The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoyevsky (reading an ebook TXT) 📗
- Author: Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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conscious of it myself. What made it worse was that I felt that
‘Katenka’ was not an innocent boarding-school miss, but a person of
character, proud and really high-principled; above all, she had
education and intellect, and I had neither. You think I meant to
make her an offer? No, I simply wanted to revenge myself, because I
was such a hero and she didn’t seem to feel it.
“Meanwhile, I spent my time in drink and riot, till the
lieutenant-colonel put me under arrest for three days. Just at that
time father sent me six thousand roubles in return for my sending
him a deed giving up all claims upon him-settling our accounts, so to
speak, and saying that I wouldn’t expect anything more. I didn’t
understand a word of it at the time. Until I came here, Alyosha,
till the last few days, indeed, perhaps even now, I haven’t been
able to make head or tail of my money affairs with father. But never
mind that, we’ll talk of it later.
“Just as I received the money, I got a letter from a friend
telling me something that interested me immensely. The authorities,
I learnt, were dissatisfied with our lieutenant-colonel. He was
suspected of irregularities; in fact, his enemies were preparing a
surprise for him. And then the commander of the division arrived,
and kicked up the devil of a shindy. Shortly afterwards he was ordered
to retire. I won’t tell you how it all happened. He had enemies
certainly. Suddenly there was a marked coolness in the town towards
him and all his family. His friends all turned their backs on him.
Then I took my first step. I met Agafya Ivanovna, with whom I’d always
kept up a friendship, and said, ‘Do you know there’s a deficit of 4500
roubles of government money in your father’s accounts?’
“‘What do you mean? What makes you say so? The general was here
not long ago, and everything was all right.’
“‘Then it was, but now it isn’t.’
“She was terribly scared.
“‘Don’t frighten me!’ she said. ‘Who told you so?’
“‘Don’t be uneasy,’ I said, ‘I won’t tell anyone. You know I’m
as silent as the tomb. I only wanted, in view of “possibilities,” to
add, that when they demand that 4500 roubles from your father, and
he can’t produce it, he’ll be tried, and made to serve as a common
soldier in his old age, unless you like to send me your young lady
secretly. I’ve just had money paid me. I’ll give her four thousand, if
you like, and keep the secret religiously.’
“‘Ah, you scoundrel!’- that’s what she said. ‘You wicked
scoundrel! How dare you!’
“She went away furiously indignant, while I shouted after her once
more that the secret should be kept sacred. Those two simple
creatures, Agafya and her aunt, I may as well say at once, behaved
like perfect angels all through this business. They genuinely adored
their ‘Katya,’ thought her far above them, and waited on her, hand and
foot. But Agafya told her of our conversation. I found that out
afterwards. She didn’t keep it back, and of course that was all I
wanted.
“Suddenly the new major arrived to take command of the
battalion. The old lieutenant-colonel was taken ill at once,
couldn’t leave his room for two days, and didn’t hand over the
government money. Dr. Kravchenko declared that he really was ill.
But I knew for a fact, and had known for a long time, that for the
last four years the money had never been in his hands except when
the Commander made his visits of inspection. He used to lend it to a
trustworthy person, a merchant of our town called Trifonov, an old
widower, with a big beard and gold-rimmed spectacles. He used to go to
the fair, do a profitable business with the money, and return the
whole sum to the colonel, bringing with it a present from the fair, as
well as interest on the loan. But this time (I heard all about it
quite by chance from Trifonov’s son and heir, a drivelling youth and
one of the most vicious in the world)- this time, I say, Trifonov
brought nothing back from the fair. The lieutenant-colonel flew to
him. ‘I’ve never received any money from you, and couldn’t possibly
have received any.’ That was all the answer he got. So now our
lieutenant-colonel is confined to the house, with a towel round his
head, while they’re all three busy putting ice on it. All at once an
orderly arrives on the scene with the book and the order to ‘hand over
the battalion money immediately, within two hours.’ He signed the book
(I saw the signature in the book afterwards), stood up, saying he
would put on his uniform, ran to his bedroom, loaded his
double-barrelled gun with a service bullet, took the boot off his
right foot, fixed the gun against his chest, and began feeling for the
trigger with his foot. But Agafya, remembering what I had told her,
had her suspicions. She stole up and peeped into the room just in
time. She rushed in, flung herself upon him from behind, threw her
arms round him, and the gun went off, hit the ceiling, but hurt no
one. The others ran in, took away the gun, and held him by the arms. I
heard all about this afterwards. I was at home, it was getting dusk,
and I was just preparing to go out. I had dressed, brushed my hair,
scented my handkerchief, and taken up my cap, when suddenly the door
opened, and facing me in the room stood Katerina Ivanovna.
“It’s strange how things happen sometimes. No one had seen her
in the street, so that no one knew of it in the town. I lodged with
two decrepit old ladies, who looked after me. They were most
obliging old things, ready to do anything for me, and at my request
were as silent afterwards as two cast-iron posts. Of course I
grasped the position at once. She walked in and looked straight at me,
her dark eyes determined, even defiant, but on her lips and round
mouth I saw uncertainty.
“‘My sister told me,’ she began, ‘that you would give me 4500
roubles if I came to you for it-myself. I have come… give me the
money!’
“She couldn’t keep it up. She was breathless, frightened, her
voice failed her, and the corners of her mouth and the lines round
it quivered. Alyosha, are you listening, or are you asleep?”
“Mitya, I know you will tell the whole truth, said Alyosha in
agitation.
“I am telling it. If I tell the whole truth just as it happened
I shan’t spare myself. My first idea was a-Karamazov one. Once I
was bitten by a centipede, brother, and laid up a fortnight with fever
from it. Well, I felt a centipede biting at my heart then-a noxious
insect, you understand? I looked her up and down. You’ve seen her?
She’s a beauty. But she was beautiful in another way then. At that
moment she was beautiful because she was noble, and I was a scoundrel;
she in all the grandeur of her generosity and sacrifice for her
father, and I-a bug! And, scoundrel as I was, she was altogether at
my mercy, body and soul. She was hemmed in. I tell you frankly, that
thought, that venomous thought, so possessed my heart that it almost
swooned with suspense. It seemed as if there could be no resisting it;
as though I should act like a bug, like a venomous spider, without a
spark of pity. I could scarcely breathe. Understand, I should have
gone next day to ask for her hand, so that it might end honourably, so
to speak, and that nobody would or could know. For though I’m a man of
base desires, I’m honest. And at that very second some voice seemed to
whisper in my ear, ‘But when you come to-morrow to make your proposal,
that girl won’t even see you; she’ll order her coachman to kick you
out of the yard. “Publish it through all the town,” she would say,
“I’m not afraid of you.” ‘I looked at the young lady, my voice had not
deceived me. That is how it would be, not a doubt of it. I could see
from her face now that I should be turned out of the house. My spite
was roused. I longed to play her the nastiest swinish cad’s trick:
to look at her with a sneer, and on the spot where she stood before me
to stun her with a tone of voice that only a shopman could use.
“‘Four thousand! What do you mean? I was joking. You’ve been
counting your chickens too easily, madam. Two hundred, if you like,
with all my heart. But four thousand is not a sum to throw away on
such frivolity. You’ve put yourself out to no purpose.’
“I should have lost the game, of course. She’d have run away.
But it would have been an infernal revenge. It would have been worth
it all. I’d have howled with regret all the rest of my life, only to
have played that trick. Would you believe it, it has never happened to
me with any other woman, not one, to look at her at such a moment with
hatred. But, on my oath, I looked at her for three seconds, or five
perhaps, with fearful hatred-that hate which is only a hair’s-breadth
from love, from the maddest love!
“I went to the window, put my forehead against the frozen pane,
and I remember the ice burnt my forehead like fire. I did not keep her
long, don’t be afraid. I turned round, went up to the table, opened
the drawer and took out a banknote for five thousand roubles (it was
lying in a French dictionary). Then I showed it her in silence, folded
it, handed it to her, opened the door into the passage, and,
stepping back, made her a deep bow. a most respectful, a most
impressive bow, believe me! She shuddered all over, gazed at me for
a second, turned horribly pale-white as a sheet, in fact-and all at
once, not impetuously but softly, gently, bowed down to my feet-not a
boarding-school curtsey, but a Russian bow, with her forehead to the
floor. She jumped up and ran away. I was wearing my sword. I drew it
and nearly stabbed myself with it on the spot; why, I don’t know. It
would have been frightfully stupid, of course. I suppose it was from
delight. Can you understand that one might kill oneself from
delight? But I didn’t stab myself. I only kissed my sword and put it
back in the scabbard-which there was no need to have told you, by the
way. And I fancy that in telling you about my inner conflict I have
laid it on rather thick to glorify myself. But let it pass, and to
hell with all who pry into the human heart! Well, so much for that
‘adventure’ with Katerina Ivanovna. So now Ivan knows of it, and
you-no one else.”
Dmitri got up, took a step or two in his excitement, pulled out
his handkerchief and mopped his forehead, then sat down again, not
in the same place as before, but on the opposite side, so that Alyosha
had to turn quite round to face him.
The Confession of a Passionate Heart- “Heels Up”
“NOW,” said Alyosha, “I understand the first half.”
“You understand the first half. That half is a drama, and it was
played out there. The
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