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

conversation with Alyosha, at the crossroads, he hardly

slept all night, and at ten o’clock next morning, he was at the

house of Samsonov and telling the servant to announce him. It was a

very large and gloomy old house of two stories, with a lodge and

outhouses. In the lower story lived Samsonov’s two married sons with

their families, his old sister, and his unmarried daughter. In the

lodge lived two of his clerks, one of whom also had a large family.

Both the lodge and the lower story were overcrowded, but the old man

kept the upper floor to himself, and would not even let the daughter

live there with him, though she waited upon him, and in spite of her

asthma was obliged at certain fixed hours, and at any time he might

call her, to run upstairs to him from below.

 

This upper floor contained a number of large rooms kept purely for

show, furnished in the old-fashioned merchant style, with long

monotonous rows of clumsy mahogany chairs along the walls, with

glass chandeliers under shades, and gloomy mirrors on the walls. All

these rooms were entirely empty and unused, for the old man kept to

one room, a small, remote bedroom, where he was waited upon by an

old servant with a kerchief on her head, and by a lad, who used to sit

on the locker in the passage. Owing to his swollen legs, the old man

could hardly walk at all, and was only rarely lifted from his

leather armchair, when the old woman supporting him led him up and

down the room once or twice. He was morose and taciturn even with this

old woman.

 

When he was informed of the arrival of the “captain,” he at once

refused to see him. But Mitya persisted and sent his name up again.

Samsonov questioned the lad minutely: What he looked like? Whether

he was drunk? Was he going to make a row? The answer he received

was: that he was sober, but wouldn’t go away. The old man again

refused to see him. Then Mitya, who had foreseen this, and purposely

brought pencil and paper with him, wrote clearly on the piece of paper

the words: “On most important business closely concerning Agrafena

Alexandrovna,” and sent it up to the old man.

 

After thinking a little Samsonov told the lad to take the

visitor to the drawing-room, and sent the old woman downstairs with

a summons to his younger son to come upstairs to him at once. This

younger son, a man over six foot and of exceptional physical strength,

who was closely-shaven and dressed in the European style, though his

father still wore a kaftan and a beard, came at once without a

comment. All the family trembled before the father. The old man had

sent for this giant, not because he was afraid of the “captain” (he

was by no means of a timorous temper), but in order to have a

witness in case of any emergency. Supported by his son and the servant

lad, he waddled at last into the drawing-room. It may be assumed

that he felt considerable curiosity. The drawing-room in which Mitya

was awaiting him was a vast, dreary room that laid a weight of

depression on the heart. It had a double row of windows, a gallery,

marbled walls, and three immense chandeliers with glass lustres

covered with shades.

 

Mitya was sitting on a little chair at the entrance, awaiting

his fate with nervous impatience. When the old man appeared at the

opposite door, seventy feet away, Mitya jumped up at once, and with

his long, military stride walked to meet him. Mitya was well

dressed, in a frock-coat, buttoned up, with a round hat and black

gloves in his hands, just as he had been three days before at the

elder’s, at the family meeting with his father and brothers. The old

man waited for him, standing dignified and unbending, and Mitya felt

at once that he had looked him through and through as he advanced.

Mitya was greatly impressed, too, with Samsonov’s immensely swollen

face. His lower lip, which had always been thick, hung down now,

looking like a bun. He bowed to his guest in dignified silence,

motioned him to a low chair by the sofa, and, leaning on his son’s arm

he began lowering himself on to the sofa opposite, groaning painfully,

so that Mitya, seeing his painful exertions, immediately felt

remorseful and sensitively conscious of his insignificance in the

presence of the dignified person he had ventured to disturb.

 

“What is it you want of me, sir?” said the old man,

deliberately, distinctly, severely, but courteously, when he was at

last seated.

 

Mitya started, leapt up, but sat down again. Then he began at once

speaking with loud, nervous haste, gesticulating, and in a positive

frenzy. He was unmistakably a man driven into a corner, on the brink

of ruin, catching at the last straw, ready to sink if he failed. Old

Samsonov probably grasped all this in an instant, though his face

remained cold and immovable as a statue’s.

 

“Most honoured sir, Kuzma Kuzmitch, you have no doubt heard more

than once of my disputes with my father, Fyodor Pavlovitch

Karamazov, who robbed me of my inheritance from my mother… seeing

the whole town is gossiping about it… for here everyone’s

gossiping of what they shouldn’t… and besides, it might have reached

you through Grushenka… I beg your pardon, through Agrafena

Alexandrovna… Agrafena Alexandrovna, the lady of whom I have the

highest respect and esteem…”

 

So Mitya began, and broke down at the first sentence. We will

not reproduce his speech word for word, but will only summarise the

gist of it. Three months ago, he said, he had of express intention

(Mitya purposely used these words instead of “intentionally”)

consulted a lawyer in the chief town of the province, “a distinguished

lawyer, Kuzma Kuzmitch, Pavel Pavlovitch Korneplodov. You have perhaps

heard of him? A man of vast intellect, the mind of a statesman… he

knows you, too… spoke of you in the highest terms…” Mitya broke

down again. But these breaks did not deter him. He leapt instantly

over the gaps, and struggled on and on.

 

This Korneplodov, after questioning him minutely, and inspecting

the documents he was able to bring him (Mitya alluded somewhat vaguely

to these documents, and slurred over the subject with special

haste), reported that they certainly might take proceedings concerning

the village of Tchermashnya, which ought, he said, to have come to

him, Mitya, from his mother, and so checkmate the old villain, his

father… “because every door was not closed and justice might still

find a loophole.” In fact, he might reckon on an additional sum of six

or even seven thousand roubles from Fyodor Pavlovitch, as Tchermashnya

was worth, at least, twenty-five thousand, he might say twenty-eight

thousand, in fact, “thirty, thirty, Kuzma Kuzmitch, and would you

believe it, I didn’t get seventeen from that heartless man!” So he,

Mitya, had thrown the business up for the time, knowing nothing

about the law, but on coming here was struck dumb by a cross-claim

made upon him (here Mitya went adrift again and again took a flying

leap forward), “so will not you, excellent and honoured Kuzma

Kuzmitch, be willing to take up all my claims against that unnatural

monster, and pay me a sum down of only three thousand?… You see, you

cannot, in any case, lose over it. On my honour, my honour, I swear

that. Quite the contrary, you may make six or seven thousand instead

of three.” Above all, he wanted this concluded that very day.

 

“I’ll do the business with you at a notary’s, or whatever it is…

in fact, I’m ready to do anything. .. I’ll hand over all the

deeds… whatever you want, sign anything… and we could draw up

the agreement at once… and if it were possible, if it were only

possible, that very morning…. You could pay me that three

thousand, for there isn’t a capitalist in this town to compare with

you, and so would save me from… save me, in fact… for a good, I

might say an honourable action…. For I cherish the most honourable

feelings for a certain person, whom you know well, and care for as a

father. I would not have come, indeed, if it had not been as a father.

And, indeed, it’s a struggle of three in this business, for it’s fate-that’s a fearful thing, Kuzma Kuzmitch! A tragedy, Kuzma Kuzmitch, a

tragedy! And as you’ve dropped out long ago, it’s a tug-of-war between

two. I’m expressing it awkwardly, perhaps, but I’m not a literary man.

You see, I’m on the one side, and that monster on the other. So you

must choose. It’s either I or the monster. It all lies in your

hands-.the fate of three lives, and the happiness of two…. Excuse

me, I’m making a mess of it, but you understand… I see from your

venerable eyes that you understand… and if you don’t understand, I’m

done for… so you see!”

 

Mitya broke off his clumsy speech with that, “so you see!” and

jumping up from his seat, awaited the answer to his foolish

proposal. At the last phrase he had suddenly become hopelessly aware

that it had all fallen flat, above all, that he had been talking utter

nonsense.

 

“How strange it is! On the way here it seemed all right, and now

it’s nothing but nonsense.” The idea suddenly dawned on his despairing

mind. All the while he had been talking, the old man sat motionless,

watching him with an icy expression in his eyes. After keeping him for

a moment in suspense, Kuzma Kuzmitch pronounced at last in the most

positive and chilling tone:

 

“Excuse me, we don’t undertake such business.”

 

Mitya suddenly felt his legs growing weak under him.

 

“What am I to do now, Kuzma Kuzmitch?” he muttered, with a pale

smile. “I suppose it’s all up with me-what do you think?”

 

“Excuse me…”

 

Mitya remained standing, staring motionless. He suddenly noticed a

movement in the old man’s face. He started.

 

“You see, sir, business of that sort’s not in our line,” said

the old man slowly. “There’s the court, and the lawyers-it’s a

perfect misery. But if you like, there is a man here you might apply

to.”

 

“Good heavens! Who is it? You’re my salvation, Kuzma Kuzmitch,”

faltered Mitya.

 

“He doesn’t live here, and he’s not here just now. He is a

peasant, he does business in timber. His name is Lyagavy. He’s been

haggling with Fyodor Pavlovitch for the last year, over your copse

at Tchermashnya. They can’t agree on the price, maybe you’ve heard?

Now he’s come back again and is staying with the priest at

Ilyinskoe, about twelve versts from the Volovya station. He wrote to

me, too, about the business of the copse, asking my advice. Fyodor

Pavlovitch means to go and see him himself. So if you were to be

beforehand with Fyodor Pavlovitch and to make Lyagavy the offer you’ve

made me, he might possibly- “

 

“A brilliant idea!” Mitya interrupted ecstatically. “He’s the very

man, it would just suit him. He’s haggling with him for it, being

asked too much, and here he would have all the documents entitling him

to the property itself. Ha ha ha!”

 

And Mitya suddenly went off into his short, wooden laugh,

startling Samsonov.

 

“How can I thank you, Kuzma Kuzmitch?” cried Mitya effusively.

 

“Don’t mention it,” said Samsonov, inclining his head.

 

“But you don’t know, you’ve saved me. Oh, it was a true

presentiment brought me to you…. So now to this priest!

 

“No need of thanks.”

 

“I’ll make haste and fly there. I’m