The Brothers Karamazov
“That’s it, Kalganov!”
“All right. I’ll see for myself. Are they playing cards?”
“They have been playing, but they’ve left off. They’ve been drinking
tea, the official gentleman asked for liqueurs.”
“Stay, Trifon Borissovitch, stay, my good soul, I’ll see for myself.
Now answer one more question: are the gypsies here?”
“You can’t have the gypsies now, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. The authorities
have sent them away. But we’ve Jews that play the cymbals and the
fiddle in the village, so one might send for them. They’d come.”
“Send for them. Certainly send for them!” cried Mitya. “And you can get
the girls together as you did then, Marya especially, Stepanida, too,
and Arina. Two hundred roubles for a chorus!”
“Oh, for a sum like that I can get all the village together, though by
now they’re asleep. Are the peasants here worth such kindness, Dmitri
Fyodorovitch, or the girls either? To spend a sum like that on such
coarseness and rudeness! What’s the good of giving a peasant a cigar to
smoke, the stinking ruffian! And the girls are all lousy. Besides, I’ll
get my daughters up for nothing, let alone a sum like that. They’ve
only just gone to bed, I’ll give them a kick and set them singing for
you. You gave the peasants champagne to drink the other day, e—ech!”
For all his pretended compassion for Mitya, Trifon Borissovitch had
hidden half a dozen bottles of champagne on that last occasion, and had
picked up a hundred-rouble note under the table, and it had remained in
his clutches.
“Trifon Borissovitch, I sent more than one thousand flying last time I
was here. Do you remember?”
“You did send it flying. I may well remember. You must have left three
thousand behind you.”
“Well, I’ve come to do the same again, do you see?”
And he pulled out his roll of notes, and held them up before the
innkeeper’s nose.
“Now, listen and remember. In an hour’s time the wine will arrive,
savories, pies, and sweets—bring them all up at once. That box Andrey
has got is to be brought up at once, too. Open it, and hand champagne
immediately. And the girls, we must have the girls, Marya especially.”
He turned to the cart and pulled out the box of pistols.
“Here, Andrey, let’s settle. Here’s fifteen roubles for the drive, and
fifty for vodka ... for your readiness, for your love.... Remember
Karamazov!”
“I’m afraid, sir,” faltered Andrey. “Give me five roubles extra, but
more I won’t take. Trifon Borissovitch, bear witness. Forgive my
foolish words ...”
“What are you afraid of?” asked Mitya, scanning him. “Well, go to the
devil, if that’s it!” he cried, flinging him five roubles. “Now, Trifon
Borissovitch, take me up quietly and let me first get a look at them,
so that they don’t see me. Where are they? In the blue room?”
Trifon Borissovitch looked apprehensively at Mitya, but at once
obediently did his bidding. Leading him into the passage, he went
himself into the first large room, adjoining that in which the visitors
were sitting, and took the light away. Then he stealthily led Mitya in,
and put him in a corner in the dark, whence he could freely watch the
company without being seen. But Mitya did not look long, and, indeed,
he could not see them, he saw her, his heart throbbed violently, and
all was dark before his eyes.
She was sitting sideways to the table in a low chair, and beside her,
on the sofa, was the pretty youth, Kalganov. She was holding his hand
and seemed to be laughing, while he, seeming vexed and not looking at
her, was saying something in a loud voice to Maximov, who sat the other
side of the table, facing Grushenka. Maximov was laughing violently at
something. On the sofa sat _he_, and on a chair by the sofa there was
another stranger. The one on the sofa was lolling backwards, smoking a
pipe, and Mitya had an impression of a stoutish, broad-faced, short
little man, who was apparently angry about something. His friend, the
other stranger, struck Mitya as extraordinarily tall, but he could make
out nothing more. He caught his breath. He could not bear it for a
minute, he put the pistol-case on a chest, and with a throbbing heart
he walked, feeling cold all over, straight into the blue room to face
the company.
“Aie!” shrieked Grushenka, the first to notice him.
Chapter VII.
The First And Rightful Lover
With his long, rapid strides, Mitya walked straight up to the table.
“Gentlemen,” he said in a loud voice, almost shouting, yet stammering
at every word, “I ... I’m all right! Don’t be afraid!” he exclaimed,
“I—there’s nothing the matter,” he turned suddenly to Grushenka, who
had shrunk back in her chair towards Kalganov, and clasped his hand
tightly. “I ... I’m coming, too. I’m here till morning. Gentlemen, may
I stay with you till morning? Only till morning, for the last time, in
this same room?”
So he finished, turning to the fat little man, with the pipe, sitting
on the sofa. The latter removed his pipe from his lips with dignity and
observed severely:
“_Panie_, we’re here in private. There are other rooms.”
“Why, it’s you, Dmitri Fyodorovitch! What do you mean?” answered
Kalganov suddenly. “Sit down with us. How are you?”
“Delighted to see you, dear ... and precious fellow, I always thought a
lot of you.” Mitya responded, joyfully and eagerly, at once holding out
his hand across the table.
“Aie! How tight you squeeze! You’ve quite broken my fingers,” laughed
Kalganov.
“He always squeezes like that, always,” Grushenka put in gayly, with a
timid smile, seeming suddenly convinced from Mitya’s face that he was
not going to make a scene. She was watching him with intense curiosity
and still some uneasiness. She was impressed by something about him,
and indeed the last thing she expected of him was that he would come in
and speak like this at such a moment.
“Good evening,” Maximov ventured blandly on the left. Mitya rushed up
to him, too.
“Good evening. You’re here, too! How glad I am to find you here, too!
Gentlemen, gentlemen, I—” (He addressed the Polish gentleman with the
pipe again, evidently taking him for the most important person
present.) “I flew here.... I wanted to spend my last day, my last hour
in this room, in this very room ... where I, too, adored ... my
queen.... Forgive me, _panie_,” he cried wildly, “I flew here and
vowed— Oh, don’t be afraid, it’s my last night! Let’s drink to our good
understanding. They’ll bring the wine at once.... I brought this with
me.” (Something made him pull out his bundle of notes.) “Allow me,
_panie_! I want to have music, singing, a revel, as we had before. But
the worm, the unnecessary worm, will crawl away, and there’ll be no
more of him. I will commemorate my day of joy on my last night.”
He was almost choking. There was so much, so much he wanted to say, but
strange exclamations were all that came from his lips. The Pole gazed
fixedly at him, at the bundle of notes in his hand; looked at
Grushenka, and was in evident perplexity.
“If my suverin lady is permitting—” he was beginning.
“What does ‘suverin’ mean? ‘Sovereign,’ I suppose?” interrupted
Grushenka. “I can’t help laughing at you, the way you talk. Sit down,
Mitya, what are you talking about? Don’t frighten us, please. You won’t
frighten us, will you? If you won’t, I am glad to see you ...”
“Me, me frighten you?” cried Mitya, flinging up his hands. “Oh, pass me
by, go your way, I won’t hinder you!...”
And suddenly he surprised them all, and no doubt himself as well, by
flinging himself on a chair, and bursting into tears, turning his head
away to the opposite wall, while his arms clasped the back of the chair
tight, as though embracing it.
“Come, come, what a fellow you are!” cried Grushenka reproachfully.
“That’s just how he comes to see me—he begins talking, and I can’t make
out what he means. He cried like that once before, and now he’s crying
again! It’s shameful! Why are you crying? _As though you had anything
to cry for!_” she added enigmatically, emphasizing each word with some
irritability.
“I ... I’m not crying.... Well, good evening!” He instantly turned
round in his chair, and suddenly laughed, not his abrupt wooden laugh,
but a long, quivering, inaudible nervous laugh.
“Well, there you are again.... Come, cheer up, cheer up!” Grushenka
said to him persuasively. “I’m very glad you’ve come, very glad, Mitya,
do you hear, I’m very glad! I want him to stay here with us,” she said
peremptorily, addressing the whole company, though her words were
obviously meant for the man sitting on the sofa. “I wish it, I wish it!
And if he goes away I shall go, too!” she added with flashing eyes.
“What my queen commands is law!” pronounced the Pole, gallantly kissing
Grushenka’s hand. “I beg you, _panie_, to join our company,” he added
politely, addressing Mitya.
Mitya was jumping up with the obvious intention of delivering another
tirade, but the words did not come.
“Let’s drink, _panie_,” he blurted out instead of making a speech.
Every one laughed.
“Good heavens! I thought he was going to begin again!” Grushenka
exclaimed nervously. “Do you hear, Mitya,” she went on insistently,
“don’t prance about, but it’s nice you’ve brought the champagne. I want
some myself, and I can’t bear liqueurs. And best of all, you’ve come
yourself. We were fearfully dull here.... You’ve come for a spree
again, I suppose? But put your money in your pocket. Where did you get
such a lot?”
Mitya had been, all this time, holding in his hand the crumpled bundle
of notes on which the eyes of all, especially of the Poles, were fixed.
In confusion he thrust them hurriedly into his pocket. He flushed. At
that moment the innkeeper brought in an uncorked bottle of champagne,
and glasses on a tray. Mitya snatched up the bottle, but he was so
bewildered that he did not know what to do with it. Kalganov took it
from him and poured out the champagne.
“Another! Another bottle!” Mitya cried to the innkeeper, and,
forgetting to clink glasses with the Pole whom he had so solemnly
invited to drink to their good understanding, he drank off his glass
without waiting for any one else. His whole countenance suddenly
changed. The solemn and tragic expression with which he had entered
vanished completely, and a look of something childlike came into his
face. He seemed to have become suddenly gentle and subdued. He looked
shyly and happily at every one, with a continual nervous little laugh,
and the blissful expression of a dog who has done wrong, been punished,
and forgiven. He seemed to have forgotten everything, and was looking
round at every one with a childlike smile of delight. He looked at
Grushenka, laughing continually, and bringing his chair close up to
her. By degrees he had gained some idea of the two Poles, though he had
formed no definite conception of them yet.
The Pole on the sofa struck him by his dignified demeanor and his
Polish accent; and, above all, by his pipe. “Well, what of it? It’s a
good thing he’s smoking a pipe,” he reflected. The Pole’s puffy,
middle-aged face, with its tiny nose and two very thin, pointed, dyed
and impudent-looking mustaches, had not so far roused the faintest
doubts in Mitya. He was not even particularly struck by the Pole’s
absurd wig made in Siberia, with love-locks foolishly combed forward
over the temples. “I suppose it’s all right since he wears a wig,” he
went on, musing blissfully. The other, younger Pole, who was staring
insolently and defiantly at the company and listening to the
conversation with silent contempt, still only impressed Mitya by his
great height, which was in striking contrast to the Pole on the sofa.
“If he stood up he’d be six foot three.” The thought flitted through
Mitya’s mind. It occurred to him, too, that this Pole must be the