The Brothers Karamazov
gradually became coarse and more reckless. And the dances were as bad.
Two girls dressed up as bears, and a lively girl, called Stepanida,
with a stick in her hand, acted the part of keeper, and began to “show
them.”
“Look alive, Marya, or you’ll get the stick!”
The bears rolled on the ground at last in the most unseemly fashion,
amid roars of laughter from the closely-packed crowd of men and women.
“Well, let them! Let them!” said Grushenka sententiously, with an
ecstatic expression on her face. “When they do get a day to enjoy
themselves, why shouldn’t folks be happy?”
Kalganov looked as though he had been besmirched with dirt.
“It’s swinish, all this peasant foolery,” he murmured, moving away;
“it’s the game they play when it’s light all night in summer.”
He particularly disliked one “new” song to a jaunty dance-tune. It
described how a gentleman came and tried his luck with the girls, to
see whether they would love him:
The master came to try the girls:
Would they love him, would they not?
But the girls could not love the master:
He would beat me cruelly
And such love won’t do for me.
Then a gypsy comes along and he, too, tries:
The gypsy came to try the girls:
Would they love him, would they not?
But they couldn’t love the gypsy either:
He would be a thief, I fear,
And would cause me many a tear.
And many more men come to try their luck, among them a soldier:
The soldier came to try the girls:
Would they love him, would they not?
But the soldier is rejected with contempt, in two indecent lines, sung
with absolute frankness and producing a furore in the audience. The
song ends with a merchant:
The merchant came to try the girls:
Would they love him, would they not?
And it appears that he wins their love because:
The merchant will make gold for me
And his queen I’ll gladly be.
Kalganov was positively indignant.
“That’s just a song of yesterday,” he said aloud. “Who writes such
things for them? They might just as well have had a railwayman or a Jew
come to try his luck with the girls; they’d have carried all before
them.”
And, almost as though it were a personal affront, he declared, on the
spot, that he was bored, sat down on the sofa and immediately fell
asleep. His pretty little face looked rather pale, as it fell back on
the sofa cushion.
“Look how pretty he is,” said Grushenka, taking Mitya up to him. “I was
combing his hair just now; his hair’s like flax, and so thick....”
And, bending over him tenderly, she kissed his forehead. Kalganov
instantly opened his eyes, looked at her, stood up, and with the most
anxious air inquired where was Maximov?
“So that’s who it is you want.” Grushenka laughed. “Stay with me a
minute. Mitya, run and find his Maximov.”
Maximov, it appeared, could not tear himself away from the girls, only
running away from time to time to pour himself out a glass of liqueur.
He had drunk two cups of chocolate. His face was red, and his nose was
crimson; his eyes were moist and mawkishly sweet. He ran up and
announced that he was going to dance the “sabotière.”
“They taught me all those well-bred, aristocratic dances when I was
little....”
“Go, go with him, Mitya, and I’ll watch from here how he dances,” said
Grushenka.
“No, no, I’m coming to look on, too,” exclaimed Kalganov, brushing
aside in the most naïve way Grushenka’s offer to sit with him. They all
went to look on. Maximov danced his dance. But it roused no great
admiration in any one but Mitya. It consisted of nothing but skipping
and hopping, kicking up the feet, and at every skip Maximov slapped the
upturned sole of his foot. Kalganov did not like it at all, but Mitya
kissed the dancer.
“Thanks. You’re tired perhaps? What are you looking for here? Would you
like some sweets? A cigar, perhaps?”
“A cigarette.”
“Don’t you want a drink?”
“I’ll just have a liqueur.... Have you any chocolates?”
“Yes, there’s a heap of them on the table there. Choose one, my dear
soul!”
“I like one with vanilla ... for old people. He he!”
“No, brother, we’ve none of that special sort.”
“I say,” the old man bent down to whisper in Mitya’s ear. “That girl
there, little Marya, he he! How would it be if you were to help me make
friends with her?”
“So that’s what you’re after! No, brother, that won’t do!”
“I’d do no harm to any one,” Maximov muttered disconsolately.
“Oh, all right, all right. They only come here to dance and sing, you
know, brother. But damn it all, wait a bit!... Eat and drink and be
merry, meanwhile. Don’t you want money?”
“Later on, perhaps,” smiled Maximov.
“All right, all right....”
Mitya’s head was burning. He went outside to the wooden balcony which
ran round the whole building on the inner side, overlooking the
courtyard. The fresh air revived him. He stood alone in a dark corner,
and suddenly clutched his head in both hands. His scattered thoughts
came together; his sensations blended into a whole and threw a sudden
light into his mind. A fearful and terrible light! “If I’m to shoot
myself, why not now?” passed through his mind. “Why not go for the
pistols, bring them here, and here, in this dark dirty corner, make an
end?” Almost a minute he stood, undecided. A few hours earlier, when he
had been dashing here, he was pursued by disgrace, by the theft he had
committed, and that blood, that blood!... But yet it was easier for him
then. Then everything was over: he had lost her, given her up. She was
gone, for him—oh, then his death sentence had been easier for him; at
least it had seemed necessary, inevitable, for what had he to stay on
earth for?
But now? Was it the same as then? Now one phantom, one terror at least
was at an end: that first, rightful lover, that fateful figure had
vanished, leaving no trace. The terrible phantom had turned into
something so small, so comic; it had been carried into the bedroom and
locked in. It would never return. She was ashamed, and from her eyes he
could see now whom she loved. Now he had everything to make life happy
... but he could not go on living, he could not; oh, damnation! “O God!
restore to life the man I knocked down at the fence! Let this fearful
cup pass from me! Lord, thou hast wrought miracles for such sinners as
me! But what, what if the old man’s alive? Oh, then the shame of the
other disgrace I would wipe away. I would restore the stolen money. I’d
give it back; I’d get it somehow.... No trace of that shame will remain
except in my heart for ever! But no, no; oh, impossible cowardly
dreams! Oh, damnation!”
Yet there was a ray of light and hope in his darkness. He jumped up and
ran back to the room—to her, to her, his queen for ever! Was not one
moment of her love worth all the rest of life, even in the agonies of
disgrace? This wild question clutched at his heart. “To her, to her
alone, to see her, to hear her, to think of nothing, to forget
everything, if only for that night, for an hour, for a moment!” Just as
he turned from the balcony into the passage, he came upon the landlord,
Trifon Borissovitch. He thought he looked gloomy and worried, and
fancied he had come to find him.
“What is it, Trifon Borissovitch? are you looking for me?”
“No, sir.” The landlord seemed disconcerted. “Why should I be looking
for you? Where have you been?”
“Why do you look so glum? You’re not angry, are you? Wait a bit, you
shall soon get to bed.... What’s the time?”
“It’ll be three o’clock. Past three, it must be.”
“We’ll leave off soon. We’ll leave off.”
“Don’t mention it; it doesn’t matter. Keep it up as long as you
like....”
“What’s the matter with him?” Mitya wondered for an instant, and he ran
back to the room where the girls were dancing. But she was not there.
She was not in the blue room either; there was no one but Kalganov
asleep on the sofa. Mitya peeped behind the curtain—she was there. She
was sitting in the corner, on a trunk. Bent forward, with her head and
arms on the bed close by, she was crying bitterly, doing her utmost to
stifle her sobs that she might not be heard. Seeing Mitya, she beckoned
him to her, and when he ran to her, she grasped his hand tightly.
“Mitya, Mitya, I loved him, you know. How I have loved him these five
years, all that time! Did I love him or only my own anger? No, him,
him! It’s a lie that it was my anger I loved and not him. Mitya, I was
only seventeen then; he was so kind to me, so merry; he used to sing to
me.... Or so it seemed to a silly girl like me.... And now, O Lord,
it’s not the same man. Even his face is not the same; he’s different
altogether. I shouldn’t have known him. I drove here with Timofey, and
all the way I was thinking how I should meet him, what I should say to
him, how we should look at one another. My soul was faint, and all of a
sudden it was just as though he had emptied a pail of dirty water over
me. He talked to me like a schoolmaster, all so grave and learned; he
met me so solemnly that I was struck dumb. I couldn’t get a word in. At
first I thought he was ashamed to talk before his great big Pole. I sat
staring at him and wondering why I couldn’t say a word to him now. It
must have been his wife that ruined him; you know he threw me up to get
married. She must have changed him like that. Mitya, how shameful it
is! Oh, Mitya, I’m ashamed, I’m ashamed for all my life. Curse it,
curse it, curse those five years!”
And again she burst into tears, but clung tight to Mitya’s hand and did
not let it go.
“Mitya, darling, stay, don’t go away. I want to say one word to you,”
she whispered, and suddenly raised her face to him. “Listen, tell me
who it is I love? I love one man here. Who is that man? That’s what you
must tell me.”
A smile lighted up her face that was swollen with weeping, and her eyes
shone in the half darkness.
“A falcon flew in, and my heart sank. ‘Fool! that’s the man you love!’
That was what my heart whispered to me at once. You came in and all
grew bright. What’s he afraid of? I wondered. For you were frightened;
you couldn’t speak. It’s not them he’s afraid of—could you be
frightened of any one? It’s me he’s afraid of, I thought, only me. So
Fenya told you, you little stupid, how I called to Alyosha out of the
window that I’d loved Mityenka for one hour, and that I was going now
to love ... another. Mitya, Mitya, how could I be such a fool as to
think I could love any one after you? Do you forgive me, Mitya? Do you
forgive me or not? Do you love me? Do you love me?” She jumped up and
held him with both hands on his shoulders. Mitya, dumb with rapture,
gazed into her eyes, at her face, at her smile, and suddenly clasped
her tightly in his arms and kissed her passionately.
“You will forgive me for having tormented you? It was through spite I
tormented you all. It was for spite I drove the old man out of his
mind.... Do you remember how you drank at my house one day and broke
the wine-glass? I remembered that and I broke a glass to-day and drank
‘to my vile heart.’ Mitya, my falcon, why don’t you kiss me? He kissed
me once, and now he draws back and looks and listens. Why listen to me?
Kiss me, kiss me hard, that’s right. If you love, well, then, love!
I’ll be your slave now, your slave for the rest of my life. It’s sweet
to be a slave. Kiss me! Beat me, ill-treat me, do what you will with
me.... And I do deserve to suffer. Stay, wait, afterwards, I won’t have
that....” she suddenly thrust him away. “Go along, Mitya, I’ll come and
have some wine, I want to be drunk, I’m going to get drunk and dance; I
must, I must!” She tore herself away from him and disappeared behind
the curtain. Mitya followed like a drunken man.
“Yes, come what may—whatever may happen now, for one minute I’d give