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

behaving

like a scoundrel? In your eyes, Alexey Fyodorovitch, I shan’t be a

scoundrel? No, Alexey Fyodorovitch, listen, listen,” he hurried,

touching Alyosha with both his hands. “You are persuading me to take

it, saying that it’s a sister sends it, but inwardly, in your heart

won’t you feel contempt for me if I take it, eh?”

 

“No, no, on my salvation I swear I shan’t! And no one will ever

know but me-I, you and she, and one other lady, her great friend.”

 

“Never mind the lady! Listen, Alexey Fyodorovitch, at a moment

like this you must listen, for you can’t understand what these two

hundred roubles mean to me now.” The poor fellow went on rising

gradually into a sort of incoherent, almost wild enthusiasm. He was

thrown off his balance and talked extremely fast, as though afraid

he would not be allowed to say all he had to say.

 

“Besides its being honestly acquired from a ‘sister,’ so highly

respected and revered, do you know that now I can look after mamma and

Nina, my hunchback angel daughter? Doctor Herzenstube came to me in

the kindness of his heart and was examining them both for a whole

hour. ‘I can make nothing of it,’ said he, but he prescribed a mineral

water which is kept at a chemist’s here. He said it would be sure to

do her good, and he ordered baths, too, with some medicine in them.

The mineral water costs thirty copecks, and she’d need to drink

forty bottles perhaps: so I took the prescription and laid it on the

shelf under the ikons, and there it lies. And he ordered hot baths for

Nina with something dissolved in them, morning and evening. But how

can we carry out such a cure in our mansion, without servants, without

help, without a bath, and without water? Nina is rheumatic all over, I

don’t think I told you that. All her right side aches at night, she is

in agony, and, would you believe it, the angel bears it without

groaning for fear of waking us. We eat what we can get, and she’ll

only take the leavings, what you’d scarcely give to a dog. ‘I am not

worth it, I am taking it from you, I am a burden on you,’ that’s

what her angel eyes try to express. We wait on her, but she doesn’t

like it. ‘I am a useless cripple, no good to anyone.’ As though she

were not worth it, when she is the saving of all of us with her

angelic sweetness. Without her, without her gentle word it would be

hell among us! She softens even Varvara. And don’t judge Varvara

harshly either, she is an angel too, she, too, has suffered wrong. She

came to us for the summer, and she brought sixteen roubles she had

earned by lessons and saved up, to go back with to Petersburg in

September, that is now. But we took her money and lived on it, so

now she has nothing to go back with. Though indeed she couldn’t go

back, for she has to work for us like a slave. She is like an

overdriven horse with all of us on her back. She waits on us all,

mends and washes, sweeps the floor, puts mamma to bed. And mamma is

capricious and tearful and insane! And now I can get a servant with

this money, you understand, Alexey Fyodorovitch, I can get medicines

for the dear creatures, I can send my student to Petersburg, I can buy

beef, I can feed them properly. Good Lord, but it’s a dream!”

 

Alyosha was delighted that he had brought him such happiness and

that the poor fellow had consented to be made happy.

 

“Stay, Alexey Fyodorovitch, stay,” the captain began to talk

with frenzied rapidity, carried away by a new day-dream. “Do you

know that Ilusha and I will perhaps really carry out our dream. We

will buy a horse and cart, a black horse, he insists on its being

black, and we will set off as we pretended the other day. I have an

old friend, a lawyer in K. province, and I heard through a trustworthy

man that if I were to go he’d give me a place as clerk in his

office, so, who knows, maybe he would. So I’d just put mamma and

Nina in the cart, and Ilusha could drive, and I’d walk, I’d walk….

Why, if I only succeed in getting one debt paid that’s owing me, I

should have perhaps enough for that too!”

 

“There would be enough!” cried Alyosha. “Katerina Ivanovna will

send you as much more as you need, and you know, I have money too,

take what you want, as you would from a brother, from a friend, you

can give it back later…. (You’ll get rich. you’ll get rich!) And you

know you couldn’t have a better idea than to move to another province!

It would be the saving of you, especially of your boy and you ought to

go quickly, before the winter, before the cold. You must write to us

when you are there, and we will always be brothers… No, it’s not a

dream!”

 

Alyosha could have hugged him, he was so pleased. But glancing

at him he stopped short. The man was standing with his neck

outstretched and his lips protruding, with a pale and frenzied face.

His lips were moving as though trying to articulate something; no

sound came, but still his lips moved. It was uncanny.

 

“What is it?” asked Alyosha, startled.

 

“Alexey Fyodorovitch… I… you,” muttered the captain,

faltering, looking at him with a strange, wild, fixed stare, and an

air of desperate resolution. At the same time there was a sort of grin

on his lips. “I… you, sir… wouldn’t you like me to show you a

little trick I know?” he murmured, suddenly, in a firm rapid

whisper, his voice no longer faltering.

 

“What trick?”

 

“A pretty trick,” whispered the captain. His mouth was twisted

on the left side, his left eye was screwed up. He still stared at

Alyosha.

 

“What is the matter? What trick?” Alyosha cried, now thoroughly

alarmed.

 

“Why, look,” squealed the captain suddenly, and showing him the

two notes which he had been holding by one corner between his thumb

and forefinger during the conversation, he crumpled them up savagely

and squeezed them tight in his right hand. “Do you see, do you see?”

he shrieked, pale and infuriated. And suddenly flinging up his hand,

he threw the crumpled notes on the sand. “Do you see?” he shrieked

again, pointing to them. “Look there!”

 

And with wild fury he began trampling them under his heel, gasping

and exclaiming as he did so:

 

“So much for your money! So much for your money! So much for

your money! So much for your money!”

 

Suddenly he darted back and drew himself up before Alyosha, and

his whole figure expressed unutterable pride.

 

“Tell those who sent you that the wisp of tow does not sell his

honour,” he cried, raising his arm in the air. Then he turned

quickly and began to run; but he had not run five steps before he

turned completely round and kissed his hand to Alyosha. He ran another

five paces and then turned round for the last time. This time his face

was not contorted with laughter, but quivering all over with tears. In

a tearful, faltering, sobbing voice he cried:

 

“What should I say to my boy if I took money from you for our

shame?”

 

And then he ran on without turning. Alyosha looked after him,

inexpressibly grieved. Oh, he saw that till the very last moment the

man had not known he would crumple up and fling away the notes. He did

not turn back. Alyosha knew he would not. He would not follow him

and call him back, he knew why. When he was out of sight, Alyosha

picked up the two notes. They were very much crushed and crumpled, and

had been pressed into the sand, but were uninjured and even rustled

like new ones when Alyosha unfolded them and smoothed them out.

After smoothing them out, he folded them up, put them in his pocket

and went to Katerina Ivanovna to report on the success of her

commission.