The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoyevsky (reading an ebook TXT) 📗
- Author: Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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“Pardon me!” said the Father Superior. “It was said of old,
‘Many have begun to speak against me and have uttered evil sayings
about me. And hearing it I have said to myself: it is the correction
of the Lord and He has sent it to heal my vain soul.’ And so we humbly
thank you, honoured guest!” and he made Fyodor Pavlovitch a low bow.
“Tut-tut- tut-sanctimoniousness and stock phrases! Old phrases
and old gestures. The old lies and formal prostrations. We know all
about them. A kiss on the lips and a dagger in the heart, as in
Schiller’s Robbers. I don’t like falsehood, Fathers, I want the truth.
But the truth is not to be found in eating gudgeon and that I proclaim
aloud! Father monks, why do you fast? Why do you expect reward in
heaven for that? Why, for reward like that I will come and fast too!
No, saintly monk, you try being virtuous in the world, do good to
society, without shutting yourself up in a monastery at other people’s
expense, and without expecting a reward up aloft for it-you’ll find
that a bit harder. I can talk sense, too, Father Superior. What have
they got here?” He went up to the table. “Old port wine, mead brewed
by the Eliseyev Brothers. Fie, fie, fathers! That is something
beyond gudgeon. Look at the bottles the fathers have brought out, he
he he! And who has provided it all? The Russian peasant, the labourer,
brings here the farthing earned by his horny hand, wringing it from
his family and the tax-gatherer! You bleed the people, you know,
holy Fathers.”
“This is too disgraceful!” said Father Iosif.
Father Paissy kept obstinately silent. Miusov rushed from the
room, and Kalgonov after him.
“Well, Father, I will follow Pyotr Alexandrovitch! I am not coming
to see you again. You may beg me on your knees, I shan’t come. I
sent you a thousand roubles, so you have begun to keep your eye on me.
He he he! No, I’ll say no more. I am taking my revenge for my youth,
for all the humiliation I endured.” He thumped the table with his fist
in a paroxysm of simulated feeling. “This monastery has played a great
part in my life! It has cost me many bitter tears. You used to set
my wife, the crazy one, against me. You cursed me with bell and
book, you spread stories about me all over the place. Enough, fathers!
This is the age of Liberalism, the age of steamers and railways.
Neither a thousand, nor a hundred roubles, no, nor a hundred farthings
will you get out of me!”
It must be noted again that our monastery never had played any
great part in his life, and he never had shed a bitter tear owing to
it. But he was so carried away by his simulated emotion, that he was
for one moment almost believing it himself. He was so touched he was
almost weeping. But at that very instant, he felt that it was time
to draw back.
The Father Superior bowed his head at his malicious lie, and again
spoke impressively:
“It is written again, ‘Bear circumspectly and gladly dishonour
that cometh upon thee by no act of thine own, be not confounded and
hate not him who hath dishonoured thee.’ And so will we.”
“Tut, tut, tut! Bethinking thyself and the rest of the
rigmarole. Bethink yourselves Fathers, I will go. But I will take my
son, Alexey, away from here for ever, on my parental authority. Ivan
Fyodorovitch, my most dutiful son, permit me to order you to follow
me. Von Sohn, what have you to stay for? Come and see me now in the
town. It is fun there. It is only one short verst; instead of lenten
oil, I will give you sucking-pig and kasha. We will have dinner with
some brandy and liqueur to it…. I’ve cloudberry wine. Hey, von Sohn,
don’t lose your chance.” He went out, shouting and gesticulating.
It was at that moment Rakitin saw him and pointed him out to
Alyosha.
“Alexey!” his father shouted, from far off, catching sight of him.
“You come home to me to-day, for good, and bring your pillow and
mattress, and leave no trace behind.”
Alyosha stood rooted to the spot, watching the scene in silence.
Meanwhile, Fyodor Pavlovitch had got into the carriage, and Ivan was
about to follow him in grim silence without even turning to say
good-bye to Alyosha. But at this point another almost incredible scene
of grotesque buffoonery gave the finishing touch to the episode.
Maximov suddenly appeared by the side of the carriage. He ran up,
panting, afraid of being too late. Rakitin and Alyosha saw him
running. He was in such a hurry that in his impatience he put his foot
on the step on which Ivan’s left foot was still resting, and clutching
the carriage he kept trying to jump in. “I am going with you! ” he
kept shouting, laughing a thin mirthful laugh with a look of
reckless glee in his face. “Take me, too.”
“There!” cried Fyodor Pavlovitch, delighted. “Did I not say he was
von Sohn. It is von Sohn himself, risen from the dead. Why, how did
you tear yourself away? What did you von Sohn there? And how could you
get away from the dinner? You must be a brazen-faced fellow! I am that
myself, but I am surprised at you, brother! Jump in, jump in! Let
him pass, Ivan. It will be fun. He can lie somewhere at our feet. Will
you lie at our feet, von Sohn? Or perch on the box with the
coachman. Skip on to the box, von Sohn!”
But Ivan, who had by now taken his seat, without a word gave
Maximov a violent punch in the breast and sent him flying. It was
quite by chance he did not fall.
“Drive on!” Ivan shouted angrily to the coachman.
“Why, what are you doing, what are you about? Why did you do
that?” Fyodor Pavlovitch protested.
But the carriage had already driven away. Ivan made no reply.
“Well, you are a fellow,” Fyodor Pavlovitch said again.
After a pause of two minutes, looking askance at his son, “Why, it
was you got up all this monastery business. You urged it, you approved
of it. Why are you angry now?”
“You’ve talked rot enough. You might rest a bit now,” Ivan snapped
sullenly.
Fyodor Pavlovitch was silent again for two minutes.
“A drop of brandy would be nice now,” he observed sententiously,
but Ivan made no response.
“You shall have some, too, when we get home.”
Ivan was still silent.
Fyodor Pavlovitch waited another two minutes.
“But I shall take Alyosha away from the monastery, though you will
dislike it so much, most honoured Karl von Moor.”
Ivan shrugged his shoulders contemptuously, and turning away
stared at the road. And they did not speak again all the way home.
The Sensualists
In the Servants’ Quarters
THE Karamazovs’ house was far from being in the centre of the
town, but it was not quite outside it. It was a pleasant-looking old
house of two stories, painted grey, with a red iron roof. It was roomy
and snug, and might still last many years. There were all sorts of
unexpected little cupboards and closets and staircases. There were
rats in it, but Fyodor Pavlovitch did not altogether dislike them.
“One doesn’t feel so solitary when one’s left alone in the evening,”
he used to say. It was his habit to send the servants away to the
lodge for the night and to lock himself up alone. The lodge was a
roomy and solid building in the yard. Fyodor Pavlovitch used to have
the cooking done there, although there was a kitchen in the house;
he did not like the smell of cooking, and, winter and summer alike,
the dishes were carried in across the courtyard. The house was built
for a large family; there was room for five times as many, with
their servants. But at the time of our story there was no one living
in the house but Fyodor Pavlovitch and his son Ivan. And in the
lodge there were only three servants: old Grigory, and his old wife
Marfa, and a young man called Smerdyakov. Of these three we must say a
few words. Of old Grigory we have said something already. He was
firm and determined and went blindly and obstinately for his object,
if once be had been brought by any reasons (and they were often very
illogical ones) to believe that it was immutably right. He was
honest and incorruptible. His wife, Marfa Ignatyevna, had obeyed her
husband’s will implicitly all her life, yet she had pestered him
terribly after the emancipation of the serfs. She was set on leaving
Fyodor Pavlovitch and opening a little shop in Moscow with their small
savings. But Grigory decided then, once for all, that “the woman’s
talking nonsense, for every woman is dishonest,” and that they ought
not to leave their old master, whatever he might be, for “that was now
their duty.”
“Do you understand what duty is?” he asked Marfa Ignatyevna.
“I understand what duty means, Grigory Vassilyevitch, but why it’s
our duty to stay here I never shall understand,” Marfa answered
firmly.
“Well, don’t understand then. But so it shall be. And you hold
your tongue.”
And so it was. They did not go away, and Fyodor Pavlovitch
promised them a small sum for wages, and paid it regularly. Grigory
knew, too, that he had an indisputable influence over his master. It
was true, and he was aware of it. Fyodor Pavlovitch was an obstinate
and cunning buffoon, yet, though his will was strong enough “in some
of the affairs of life,” as he expressed it, he found himself, to
his surprise, extremely feeble in facing certain other emergencies. He
knew his weaknesses and was afraid of them. There are positions in
which one has to keep a sharp lookout. And that’s not easy without a
trustworthy man, and Grigory was a most trustworthy man. Many times in
the course of his life Fyodor Pavlovitch had only just escaped a sound
thrashing through Grigory’s intervention, and on each occasion the old
servant gave him a good lecture. But it wasn’t only thrashings that
Fyodor Pavlovitch was afraid of. There were graver occasions, and very
subtle and complicated ones, when Fyodor Pavlovitch could not have
explained the extraordinary craving for someone faithful and
devoted, which sometimes unaccountably came upon him all in a
moment. It was almost a morbid condition. Corrupt and often cruel in
his lust, like some noxious insect, Fyodor Pavlovitch was sometimes,
in moments of drunkenness, overcome by superstitious terror and a
moral convulsion which took an almost physical form. “My soul’s simply
quaking in my throat at those times,” he used to say. At such
moments he liked to feel that there was near at hand, in the lodge
if not in the room, a strong, faithful man, virtuous and unlike
himself, who had seen all his debauchery and knew all his secrets, but
was ready in his devotion to overlook all that, not to oppose him,
above all, not to reproach him or threaten him with anything, either
in this world or in the next, and, in case of need, to defend him-from whom? From somebody unknown, but terrible and dangerous. What
he needed was to feel that there was another man, an old and tried
friend, that he might call him in his sick moments merely to look at
his face, or, perhaps, exchange
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