The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoyevsky (reading an ebook TXT) 📗
- Author: Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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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.
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
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