The Brothers Karamazov
his forehead with them, wiping off the perspiration, so that on his
forehead and his right cheek were blood-stained patches. Fenya was on
the verge of hysterics. The old cook had jumped up and was staring at
him like a mad woman, almost unconscious with terror.
Mitya stood for a moment, then mechanically sank on to a chair next to
Fenya. He sat, not reflecting but, as it were, terror-stricken,
benumbed. Yet everything was clear as day: that officer, he knew about
him, he knew everything perfectly, he had known it from Grushenka
herself, had known that a letter had come from him a month before. So
that for a month, for a whole month, this had been going on, a secret
from him, till the very arrival of this new man, and he had never
thought of him! But how could he, how could he not have thought of him?
Why was it he had forgotten this officer, like that, forgotten him as
soon as he heard of him? That was the question that faced him like some
monstrous thing. And he looked at this monstrous thing with horror,
growing cold with horror.
But suddenly, as gently and mildly as a gentle and affectionate child,
he began speaking to Fenya as though he had utterly forgotten how he
had scared and hurt her just now. He fell to questioning Fenya with an
extreme preciseness, astonishing in his position, and though the girl
looked wildly at his blood-stained hands, she, too, with wonderful
readiness and rapidity, answered every question as though eager to put
the whole truth and nothing but the truth before him. Little by little,
even with a sort of enjoyment, she began explaining every detail, not
wanting to torment him, but, as it were, eager to be of the utmost
service to him. She described the whole of that day, in great detail,
the visit of Rakitin and Alyosha, how she, Fenya, had stood on the
watch, how the mistress had set off, and how she had called out of the
window to Alyosha to give him, Mitya, her greetings, and to tell him
“to remember for ever how she had loved him for an hour.”
Hearing of the message, Mitya suddenly smiled, and there was a flush of
color on his pale cheeks. At the same moment Fenya said to him, not a
bit afraid now to be inquisitive:
“Look at your hands, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. They’re all over blood!”
“Yes,” answered Mitya mechanically. He looked carelessly at his hands
and at once forgot them and Fenya’s question.
He sank into silence again. Twenty minutes had passed since he had run
in. His first horror was over, but evidently some new fixed
determination had taken possession of him. He suddenly stood up,
smiling dreamily.
“What has happened to you, sir?” said Fenya, pointing to his hands
again. She spoke compassionately, as though she felt very near to him
now in his grief. Mitya looked at his hands again.
“That’s blood, Fenya,” he said, looking at her with a strange
expression. “That’s human blood, and my God! why was it shed? But ...
Fenya ... there’s a fence here” (he looked at her as though setting her
a riddle), “a high fence, and terrible to look at. But at dawn
to-morrow, when the sun rises, Mitya will leap over that fence.... You
don’t understand what fence, Fenya, and, never mind.... You’ll hear
to-morrow and understand ... and now, good-by. I won’t stand in her
way. I’ll step aside, I know how to step aside. Live, my joy.... You
loved me for an hour, remember Mityenka Karamazov so for ever.... She
always used to call me Mityenka, do you remember?”
And with those words he went suddenly out of the kitchen. Fenya was
almost more frightened at this sudden departure than she had been when
he ran in and attacked her.
Just ten minutes later Dmitri went in to Pyotr Ilyitch Perhotin, the
young official with whom he had pawned his pistols. It was by now
half-past eight, and Pyotr Ilyitch had finished his evening tea, and
had just put his coat on again to go to the “Metropolis” to play
billiards. Mitya caught him coming out.
Seeing him with his face all smeared with blood, the young man uttered
a cry of surprise.
“Good heavens! What is the matter?”
“I’ve come for my pistols,” said Mitya, “and brought you the money. And
thanks very much. I’m in a hurry, Pyotr Ilyitch, please make haste.”
Pyotr Ilyitch grew more and more surprised; he suddenly caught sight of
a bundle of bank-notes in Mitya’s hand, and what was more, he had
walked in holding the notes as no one walks in and no one carries
money: he had them in his right hand, and held them outstretched as if
to show them. Perhotin’s servant-boy, who met Mitya in the passage,
said afterwards that he walked into the passage in the same way, with
the money outstretched in his hand, so he must have been carrying them
like that even in the streets. They were all rainbow-colored
hundred-rouble notes, and the fingers holding them were covered with
blood.
When Pyotr Ilyitch was questioned later on as to the sum of money, he
said that it was difficult to judge at a glance, but that it might have
been two thousand, or perhaps three, but it was a big, “fat” bundle.
“Dmitri Fyodorovitch,” so he testified afterwards, “seemed unlike
himself, too; not drunk, but, as it were, exalted, lost to everything,
but at the same time, as it were, absorbed, as though pondering and
searching for something and unable to come to a decision. He was in
great haste, answered abruptly and very strangely, and at moments
seemed not at all dejected but quite cheerful.”
“But what _is_ the matter with you? What’s wrong?” cried Pyotr Ilyitch,
looking wildly at his guest. “How is it that you’re all covered with
blood? Have you had a fall? Look at yourself!”
He took him by the elbow and led him to the glass.
Seeing his blood-stained face, Mitya started and scowled wrathfully.
“Damnation! That’s the last straw,” he muttered angrily, hurriedly
changing the notes from his right hand to the left, and impulsively
jerked the handkerchief out of his pocket. But the handkerchief turned
out to be soaked with blood, too (it was the handkerchief he had used
to wipe Grigory’s face). There was scarcely a white spot on it, and it
had not merely begun to dry, but had stiffened into a crumpled ball and
could not be pulled apart. Mitya threw it angrily on the floor.
“Oh, damn it!” he said. “Haven’t you a rag of some sort ... to wipe my
face?”
“So you’re only stained, not wounded? You’d better wash,” said Pyotr
Ilyitch. “Here’s a wash-stand. I’ll pour you out some water.”
“A wash-stand? That’s all right ... but where am I to put this?”
With the strangest perplexity he indicated his bundle of hundred-rouble
notes, looking inquiringly at Pyotr Ilyitch as though it were for him
to decide what he, Mitya, was to do with his own money.
“In your pocket, or on the table here. They won’t be lost.”
“In my pocket? Yes, in my pocket. All right.... But, I say, that’s all
nonsense,” he cried, as though suddenly coming out of his absorption.
“Look here, let’s first settle that business of the pistols. Give them
back to me. Here’s your money ... because I am in great need of them
... and I haven’t a minute, a minute to spare.”
And taking the topmost note from the bundle he held it out to Pyotr
Ilyitch.
“But I shan’t have change enough. Haven’t you less?”
“No,” said Mitya, looking again at the bundle, and as though not
trusting his own words he turned over two or three of the topmost ones.
“No, they’re all alike,” he added, and again he looked inquiringly at
Pyotr Ilyitch.
“How have you grown so rich?” the latter asked. “Wait, I’ll send my boy
to Plotnikov’s, they close late—to see if they won’t change it. Here,
Misha!” he called into the passage.
“To Plotnikov’s shop—first-rate!” cried Mitya, as though struck by an
idea. “Misha,” he turned to the boy as he came in, “look here, run to
Plotnikov’s and tell them that Dmitri Fyodorovitch sends his greetings,
and will be there directly.... But listen, listen, tell them to have
champagne, three dozen bottles, ready before I come, and packed as it
was to take to Mokroe. I took four dozen with me then,” he added
(suddenly addressing Pyotr Ilyitch); “they know all about it, don’t you
trouble, Misha,” he turned again to the boy. “Stay, listen; tell them
to put in cheese, Strasburg pies, smoked fish, ham, caviare, and
everything, everything they’ve got, up to a hundred roubles, or a
hundred and twenty as before.... But wait: don’t let them forget
dessert, sweets, pears, water-melons, two or three or four—no, one
melon’s enough, and chocolate, candy, toffee, fondants; in fact,
everything I took to Mokroe before, three hundred roubles’ worth with
the champagne ... let it be just the same again. And remember, Misha,
if you are called Misha—His name is Misha, isn’t it?” He turned to
Pyotr Ilyitch again.
“Wait a minute,” Protr Ilyitch intervened, listening and watching him
uneasily, “you’d better go yourself and tell them. He’ll muddle it.”
“He will, I see he will! Eh, Misha! Why, I was going to kiss you for
the commission.... If you don’t make a mistake, there’s ten roubles for
you, run along, make haste.... Champagne’s the chief thing, let them
bring up champagne. And brandy, too, and red and white wine, and all I
had then.... They know what I had then.”
“But listen!” Pyotr Ilyitch interrupted with some impatience. “I say,
let him simply run and change the money and tell them not to close, and
you go and tell them.... Give him your note. Be off, Misha! Put your
best leg forward!”
Pyotr Ilyitch seemed to hurry Misha off on purpose, because the boy
remained standing with his mouth and eyes wide open, apparently
understanding little of Mitya’s orders, gazing up with amazement and
terror at his blood-stained face and the trembling bloodstained fingers
that held the notes.
“Well, now come and wash,” said Pyotr Ilyitch sternly. “Put the money
on the table or else in your pocket.... That’s right, come along. But
take off your coat.”
And beginning to help him off with his coat, he cried out again:
“Look, your coat’s covered with blood, too!”
“That ... it’s not the coat. It’s only a little here on the sleeve....
And that’s only here where the handkerchief lay. It must have soaked
through. I must have sat on the handkerchief at Fenya’s, and the
blood’s come through,” Mitya explained at once with a childlike
unconsciousness that was astounding. Pyotr Ilyitch listened, frowning.
“Well, you must have been up to something; you must have been fighting
with some one,” he muttered.
They began to wash. Pyotr Ilyitch held the jug and poured out the
water. Mitya, in desperate haste, scarcely soaped his hands (they were
trembling, and Pyotr Ilyitch remembered it afterwards). But the young
official insisted on his soaping them thoroughly and rubbing them more.
He seemed to exercise more and more sway over Mitya, as time went on.
It may be noted in passing that he was a young man of sturdy character.
“Look, you haven’t got your nails clean. Now rub your face; here, on
your temples, by your ear.... Will you go in that shirt? Where are you
going? Look, all the cuff of your right sleeve is covered with blood.”
“Yes, it’s all bloody,” observed Mitya, looking at the cuff of his
shirt.
“Then change your shirt.”
“I haven’t time. You see I’ll ...” Mitya went on with the same
confiding ingenuousness, drying his face and hands on the towel, and
putting on his coat. “I’ll turn it up at the wrist. It won’t be seen
under the coat.... You see!”
“Tell me now, what game have you been up to? Have you been fighting
with some one? In the tavern again, as before? Have you been beating
that captain again?” Pyotr Ilyitch asked him reproachfully. “Whom have
you been beating now ... or killing, perhaps?”
“Nonsense!” said Mitya.
“Why ‘nonsense’?”