The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoyevsky (reading an ebook TXT) 📗
- Author: Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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fall in love with such a little slut. It’s a jolly good thing that
there always are and will be masters and slaves in the world, so there
always will be a little maid-of-all-work and her master, and you know,
that’s all that’s needed for happiness. Stay… listen, Alyosha, I
always used to surprise your mother, but in a different way. I paid no
attention to her at all, but all at once, when the minute came, I’d be
all devotion to her, crawl on my knees, kiss her feet, and I always,
always-I remember it as though it were to-day- reduced her to that
tinkling, quiet, nervous, queer little laugh. It was peculiar to
her. I knew her attacks always used to begin like that. The next day
she would begin shrieking hysterically, and this little laugh was
not a sign of delight, though it made a very good counterfeit.
That’s the great thing, to know how to take everyone. Once
Belyavsky-he was a handsome fellow, and rich-used to like to come
here and hang about her-suddenly gave me a slap in the face in her
presence. And she-such a mild sheep-why, I thought she would have
knocked me down for that blow. How she set on me! ‘You’re beaten,
beaten now,’ she said, ‘You’ve taken a blow from him. You have been
trying to sell me to him,’ she said… ‘And how dared he strike you in
my presence! Don’t dare come near me again, never, never! Run at once,
challenge him to a duel!’… I took her to the monastery then to bring
her to her senses. The holy Fathers prayed her back to reason. But I
swear, by God, Alyosha, I never insulted the poor crazy girl! Only
once, perhaps, in the first year; then she was very fond of praying.
She used to keep the feasts of Our Lady particularly and used to
turn me out of her room then. I’ll knock that mysticism out of her,
thought I! ‘Here,’ said I, ‘you see your holy image. Here it is.
Here I take it down. You believe it’s miraculous, but here, I’ll
spit on it directly and nothing will happen to me for it!’… When she
saw it, good Lord! I thought she would kill me. But she only jumped
up, wrung her hands, then suddenly hid her face in them, began
trembling all over and fell on the floor… fell all of a heap.
Alyosha, Alyosha, what’s the matter?”
The old man jumped up in alarm. From the time he had begun
speaking about his mother, a change had gradually come over
Alyosha’s face. He flushed crimson, his eyes glowed, his lips
quivered. The old sot had gone spluttering on, noticing nothing,
till the moment when something very strange happened to Alyosha.
Precisely what he was describing in the crazy woman was suddenly
repeated with Alyosha. He jumped up from his seat exactly as his
mother was said to have done, wrung his hands, hid his face in them,
and fell back in his chair, shaking all over in an hysterical paroxysm
of sudden violent, silent weeping. His extraordinary resemblance to
his mother particularly impressed the old man.
“Ivan, Ivan! Water, quickly! It’s like her, exactly as she used to
be then, his mother. Spurt some water on him from your mouth, that’s
what I used to do to her. He’s upset about his mother, his mother,” he
muttered to Ivan.
“But she was my mother, too, I believe, his mother. Was she
not?” said Ivan, with uncontrolled anger and contempt. The old man
shrank before his flashing eyes. But something very strange had
happened, though only for a second; it seemed really to have escaped
the old man’s mind that Alyosha’s mother actually was the mother of
Ivan too.
“Your mother?” he muttered, not understanding. “What do you
mean? What mother are you talking about? Was she?… Why, damn it!
of course she was yours too! Damn it! My mind has never been so
darkened before. Excuse me, why, I was thinking Ivan… He he he!”
He stopped. A broad, drunken, half senseless grin overspread his face.
At that moment a fearful noise, and clamour was heard in the hall,
there were violent shouts, the door was flung open, and Dmitri burst
into the room. The old man rushed to Ivan in terror.
“He’ll kill me! He’ll kill me! Don’t let him get at me!” he
screamed, clinging to the skirt of Ivan’s coat.
The Sensualists
GRIGORY and Smerdyakov ran into the room after Dmitri. They had
been struggling with him in the passage, refusing to admit him, acting
on instructions given them by Fyodor Pavlovitch some days before.
Taking advantage of the fact that Dmitri stopped a moment on
entering the room to look about him, Grigory ran round the table,
closed the double doors on the opposite side of the room leading to
the inner apartments, and stood before the closed doors, stretching
wide his arms, prepared to defend the entrance, so to speak, with
the last drop of his blood. Seeing this, Dmitri uttered a scream
rather than a shout and rushed at Grigory.
“Then she’s there! She’s hidden there! Out of the way, scoundrel!”
He tried to pull Grigory away, but the old servant pushed him
back. Beside himself with fury, Dmitri struck out, and hit Grigory
with all his might. The old man fell like a log, and Dmitri, leaping
over him, broke in the door. Smerdyakov remained pale and trembling at
the other end of the room, huddling close to Fyodor Pavlovitch.
“She’s here!” shouted Dmitri. “I saw her turn towards the house
just now, but I couldn’t catch her. Where is she? Where is she?”
That shout, “She’s here!” produced an indescribable effect on
Fyodor Pavlovitch. All his terror left him.
“Hold him! Hold him!” he cried, and dashed after Dmitri. Meanwhile
Grigory had got up from the floor, but still seemed stunned. Ivan
and Alyosha ran after their father. In the third room something was
heard to fall on the floor with a ringing crash: it was a large
glass vase-not an expensive one-on a marble pedestal which Dmitri
had upset as he ran past it.
“At him!” shouted the old man. “Help!”
Ivan and Alyosha caught the old man and were forcibly bringing him
back.
“Why do you run after him? He’ll murder you outright,” Ivan
cried wrathfully at his father.
“Ivan! Alyosha! She must be here. Grushenka’s here. He said he saw
her himself, running.”
He was choking. He was not expecting Grushenka at the time, and
the sudden news that she was here made him beside himself. He was
trembling all over. He seemed frantic.
“But you’ve seen for yourself that she hasn’t come,” cried Ivan.
“But she may have come by that other entrance.”
“You know that entrance is locked, and you have the key.”
Dmitri suddenly reappeared in the drawing-room. He had, of course,
found the other entrance locked, and the key actually was in Fyodor
Pavlovitch’s pocket. The windows of all rooms were also closed, so
Grushenka could not have come in anywhere nor have run out anywhere.
“Hold him!” shrieked Fyodor Pavlovitch, as soon as he saw him
again. “He’s been stealing money in my bedroom.” And tearing himself
from Ivan he rushed again at Dmitri. But Dmitri threw up both hands
and suddenly clutched the old man by the two tufts of hair that
remained on his temples, tugged at them, and flung him with a crash on
the floor. He kicked him two or three times with his heel in the face.
The old man moaned shrilly. Ivan, though not so strong as Dmitri,
threw his arms round him, and with all his might pulled him away.
Alyosha helped him with his slender strength, holding Dmitri in front.
“Madman! You’ve killed him!” cried Ivan.
“Serve him right!” shouted Dmitri breathlessly. “If I haven’t
killed him, I’ll come again and kill him. You can’t protect him!”
“Dmitri! Go away at once!” cried Alyosha commandingly.
“Alexey! You tell me. It’s only you I can believe; was she here
just now, or not? I saw her myself creeping this way by the fence from
the lane. I shouted, she ran away.”
“I swear she’s not been here, and no one expected her.”
“But I saw her…. So she must… I’ll find out at once where
she is…. Goodbye, Alexey! Not a word to Aesop about the money
now. But go to Katerina Ivanovna at once and be sure to say, ‘He sends
his compliments to you!’ Compliments, his compliments! just
compliments and farewell! Describe the scene to her.”
Meanwhile Ivan and Grigory had raised the old man and seated him
in an armchair. His face was covered with blood, but he was conscious
and listened greedily to Dmitri’s cries. He was still fancying that
Grushenka really was somewhere in the house. Dmitri looked at him with
hatred as he went out.
“I don’t repent shedding your blood!” he cried. “Beware, old
man, beware of your dream, for I have my dream, too. I curse you,
and disown you altogether.”
He ran out of the room.
“She’s here. She must be here. Smerdyakov! Smerdyakov!” the old
man wheezed, scarcely audibly, beckoning to him with his finger.
“No, she’s not here, you old lunatic!” Ivan shouted at him
angrily. “Here, he’s fainting? Water! A towel! Make haste,
Smerdyakov!”
Smerdyakov ran for water. At last they got the old man
undressed, and put him to bed. They wrapped a wet towel round his
head. Exhausted by the brandy, by his violent emotion, and the blows
he had received, he shut his eyes and fell asleep as soon as his
head touched the pillow. Ivan and Alyosha went back to the
drawing-room. Smerdyakov removed the fragments of the broken vase,
while Grigory stood by the table looking gloomily at the floor.
“Shouldn’t you put a wet bandage on your head and go to bed, too?”
Alyosha said to him. “We’ll look after him. My brother gave you a
terrible blow-on the head.”
“He’s insulted me!” Grigory articulated gloomily and distinctly.
“He’s ‘insulted’ his father, not only you,” observed Ivan with a
forced smile.
“I used to wash him in his tub. He’s insulted me,” repeated
Grigory.
“Damn it all, if I hadn’t pulled him away perhaps he’d have
murdered him. It wouldn’t take much to do for Aesop, would it?”
whispered Ivan to Alyosha.
“God forbid!” cried Alyosha.
“Why should He forbid?” Ivan went on in the same whisper, with a
malignant grimace. “One reptile will devour the other. And serve
them both right, too.”
Alyosha shuddered.
“Of course I won’t let him be murdered as I didn’t just now.
Stay here, Alyosha, I’ll go for a turn in the yard. My head’s begun to
ache.”
Alyosha went to his father’s bedroom and sat by his bedside behind
the screen for about an hour. The old man suddenly opened his eyes and
gazed for a long while at Alyosha, evidently remembering and
meditating. All at once his face betrayed extraordinary excitement.
“Alyosha,” he whispered apprehensively, “where’s Ivan?”
“In the yard. He’s got a headache. He’s on the watch.”
“Give me that looking-glass. It stands over there. Give it me.”
Alyosha gave him a little round folding looking-glass which
stood on the chest of drawers. The old man looked at himself in it;
his nose was considerably swollen, and on the left side of his
forehead there was a rather large crimson bruise.
“What does Ivan say? Alyosha, my dear, my only son, I’m afraid
of Ivan. I’m more
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