The Brothers Karamazov
“Don’t worry,” said Mitya, and he suddenly laughed. “I smashed an old
woman in the market-place just now.”
“Smashed? An old woman?”
“An old man!” cried Mitya, looking Pyotr Ilyitch straight in the face,
laughing, and shouting at him as though he were deaf.
“Confound it! An old woman, an old man.... Have you killed some one?”
“We made it up. We had a row—and made it up. In a place I know of. We
parted friends. A fool.... He’s forgiven me.... He’s sure to have
forgiven me by now ... if he had got up, he wouldn’t have forgiven
me”—Mitya suddenly winked—“only damn him, you know, I say, Pyotr
Ilyitch, damn him! Don’t worry about him! I don’t want to just now!”
Mitya snapped out, resolutely.
“Whatever do you want to go picking quarrels with every one for? ...
Just as you did with that captain over some nonsense.... You’ve been
fighting and now you’re rushing off on the spree—that’s you all over!
Three dozen champagne—what do you want all that for?”
“Bravo! Now give me the pistols. Upon my honor I’ve no time now. I
should like to have a chat with you, my dear boy, but I haven’t the
time. And there’s no need, it’s too late for talking. Where’s my money?
Where have I put it?” he cried, thrusting his hands into his pockets.
“You put it on the table ... yourself.... Here it is. Had you
forgotten? Money’s like dirt or water to you, it seems. Here are your
pistols. It’s an odd thing, at six o’clock you pledged them for ten
roubles, and now you’ve got thousands. Two or three I should say.”
“Three, you bet,” laughed Mitya, stuffing the notes into the
side-pocket of his trousers.
“You’ll lose it like that. Have you found a gold-mine?”
“The mines? The gold-mines?” Mitya shouted at the top of his voice and
went off into a roar of laughter. “Would you like to go to the mines,
Perhotin? There’s a lady here who’ll stump up three thousand for you,
if only you’ll go. She did it for me, she’s so awfully fond of
gold-mines. Do you know Madame Hohlakov?”
“I don’t know her, but I’ve heard of her and seen her. Did she really
give you three thousand? Did she really?” said Pyotr Ilyitch, eyeing
him dubiously.
“As soon as the sun rises to-morrow, as soon as Phœbus, ever young,
flies upwards, praising and glorifying God, you go to her, this Madame
Hohlakov, and ask her whether she did stump up that three thousand or
not. Try and find out.”
“I don’t know on what terms you are ... since you say it so positively,
I suppose she did give it to you. You’ve got the money in your hand,
but instead of going to Siberia you’re spending it all.... Where are
you really off to now, eh?”
“To Mokroe.”
“To Mokroe? But it’s night!”
“Once the lad had all, now the lad has naught,” cried Mitya suddenly.
“How ‘naught’? You say that with all those thousands!”
“I’m not talking about thousands. Damn thousands! I’m talking of the
female character.
Fickle is the heart of woman
Treacherous and full of vice;
I agree with Ulysses. That’s what he says.”
“I don’t understand you!”
“Am I drunk?”
“Not drunk, but worse.”
“I’m drunk in spirit, Pyotr Ilyitch, drunk in spirit! But that’s
enough!”
“What are you doing, loading the pistol?”
“I’m loading the pistol.”
Unfastening the pistol-case, Mitya actually opened the powder horn, and
carefully sprinkled and rammed in the charge. Then he took the bullet
and, before inserting it, held it in two fingers in front of the
candle.
“Why are you looking at the bullet?” asked Pyotr Ilyitch, watching him
with uneasy curiosity.
“Oh, a fancy. Why, if you meant to put that bullet in your brain, would
you look at it or not?”
“Why look at it?”
“It’s going into my brain, so it’s interesting to look and see what
it’s like. But that’s foolishness, a moment’s foolishness. Now that’s
done,” he added, putting in the bullet and driving it home with the
ramrod. “Pyotr Ilyitch, my dear fellow, that’s nonsense, all nonsense,
and if only you knew what nonsense! Give me a little piece of paper
now.”
“Here’s some paper.”
“No, a clean new piece, writing-paper. That’s right.”
And taking a pen from the table, Mitya rapidly wrote two lines, folded
the paper in four, and thrust it in his waistcoat pocket. He put the
pistols in the case, locked it up, and kept it in his hand. Then he
looked at Pyotr Ilyitch with a slow, thoughtful smile.
“Now, let’s go.”
“Where are we going? No, wait a minute.... Are you thinking of putting
that bullet in your brain, perhaps?” Pyotr Ilyitch asked uneasily.
“I was fooling about the bullet! I want to live. I love life! You may
be sure of that. I love golden-haired Phœbus and his warm light....
Dear Pyotr Ilyitch, do you know how to step aside?”
“What do you mean by ‘stepping aside’?”
“Making way. Making way for a dear creature, and for one I hate. And to
let the one I hate become dear—that’s what making way means! And to say
to them: God bless you, go your way, pass on, while I—”
“While you—?”
“That’s enough, let’s go.”
“Upon my word. I’ll tell some one to prevent your going there,” said
Pyotr Ilyitch, looking at him. “What are you going to Mokroe for, now?”
“There’s a woman there, a woman. That’s enough for you. You shut up.”
“Listen, though you’re such a savage I’ve always liked you.... I feel
anxious.”
“Thanks, old fellow. I’m a savage you say. Savages, savages! That’s
what I am always saying. Savages! Why, here’s Misha! I was forgetting
him.”
Misha ran in, post-haste, with a handful of notes in change, and
reported that every one was in a bustle at the Plotnikovs’; “They’re
carrying down the bottles, and the fish, and the tea; it will all be
ready directly.” Mitya seized ten roubles and handed it to Pyotr
Ilyitch, then tossed another ten-rouble note to Misha.
“Don’t dare to do such a thing!” cried Pyotr Ilyitch. “I won’t have it
in my house, it’s a bad, demoralizing habit. Put your money away. Here,
put it here, why waste it? It would come in handy to-morrow, and I dare
say you’ll be coming to me to borrow ten roubles again. Why do you keep
putting the notes in your side-pocket? Ah, you’ll lose them!”
“I say, my dear fellow, let’s go to Mokroe together.”
“What should I go for?”
“I say, let’s open a bottle at once, and drink to life! I want to
drink, and especially to drink with you. I’ve never drunk with you,
have I?”
“Very well, we can go to the ‘Metropolis.’ I was just going there.”
“I haven’t time for that. Let’s drink at the Plotnikovs’, in the back
room. Shall I ask you a riddle?”
“Ask away.”
Mitya took the piece of paper out of his waistcoat pocket, unfolded it
and showed it. In a large, distinct hand was written: “I punish myself
for my whole life, my whole life I punish!”
“I will certainly speak to some one, I’ll go at once,” said Pyotr
Ilyitch, after reading the paper.
“You won’t have time, dear boy, come and have a drink. March!”
Plotnikov’s shop was at the corner of the street, next door but one to
Pyotr Ilyitch’s. It was the largest grocery shop in our town, and by no
means a bad one, belonging to some rich merchants. They kept everything
that could be got in a Petersburg shop, grocery of all sort, wines
“bottled by the brothers Eliseyev,” fruits, cigars, tea, coffee, sugar,
and so on. There were three shop-assistants and two errand boys always
employed. Though our part of the country had grown poorer, the
landowners had gone away, and trade had got worse, yet the grocery
stores flourished as before, every year with increasing prosperity;
there were plenty of purchasers for their goods.
They were awaiting Mitya with impatience in the shop. They had vivid
recollections of how he had bought, three or four weeks ago, wine and
goods of all sorts to the value of several hundred roubles, paid for in
cash (they would never have let him have anything on credit, of
course). They remembered that then, as now, he had had a bundle of
hundred-rouble notes in his hand, and had scattered them at random,
without bargaining, without reflecting, or caring to reflect what use
so much wine and provisions would be to him. The story was told all
over the town that, driving off then with Grushenka to Mokroe, he had
“spent three thousand in one night and the following day, and had come
back from the spree without a penny.” He had picked up a whole troop of
gypsies (encamped in our neighborhood at the time), who for two days
got money without stint out of him while he was drunk, and drank
expensive wine without stint. People used to tell, laughing at Mitya,
how he had given champagne to grimy-handed peasants, and feasted the
village women and girls on sweets and Strasburg pies. Though to laugh
at Mitya to his face was rather a risky proceeding, there was much
laughter behind his back, especially in the tavern, at his own
ingenuous public avowal that all he had got out of Grushenka by this
“escapade” was “permission to kiss her foot, and that was the utmost
she had allowed him.”
By the time Mitya and Pyotr Ilyitch reached the shop, they found a cart
with three horses harnessed abreast with bells, and with Andrey, the
driver, ready waiting for Mitya at the entrance. In the shop they had
almost entirely finished packing one box of provisions, and were only
waiting for Mitya’s arrival to nail it down and put it in the cart.
Pyotr Ilyitch was astounded.
“Where did this cart come from in such a hurry?” he asked Mitya.
“I met Andrey as I ran to you, and told him to drive straight here to
the shop. There’s no time to lose. Last time I drove with Timofey, but
Timofey now has gone on before me with the witch. Shall we be very
late, Andrey?”
“They’ll only get there an hour at most before us, not even that maybe.
I got Timofey ready to start. I know how he’ll go. Their pace won’t be
ours, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. How could it be? They won’t get there an
hour earlier!” Andrey, a lanky, red-haired, middle-aged driver, wearing
a full-skirted coat, and with a kaftan on his arm, replied warmly.
“Fifty roubles for vodka if we’re only an hour behind them.”
“I warrant the time, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. Ech, they won’t be half an
hour before us, let alone an hour.”
Though Mitya bustled about seeing after things, he gave his orders
strangely, as it were disconnectedly, and inconsecutively. He began a
sentence and forgot the end of it. Pyotr Ilyitch found himself obliged
to come to the rescue.
“Four hundred roubles’ worth, not less than four hundred roubles’
worth, just as it was then,” commanded Mitya. “Four dozen champagne,
not a bottle less.”
“What do you want with so much? What’s it for? Stay!” cried Pyotr
Ilyitch. “What’s this box? What’s in it? Surely there isn’t four
hundred roubles’ worth here?”
The officious shopmen began explaining with oily politeness that the
first box contained only half a dozen bottles of champagne, and only
“the most indispensable articles,” such as savories, sweets, toffee,
etc. But the main part of the goods ordered would be packed and sent
off, as on the previous occasion, in a special cart also with three
horses traveling at full speed, so that it would arrive not more than
an hour later than Dmitri Fyodorovitch himself.
“Not more than an hour! Not more than an hour! And put in more toffee
and fondants. The girls there are so fond of it,” Mitya insisted hotly.
“The fondants are all right. But what do you want with four dozen of
champagne? One would be enough,” said Pyotr Ilyitch, almost angry. He
began bargaining, asking for a bill of the goods, and refused to be
satisfied. But he only succeeded in saving a hundred roubles. In the
end it was agreed that only three hundred roubles’ worth should be
sent.
“Well, you may go to the devil!” cried Pyotr Ilyitch, on second
thoughts. “What’s it to do with me? Throw away your money, since it’s
cost you nothing.”