The Brothers Karamazov (103 page)

“Enough of this nonsense,” she said sharply. “This was certainly not why I asked you to come. Alyosha, my pet, tell me—what will happen tomorrow? I’m so terribly worried about it! But I look at the people here, and no one except me seems to care about it at all! Are you, at least, thinking about it, Alyosha? Why, they’ll be judging him tomorrow! Tell me, how will they go about judging him? But that lackey is the murderer! My God, is it possible that they’ll condemn him for something the lackey did and that no one will come to his defense? They haven’t even bothered the flunkey, have they?”

“They did question Smerdyakov,” Alyosha said thoughtfully, “quite thoroughly, but they concluded that he couldn’t be the one. He’s very ill now; in fact, he’s been ill ever since then, after his epileptic fit. He’s really ill, you know,” Alyosha added.

“But won’t you go and see that lawyer yourself and talk to him privately about the whole business. Why, I understand he was paid three thousand rubles to come here from Petersburg . . .”

“Katerina, Ivan, and I each gave one thousand to pay the three thousand for the lawyer, but she paid two thousand on her own to get that doctor here from Moscow. The lawyer, Fetyukovich, usually charges more, but this case has caused such a sensation across the country and received such detailed coverage in the newspapers and magazines that Fetyukovich has taken it on more for personal publicity than for any other reason. I saw him yesterday.”

“So did you tell him?” Grushenka asked excitedly.

“He listened to me but made no comment. He just told me that he has his own ideas about it all. He promised, though, to take what I’d told him into consideration.”

“What on earth does that mean—take it into consideration? Ah, the crooks! They’ll make a mess of things and that’ll be the end of Mitya! But what about the doctor? Why did she send for a doctor too?”

“She wants him as an expert. They plan to prove that Dmitry is insane and that he didn’t know what he was doing when he killed,” Alyosha said with a pale smile, “but Mitya won’t accept that.”

“But it would be true if he had killed him!” Grushenka cried. “He was insane then, completely insane, and it was all my fault, horrible creature that I am! But he didn’t do it. He didn’t kill him! And with all those people in town against him, constantly saying he’s the murderer! Even Fenya, the way she testified, made it look as if he’d done it. And then that civil servant who was with him in the store, and all those people who heard him threaten to kill his father in the tavern—they’re all against him, all screaming that he’s guilty!”

“Yes, the evidence against him keeps mounting,” Alyosha said mournfully.

“And Gregory too, Gregory keeps insisting that the door was open. He just won’t budge from that statement. I went to see him myself—nothing doing. He even swore at me,” Grushenka said helplessly.

“Yes, I think that’s the strongest evidence against Dmitry,” Alyosha said.

“As to Mitya being crazy—well, he’s that all right, even now,” Grushenka said anxiously in a peculiarly mysterious tone. “I’ve been wanting to tell you about it for a long time, Alyosha. I see him every day, and every time he surprises me. What do you think, for instance, he’s been talking about now? He starts talking and talks on and on and I can’t understand a word of what he’s saying. Well, I thought it must be something very clever, quite over the head of a stupid woman like me. But when I listened, I noticed he was talking about what he called a ‘babe.’ It was some baby or other, and he kept repeating, ‘Why is the babe so poor?’ and ‘It’s because of the babe that I’ll go to Siberia now. I didn’t kill, but it’s right that I should go!’ What it was all about, and what ‘babe’ he was talking about, I could not make out at all. But he was talking so emotionally, with tears in his eyes, that I began crying myself; when he saw that, he suddenly kissed me and then made the sign of the cross over me. Now tell me, Alyosha, can you explain to me what he can have been talking about?”

“It could be Rakitin, who, for some reason, has been going to see him very often lately.” Alyosha smiled. “Although, I don’t think that comes from Rakitin. I didn’t see Mitya yesterday, but I’m going today.”

“No, it’s not Rakitin. It’s your brother Ivan who’s getting him all confused; he’s been seeing him regularly and . . .” Grushenka suddenly broke off as if something had snapped inside her.

Alyosha stared at her in amazement.

“You mean Ivan goes to see him, then? I didn’t know he’d gone there. In fact, Mitya told me Ivan had never once been to see him.”

“Ah, now what have I done? I’ve said something I wasn’t supposed to say!” Grushenka blushed and looked embarrassed. “Wait, Alyosha, keep quiet. Since I’ve let the cat out of the bag, I’ll tell you everything. Ivan went to see Mitya twice—the first time just after he arrived from Moscow. That was even before I was taken ill. The second time was about a week ago. And he told Mitya not to tell you about his coming, in fact, not to tell anybody. He said his visits had to be kept secret.”

Alyosha was deep in thought, trying hard to work something out. He was obviously very much surprised by what he’d just heard.

“Ivan never talks to me about Dmitry’s case,” he said slowly. “And, in general, he hasn’t talked to me very much during these past two months. Whenever I’ve been to see him, he has always seemed displeased that I’d come, so I haven’t been for three weeks now. Hm . . . if he saw Mitya a week ago, that may really account for the change that has come over Mitya lately . . .”

“Yes, something has changed in him, hasn’t it?” Grushenka interrupted eagerly. “There’s a secret between the two of them. Mitya himself told me they had a secret, a secret that keeps him on edge all the time. Before that, he was quite gay and cheerful . . . Well, he’s still quite cheerful, but now he’s liable suddenly to start pacing the room, shaking his head, and twisting the hairs on his right temple with his finger. I can tell at once that something special is worrying him . . . Oh, I know him . . . He used to be gay, and even today he was gay!”

“But you told me he was irritable . . .”

“That’s right, he was irritable, but he was also gay. One moment he’s gay, then he becomes irritated, and then he’s gay again. And you know—what strikes me as so strange is that, with all those frightening things he has ahead of him, he sometimes roars with laughter about all kinds of silly little things, just like a little child.”

“And so he told you not to tell me about Ivan? How did he put it? Did he just say—‘Don’t tell him’?”

“That’s right. That’s just the way he said it—‘Don’t you tell him.’ Because, he told me, ‘it’s a secret.’ Please, Alyosha, go there and try to find out what’s going on, what this secret is between them. And please come and tell me!” Grushenka suddenly cried beseechingly. “Tell me, so that I can know what to expect at least . . . That was what I wanted to ask you to do for me, Alyosha, when I sent for you today.”

“What makes you think it’s something that concerns you, though? If that were the case, he’d never have mentioned the secret to you, would he?”

“I don’t know . . . Perhaps there’s something he’d like to tell me but doesn’t dare. Perhaps he’s preparing me. ‘I have a secret,’ he says, but then he won’t tell me what secret . . .”

“What do you think it could be?”

“What do I think? It’s the end of me, that’s what I think. They’ve been plotting how to get rid of me, the three of them, since this Katerina woman is in on it, too. Indeed, it all comes from her in the first place. And when he stands there and tells me all about how wonderful she is, he also means that I’m no match for her. He says it to prepare me for what is to come. He’s decided to break off with me, and that’s what the secret’s all about. The three of them have arranged it all—that fool Mitya, the Katerina woman, and your dear brother Ivan. Now, a week ago, Mitya suddenly tells me that Ivan is in love with that woman, because he keeps visiting her all the time. Can it be true? Tell me the truth, don’t spare me!”

“I’ll never lie to you. Ivan is not in love with Katerina. I don’t think he is, at least.”

“That’s exactly what I thought! So he was lying to me shamelessly! And that’s why he pretended to be jealous now. He wants to be able to say later that it was all my fault! But he’s such a terrible fool. He has no idea how to make things sound likely. He’s much too honest for that . . . But, wait, I’ll show him, I’ll show him yet. ‘You,’ he says to me, ‘you think I killed him,’ and he says that to me, of all people. He reproaches me with thinking that! I hope God will forgive him for it. But that Katya, I’ll get her at the trial. I’ll make her pay for it! There are a few things I’ll tell them there. I’ll tell them everything!”

Grushenka again began to weep bitterly.

“I can tell you this for certain, Grushenka,” Alyosha said, getting up. “First of all, he loves you. He loves you more than anyone in the world, and only you—you must believe me. This is something I know, if I know anything. And the second thing I must tell you is that I won’t try to worm any secret out of him; if he tells me of his own accord, I’ll tell him that I’ve promised to tell you about it, and then I’ll come here and tell you. But I don’t believe Katerina has anything to do with it at all; I think their secret is about something completely different. I’m almost sure of it. And it doesn’t seem at all likely that Katerina, as I know her, could be involved. And so good-by for now.”

Alyosha pressed her hand. She was still crying. He realized that she didn’t believe very much of what he had said and that the only good he had done her really was to give her an opportunity to get her bitter suspicions off her chest. He didn’t like leaving her in that state, but he was in a hurry. There were so many things he had to do that day.

Chapter 2: The Injured Foot

FIRST, ALYOSHA had to go to Mrs. Khokhlakov’s. He hurried over there, hoping to get the business out of the way quickly so that he wouldn’t be late visiting Mitya in prison. Mrs. Khokhlakov had not been feeling well for the past three weeks: her foot had somehow become swollen and, although she was not actually in bed, she had to stay home, reclining in a very attractive, albeit most decorous, 
déshabillé
 on the sofa in her boudoir. Alyosha had once noted with innocent amusement that, despite her injured foot, Mrs. Khokhlakov was more careful than ever about what she wore, that she favored all sorts of new topknots, ribbons, and loose wrappers, and he had a pretty good explanation for this, although he dismissed such thoughts from his mind as frivolous. In the past two months, Peter Perkhotin had become one of the most frequent visitors to her house.

Alyosha had not been at the house for four days, and now, since he was in a hurry, he would have liked to go directly to Lise’s room, for it was to see her that he had come. Lise had sent her maid to him the day before with a message saying that she had “something very important” to discuss with him, and this, for certain reasons of his own, aroused considerable interest in Alyosha. But while the maid was gone to announce him to Lise, Mrs. Khokhlakov, informed of his arrival, sent a servant to ask him “to come in for one minute” to see her. Alyosha decided that it would be better, under the circumstances, to see the lady first, for otherwise she would be sending someone to Lise’s room every minute to remind him that she was waiting. Mrs. Khokhlakov was half lying on her sofa, looking particularly elegant, and was apparently very excited about something.

“It’s been ages and ages since I’ve seen you! Do you know, it’s been a whole week . . . although, when I come to think of it, I believe you were here only four days ago—on Wednesday. You’ve come to see Lise, haven’t you? And I’m sure you intended to tiptoe in to her directly, so that I wouldn’t even hear you! . . . My dear Alexei, I wish you knew how worried I am about Lise! But I’ll come to that later, although it is what concerns me most of all. My dear Alexei, you know I trust you implicitly when it comes to Lise. Since the death of Father Zosima—may he rest in peace”—Mrs. Khokhlakov crossed herself—“I consider you a hermit, a hermit, although, I must say, you do look charming in that new suit. Where can you possibly have found such a tailor around here? . . . But that was not what I wanted to ask you about now. By the way, I hope you don’t mind if I still call you Alyosha sometimes—I’m an old woman and I should really be allowed to,” she said, smiling coquettishly. “But, we’ll talk about that some other time, too. That’s not the important thing I wanted to talk to you about now. The main thing is that I mustn’t forget about the most important thing. I count on you to remind me of it when I get carried away by other things. But how can I know what the most important thing really is? . . . You know, ever since Lise took back that promise she made you, that childish promise to marry you, which, as you certainly must have realized, was nothing but the overwrought imaginings of a sick little girl who had been confined to her wheel-chair for so long . . . Ah, I’m so happy that now at last she can walk! . . . That new doctor, whom Katya brought from Moscow for your unhappy brother who is to go on trial tomorrow . . . But don’t let’s talk about tomorrow! The very thought of what will happen just kills me! I’m so incredibly curious to know! Well, as I was telling you, that doctor came here and examined Lise and I paid him fifty rubles for the visit, but, again, that’s not what I wanted to tell you. I’m completely lost now, because I’m in such a hurry to tell you . . . Why am I in such a hurry, though? I really don’t know. I can no longer see clearly. Everything has become lumped together. I’m afraid I’m boring you so horribly that you’ll rush out of the room and I’ll never see you again . . . But, good Lord, why are we just sitting here like this? First of all, let’s have some coffee! Julia! Glafira! Coffee!”

Alyosha quickly assured her that he had just had some coffee.

“Where did you have coffee?”

“At Miss Svetlov’s.”

“At that woman’s? That woman who’s driven so many to their ruin! And yet, I don’t know what to think of her anymore. Some people claim that she’s turned into a saint. Seems to me, though, that it’s a little late for that. She should have become a saint before; what’s the use of her becoming a saint now? No, no, Alexei, please don’t say anything, for I have so much to tell you . . . In fact, so much that I’m afraid I won’t manage to say anything at all. That frightening trial! Oh, I’m getting ready, and I’ll certainly attend it! I’ll have them carry me into the courtroom in an armchair, for I’m quite capable of sitting up; besides, there will be somebody with me to assist me. And did you know they had listed me as a witness! Oh, I’m looking forward to testifying. Ah, I’ll tell them. I’ll tell them many things! I don’t even know yet all the things I’ll tell them . . . But they’ll administer the oath to me, won’t they?”