bookssland.com » Fiction » The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoyevsky (reading an ebook TXT) 📗

Book online «The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoyevsky (reading an ebook TXT) 📗». Author Fyodor Dostoyevsky



1 ... 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 ... 178
Go to page:
were costly

goods or money lying about, no one kept watch on her, for they knew

that if she saw thousands of roubles overlooked by them, she would not

have touched a farthing. She scarcely ever went to church. She slept

either in the church porch or climbed over a hurdle (there are many

hurdles instead of fences to this day in our town) into a kitchen

garden. She used at least once a week to turn up “at home,” that is at

the house of her father’s former employers, and in the winter went

there every night, and slept either in the passage or the cow-house.

People were amazed that she could stand such a life, but she was

accustomed to it, and, although she was so tiny, she was of a robust

constitution. Some of the townspeople declared that she did all this

only from pride, but that is hardly credible. She could hardly

speak, and only from time to time uttered an inarticulate grunt. How

could she have been proud?

 

It happened one clear, warm, moonlight night in September (many

years ago) five or six drunken revellers were returning from the

club at a very late hour, according to our provincial notions. They

passed through the “backway,” which led between the back gardens of

the houses, with hurdles on either side. This way leads out on to

the bridge over the long, stinking pool which we were accustomed to

call a river. Among the nettles and burdocks under the hurdle our

revellers saw Lizaveta asleep. They stopped to look at her,

laughing, and began jesting with unbridled licentiousness. It occurred

to one young gentleman to make the whimsical inquiry whether anyone

could possibly look upon such an animal as a woman, and so forth….

They all pronounced with lofty repugnance that it was impossible.

But Fyodor Pavlovitch, who was among them, sprang forward and declared

that it was by no means impossible, and that, indeed, there was a

certain piquancy about it, and so on…. It is true that at that

time he was overdoing his part as a buffoon. He liked to put himself

forward and entertain the company, ostensibly on equal terms, of

course, though in reality he was on a servile footing with them. It

was just at the time when he had received the news of his first wife’s

death in Petersburg, and, with crape upon his hat, was drinking and

behaving so shamelessly that even the most reckless among us were

shocked at the sight of him. The revellers, of course, laughed at this

unexpected opinion; and one of them even began challenging him to

act upon it. The others repelled the idea even more emphatically,

although still with the utmost hilarity, and at last they went on

their way. Later on, Fyodor Pavlovitch swore that he had gone with

them, and perhaps it was so, no one knows for certain, and no one ever

knew. But five or six months later, all the town was talking, with

intense and sincere indignation, of Lizaveta’s condition, and trying

to find out who was the miscreant who had wronged her. Then suddenly a

terrible rumour was all over the town that this miscreant was no other

than Fyodor Pavlovitch. Who set the rumour going? Of that drunken band

five had left the town and the only one still among us was an

elderly and much respected civil councillor, the father of grown-up

daughters, who could hardly have spread the tale, even if there had

been any foundation for it. But rumour pointed straight at Fyodor

Pavlovitch, and persisted in pointing at him. Of course this was no

great grievance to him: he would not have troubled to contradict a set

of tradespeople. In those days he was proud, and did not condescend to

talk except in his own circle of the officials and nobles, whom he

entertained so well.

 

At the time, Grigory stood up for his master vigorously. He

provoked quarrels and altercations in defence of him and succeeded

in bringing some people round to his side. “It’s the wench’s own

fault,” he asserted, and the culprit was Karp, a dangerous convict,

who had escaped from prison and whose name was well known to us, as he

had hidden in our town. This conjecture sounded plausible, for it

was remembered that Karp had been in the neighbourhood just at that

time in the autumn, and had robbed three people. But this affair and

all the talk about it did not estrange popular sympathy from the

poor idiot. She was better looked after than ever. A well-to-do

merchants’s widow named Kondratyev arranged to take her into her house

at the end of April, meaning not to let her go out until after the

confinement. They kept a constant watch over her, but in spite of

their vigilance she escaped on the very last day, and made her way

into Fyodor Pavlovitch’s garden. How, in her condition, she managed to

climb over the high, strong fence remained a mystery. Some

maintained that she must have been lifted over by somebody; others

hinted at something more uncanny. The most likely explanation is

that it happened naturally-that Lizaveta, accustomed to clambering

over hurdles to sleep in gardens, had somehow managed to climb this

fence, in spite of her condition, and had leapt down, injuring

herself.

 

Grigory rushed to Marfa and sent her to Lizaveta, while he ran

to fetch an old midwife who lived close by. They saved the baby, but

Lizaveta died at dawn. Grigory took the baby, brought it home, and

making his wife sit down, put it on her lap. “A child of God-an

orphan is akin to all,” he said, “and to us above others. Our little

lost one has sent us this, who has come from the devil’s son and a

holy innocent. Nurse him and weep no more.”

 

So Marfa brought up the child. He was christened Pavel, to which

people were not slow in adding Fyodorovitch (son of Fyodor). Fyodor

Pavlovitch did not object to any of this, and thought it amusing,

though he persisted vigorously in denying his responsibility. The

townspeople were pleased at his adopting the foundling. Later on,

Fyodor Pavlovitch invented a surname for the child, calling him

Smerdyakov, after his mother’s nickname.

 

So this Smerdyakov became Fyodor Pavlovitch’s second servant,

and was living in the lodge with Grigory and Marfa at the time our

story begins. He was employed as cook. I ought to say something of

this Smerdyakov, but I am ashamed of keeping my readers’ attention

so long occupied with these common menials, and I will go back to my

story, hoping to say more of Smerdyakov in the course of it.

Chapter 3

The Confession of a Passionate Heart-in Verse

 

ALYOSHA remained for some time irresolute after hearing the

command his father shouted to him from the carriage. But in spite of

his uneasiness he did not stand still. That was not his way. He went

at once to the kitchen to find out what his father had been doing

above. Then he set off, trusting that on the way he would find some

answer to the doubt tormenting him. I hasten to add that his

father’s shouts, commanding him to return home “with his mattress

and pillow” did not frighten him in the least. He understood perfectly

that those peremptory shouts were merely “a flourish” to produce an

effect. In the same way a tradesman in our town who was celebrating

his name-day with a party of friends, getting angry at being refused

more vodka, smashed up his own crockery and furniture and tore his own

and his wife’s clothes, and finally broke his windows, all for the

sake of effect. Next day, of course, when he was sober, he regretted

the broken cups and saucers. Alyosha knew that his father would let

him go back to the monastery next day, possibly even that evening.

Moreover, he was fully persuaded that his father might hurt anyone

else, but would not hurt him. Alyosha was certain that no one in the

whole world ever would want to hurt him, and, what is more, he knew

that no one could hurt him. This was for him an axiom, assumed once

for all without question, and he went his way without hesitation,

relying on it.

 

But at that moment an anxiety of sort disturbed him, and worried

him the more because he could not formulate it. It was the fear of a

woman, of Katerina Ivanovna, who had so urgently entreated him in

the note handed to him by Madame Hohlakov to come and see her about

something. This request and the necessity of going had at once aroused

an uneasy feeling in his heart, and this feeling had grown more and

more painful all the morning in spite of the scenes at the hermitage

and at the Father Superior’s. He was not uneasy because he did not

know what she would speak of and what he must answer. And he was not

afraid of her simply as a woman. Though he knew little of women, he

spent his life, from early childhood till he entered the monastery,

entirely with women. He was afraid of that woman, Katerina Ivanovna.

He had been afraid of her from the first time he saw her. He had

only seen her two or three times, and had only chanced to say a few

words to her. He thought of her as a beautiful, proud, imperious girl.

It was not her beauty which troubled him, but something else. And

the vagueness of his apprehension increased the apprehension itself.

The girl’s aims were of the noblest, he knew that. She was trying to

save his brother Dmitri simply through generosity, though he had

already behaved badly to her. Yet, although Alyosha recognised and did

justice to all these fine and generous sentiments, a shiver began to

run down his back as soon as he drew near her house.

 

He reflected that he would not find Ivan, who was so intimate a

friend, with her, for Ivan was certainly now with his father. Dmitri

he was even more certain not to find there, and he had a foreboding of

the reason. And so his conversation would be with her alone. He had

a great longing to run and see his brother Dmitri before that

fateful interview. Without showing him the letter, he could talk to

him about it. But Dmitri lived a long way off, and he was sure to be

away from home too. Standing still for a minute, he reached a final

decision. Crossing himself with a rapid and accustomed gesture, and at

once smiling, he turned resolutely in the direction of his terrible

lady.

 

He knew her house. If he went by the High Street and then across

the marketplace, it was a long way round. Though our town is small,

it is scattered, and the houses are far apart. And meanwhile his

father was expecting him, and perhaps had not yet forgotten his

command. He might be unreasonable, and so he had to make haste to

get there and back. So he decided to take a short cut by the

backway, for he knew every inch of the ground. This meant skirting

fences, climbing over hurdles, and crossing other people’s backyards,

where everyone he met knew him and greeted him. In this way he could

reach the High Street in half the time.

 

He had to pass the garden adjoining his father’s, and belonging to

a little tumbledown house with four windows. The owner of this

house, as Alyosha knew, was a bedridden old woman, living with her

daughter, who had been a genteel maid-servant in generals’ families in

Petersburg. Now she had been at home a year, looking after her sick

mother. She always

1 ... 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 ... 178
Go to page:

Free e-book «The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoyevsky (reading an ebook TXT) 📗» - read online now

Comments (0)

There are no comments yet. You can be the first!
Add a comment