Mitya.
“Aie! Aie!” shrieked the old woman, but Mitya had vanished.
He ran with all his might to the house where Grushenka lived. At the
moment he reached it, Grushenka was on her way to Mokroe. It was not
more than a quarter of an hour after her departure.
Fenya was sitting with her grandmother, the old cook, Matryona, in the
kitchen when “the captain” ran in. Fenya uttered a piercing shriek on
seeing him.
“You scream?” roared Mitya, “where is she?”
But without giving the terror-stricken Fenya time to utter a word, he
fell all of a heap at her feet.
“Fenya, for Christ’s sake, tell me, where is she?”
“I don’t know. Dmitri Fyodorovitch, my dear, I don’t know. You may kill
me but I can’t tell you.” Fenya swore and protested. “You went out with
her yourself not long ago—”
“She came back!”
“Indeed she didn’t. By God I swear she didn’t come back.”
“You’re lying!” shouted Mitya. “From your terror I know where she is.”
He rushed away. Fenya in her fright was glad she had got off so easily.
But she knew very well that it was only that he was in such haste, or
she might not have fared so well. But as he ran, he surprised both
Fenya and old Matryona by an unexpected action. On the table stood a
brass mortar, with a pestle in it, a small brass pestle, not much more
than six inches long. Mitya already had opened the door with one hand
when, with the other, he snatched up the pestle, and thrust it in his
side-pocket.
“Oh, Lord! He’s going to murder some one!” cried Fenya, flinging up her
hands.
Chapter IV.
In The Dark
Where was he running? “Where could she be except at Fyodor
Pavlovitch’s? She must have run straight to him from Samsonov’s, that
was clear now. The whole intrigue, the whole deceit was evident.” ...
It all rushed whirling through his mind. He did not run to Marya
Kondratyevna’s. “There was no need to go there ... not the slightest
need ... he must raise no alarm ... they would run and tell
directly.... Marya Kondratyevna was clearly in the plot, Smerdyakov
too, he too, all had been bought over!”
He formed another plan of action: he ran a long way round Fyodor
Pavlovitch’s house, crossing the lane, running down Dmitrovsky Street,
then over the little bridge, and so came straight to the deserted alley
at the back, which was empty and uninhabited, with, on one side the
hurdle fence of a neighbor’s kitchen-garden, on the other the strong
high fence, that ran all round Fyodor Pavlovitch’s garden. Here he
chose a spot, apparently the very place, where according to the
tradition, he knew Lizaveta had once climbed over it: “If she could
climb over it,” the thought, God knows why, occurred to him, “surely I
can.” He did in fact jump up, and instantly contrived to catch hold of
the top of the fence. Then he vigorously pulled himself up and sat
astride on it. Close by, in the garden stood the bath-house, but from
the fence he could see the lighted windows of the house too.
“Yes, the old man’s bedroom is lighted up. She’s there!” and he leapt
from the fence into the garden. Though he knew Grigory was ill and very
likely Smerdyakov, too, and that there was no one to hear him, he
instinctively hid himself, stood still, and began to listen. But there
was dead silence on all sides and, as though of design, complete
stillness, not the slightest breath of wind.
“And naught but the whispering silence,” the line for some reason rose
to his mind. “If only no one heard me jump over the fence! I think
not.” Standing still for a minute, he walked softly over the grass in
the garden, avoiding the trees and shrubs. He walked slowly, creeping
stealthily at every step, listening to his own footsteps. It took him
five minutes to reach the lighted window. He remembered that just under
the window there were several thick and high bushes of elder and
whitebeam. The door from the house into the garden on the left-hand
side, was shut; he had carefully looked on purpose to see, in passing.
At last he reached the bushes and hid behind them. He held his breath.
“I must wait now,” he thought, “to reassure them, in case they heard my
footsteps and are listening ... if only I don’t cough or sneeze.”
He waited two minutes. His heart was beating violently, and, at
moments, he could scarcely breathe. “No, this throbbing at my heart
won’t stop,” he thought. “I can’t wait any longer.” He was standing
behind a bush in the shadow. The light of the window fell on the front
part of the bush.
“How red the whitebeam berries are!” he murmured, not knowing why.
Softly and noiselessly, step by step, he approached the window, and
raised himself on tiptoe. All Fyodor Pavlovitch’s bedroom lay open