The Brothers Karamazov (22 page)

“But wait a minute, Mitya,” Alyosha said very nervously. “There’s still a point that you haven’t cleared up for me: you’re still engaged to her, aren’t you? So how can you break the engagement if she doesn’t want it broken?”

“Yes, I am officially and solemnly engaged to marry her. We became engaged when I got to Moscow and it was done in grand style with all due ceremony, icons and all. And that relative of hers, the rich general’s widow, not only gave Katya her blessing, but even went so far as to congratulate her, believe it or not. ‘You have chosen the right man,’ she told her. ‘I can see that right away.’ She didn’t like Ivan, though, and was cool toward him. You know, in Moscow I talked to Katya a great deal and told her a lot about myself; I did so honestly and was completely frank, completely sincere. She heard me out and, of course,

There was sweet embarrassment,

There were tender words . . .

Although there were some proud words too. Anyhow, she made me promise to reform, so I did promise, and now . . .”

“And now what?”

“And now I called to you and pulled you over the fence into this garden in order to send you today—I want you to remember this date—to see Katerina for me, and it must be today, and tell her that . . .”

“That what?”

“That I’m not coming to see her. Ever. And to give her my regards.”

“How can you do that?”

“That’s just why I’m sending you instead of going myself: because I can’t do it.”

“But you, where will you go?”

“To that back alley.”

“So you’ll go to Grushenka!” Alyosha cried in pain, throwing up his hands in despair. “I couldn’t believe it, when Rakitin told me. I thought you just went to see her a few times and that was the end of that.”

“You mean, how can a man engaged to a girl like Katerina go and see someone like that, especially when the whole town knows about it? Now, Alyosha, despite everything, I do have a sense of honor. At the very moment I started seeing Grushenka, I stopped being Katerina’s fiancé and stopped being an honorable man. Why, I’m very well aware of that. Why do you look at me like that? The first time I went to her place it was to give her a beating. I had learned—and I know it’s the absolute truth—that that retired captain, acting on father’s behalf, had given her one of my IOU’s, so she could threaten to sue me and thus make me behave. They thought that they could scare me that way. So I went to Grushenka’s to give her a good thrashing. I only vaguely remembered having seen her before. There’s nothing so striking about her at first glance. I knew about the old merchant who kept her. He is sick now and bedridden, but nevertheless, he is pretty sure to see that she lacks nothing, whatever happens. I also knew that she was greedy for money and satisfied her greed by lending money at exorbitant rates of interest, that she was a sharp and merciless bitch. So I went there to give her that beating, but then I just stayed. It was as if all hell had broken loose, like an epidemic of the plague . . . Well, I got infected and am still infected today, and I know now it will never be any different. I am doomed to go around in that circle for all time. So that’s where I stand, Alyosha.

“And it so happened that on the day I went to her place I had three thousand rubles in my pocket—fancy that, a beggar with three thousand rubles in his pocket! So we took a little trip to Mokroye, which is twenty miles away, paid for gypsies and champagne, made all the local peasants drunk on champagne, and tossed hundreds and hundreds of rubles to the women who were there. Three days later I felt marvelous and was completely broke. You may think I was feeling so marvelous because I’d achieved what I was after. No, sir, she wouldn’t even let me look at it from a distance. I tell you, Alyosha, it’s that curve she has. Grushenka’s whole body has a particular curve that can be recognized even in her foot, even in the little toe of her left foot. Well, that I saw and I kissed it, but that’s as far as I went, believe me. ‘Why should I marry you?’ she told me. ‘You haven’t a kopek to your name. But if you promise never to beat me and to let me do whatever I please, then I may marry you yet.’ She laughed when she said that and still laughs when I bring it up . . .”

Dmitry got up in a fury. All of a sudden he looked very drunk. His eyes were bloodshot.

“Do you really want to marry her, Mitya?”

“If she wants me, I will—right away. And if she doesn’t, I’ll go on as I am now—try to hang around her, be the janitor in her yard, if I can. Hey, Alyosha!” Dmitry suddenly stopped, seized his brother by the shoulders, and shook him with tremendous force. “Hey, you innocent little boy, don’t you understand that all this is just raving, just the impossible raving of a madman, that it is all fated to end tragically? I assume you know, Alyosha, that although I am a man of despicable and depraved passions, I’ll never become a petty thief, that nothing will ever turn Dmitry Karamazov into a pickpocket. Well, for your information, Alexei, my brother, I 
am
 a petty thief who steals from people’s pockets or wherever else he can find money. Just before I went to Grushenka’s that first time, when I intended to beat her up, Katerina had sent for me to ask me to go to another town and mail three thousand rubles to her sister Agafia in Moscow for her, because, for some reason or other, she didn’t want people here to learn about it. And that was the three thousand rubles that I had in my pocket when I got to Grushenka’s and it was that money that I spent in Mokroye . . . I told Katerina that I had gone to the town and sent the money and that I’d give her the post office receipt later because I hadn’t brought it with me, and of course I’ve never given it to her to this day. Now, imagine: you go to her place today and tell her that I sent you to give her my regards and say good-by, and she asks you, ‘And what about the money?’ If it hadn’t been for that, you could still have said: ‘My brother is a despicable sensualist who cannot control his passions. He did not send the money you gave him because he is like a primitive animal and had to follow his instincts.’ Now, if I hadn’t stolen her money, you still could have told her: ‘But whatever else he is, he is not a thief, so here is your three thousand rubles—he sends it back to you. He suggests you mail the money to your sister yourself, and he sends you his best regards.’ But as things stand now, what could you answer her if she suddenly asked you about that money?”

“Oh, Mitya, you feel so terribly miserable. But please don’t torture yourself, don’t despair like this—it’s not quite as bad as you imagine . . .”

“Are you saying that because you’re worried that I may shoot myself if I can’t give her back the three thousand? You needn’t worry. I won’t kill myself, and that’s the trouble. I don’t have the strength to do it now. Later, perhaps—I don’t know—but now the only thing I want to do is to go to Grushenka’s. I don’t care about anything else.”

“And what will you do with Grushenka?”

“I’ll be her husband and I’ll be worthy of her. And when a lover comes to visit her, I’ll step out of the room and wait outside, clean the mud off the galoshes of her gentlemen friends, light the samovar, run errands . . .”

“Katerina will understand everything,” Alyosha said in an unexpectedly solemn tone. “She’ll understand how deeply unhappy you are and she’ll resign herself. She’s a woman of superior intelligence and she will see that it’s impossible to be unhappier than you are.”

“She won’t forgive me at all,” Mitya said with a bitter grin. “This is something, my boy, that no woman would accept. But do you know what would be best?”

“What?”

“To pay her back the three thousand.”

“Where can you get it, though . . . But wait, I have two thousand myself and Ivan will give you a thousand. That will make up the three. So take the money and give it back to her.”

“Yes, but how long do you think it will take to get hold of that three thousand rubles? Besides, you’re not legally of age yet and cannot dispose of your money . . . No, it must be today and no later that you give her my regards, with or without the three thousand, because it has reached a point where I cannot stand it any longer—tomorrow will already be too late. I want you to go to father’s for me . . .”

“Father’s?”

“Yes, stop at father’s before you go to see her and ask him for the three thousand.”

“But Mitya, he’ll never give it to me.”

“Of course he won’t, I know it only too well. Do you know, Alexei, what it means to be desperate?”

“Yes, I do.”

“So listen then: legally he doesn’t owe me a thing. But morally he owes me something, doesn’t he? Why, it was by using my mother’s twenty-eight thousand that he managed to make a hundred thousand for himself. So let him give me just three thousand for the twenty-eight, only three, and take my soul out of a living hell—he’ll have many of his sins forgiven him if he does that. And I give you my solemn word that the three thousand will be the end of it. He’ll never hear of me again. For the last time I’m giving him a chance to act as a father. Tell him that God Himself has sent him this opportunity.”

“He’ll never give it to you, Mitya.”

“I know it, I know it perfectly well, especially under the present circumstances. Moreover, there’s something else I know: very recently, perhaps only yesterday, he found out that there was a 
serious
 possibility—I say 
serious
—that Grushenka meant it when she said she might take the plunge and marry me after all. He knows that hell cat’s character. So how could he possibly even consider giving me money which would, if anything, strengthen the possibility, when he’s crazy about her himself? And even that’s not the whole story. There’s more to it: I know that at least five days ago he drew three thousand rubles out of the bank in hundred-ruble bills, put them in a large envelope, sealed it with five seals, and tied it up with a red ribbon. Then he inscribed the envelope: ‘To my angel Grushenka, if she comes to me.’ He did all that in great secrecy. No one except his flunkey Smerdyakov knows about the money, but then father trusts him as he does himself. And so he’s been waiting for Grushenka for three or four days now; he hopes she’ll come to pick up the envelope, for he sent her word about it and she answered that she ‘might’ come. But if she does go to the old man, how can I marry her after that? So you understand now why I’m here, sitting as though in ambush, lying in wait for . . .”

“For her?”

“That’s right, for her. There’s a fellow called Foma who lives in this house with those sluts. Foma was a private in my battalion. He does odd jobs for them, acts as their watchman at night, and shoots grouse during the day. That’s how he lives. So here I am in Foma’s place, but neither Foma nor the women know my secret—that I’m lying in wait here.”

“Is Smerdyakov the only one who knows about Grushenka and father?”

“Right, the only one. And he’ll let me know if she comes to the old man’s.”

“Was it he who told you about the envelope?”

“That’s right. In utmost secrecy. Even Ivan knows nothing about the money or about the rest. As a matter of fact, the old man wants Ivan out of his way for a few days, so he’s sending him to Chermashnya. Someone there has been offering eight thousand rubles for the wood-cutting rights to the forest. So father asked Ivan: ‘Help me out. Go over there for two or three days and see what it’s all about.’ What he really wants is to have Ivan out of the way when Grushenka comes.”

“So he’s expecting Grushenka even today?”

“No, she won’t come today. There are indications of that . . . She certainly isn’t coming today!” Mitya suddenly shouted. “That’s what Smerdyakov says. Father is drunk and is sitting at table with Ivan. Go there, Alexei, and ask him for three thousand.”

“But wait, Mitya, what’s the matter with you?”

Alyosha jumped up from his seat, looking intently at Dmitry. For a moment he thought his brother had gone mad.

“Don’t worry, I’m not crazy. I know what I’m doing,” Dmitry said emphatically and in a peculiar, solemn tone, “and I did ask you to go and see father. I know what I’m saying: I believe in miracles.”

“What miracle?”

“In the miracle of God’s providence. God knows what’s in my heart. He can see my despair. He sees the whole thing, so surely He won’t allow something horrible to happen? I do believe in miracles, Alyosha. Go on then.”

“All right, I’m going. Will you wait for me here?”

“Yes, I will. And I understand that you won’t be back too soon, that you won’t be able to just walk in and ask him for it! Besides, he’s drunk now. So I’ll wait for you three or four or five or six hours or even seven hours, but I want you to know that today, even if it’s at midnight, you must go to Katerina’s, 
with or without
 the money, and tell her that I send her my best regards. I want you actually to use those words: ‘He told me to give you his best regards.’ ”

“But Mitya, listen—what if Grushenka comes today, and if not today, tomorrow or the day after?”

“Grushenka? I’ll find out about it, break in, and stop them.”

“And what if . . .”

“And if . . . Then I’ll kill . . . I won’t be able to stand it.”

“Kill whom?”

“The old man. I won’t kill her.”

“How can you say that, Mitya!”

“I don’t know, I don’t know . . . Perhaps I won’t kill him. But maybe I will. I’m afraid I’ll hate the sight of him too much at that moment. I hate his Adam’s apple, his nose, his eyes, his shameless sneer . . . It’s a direct, spontaneous loathing. That’s what I’m afraid of. I feel I won’t be able to resist the temptation.”

“I’ll go now, Mitya. I trust that God will take good care of everything and see to it that nothing terrible happens.”

“And I’ll sit here and wait for that miracle. But if it doesn’t happen, then . . .”

Alyosha went his way to his father’s house deep in thought.

Chapter 6: Smerdyakov

JUST AS expected, Alyosha found his father sitting at table. The table was laid as usual in the living room, although there was a proper dining room in the house. The living room, the largest room in the house, was furnished with a sort of old-fashioned pretentiousness. The furniture was white, very old, upholstered in a red silky material, which was worn and faded. On the walls between the windows hung mirrors in overelaborate frames, also white, with gilt. The walls, covered with white wallpaper which was cracking in places, were adorned with two large portraits, one representing some prince who had been the Governor General of the province thirty or so years before and the other of some bishop long deceased. In one corner there were several icons, in front of which a lamp was lighted every night, not for religious reasons so much as to light the room.