The Brothers Karamazov (23 page)

Mr. Karamazov usually went to bed late—at three or four in the morning—and until then he would pace the room or sit in an armchair and meditate. This had become a habit with him. Sometimes he would send the servants off to their cottage and spend the night in the house all alone, but more often than not the servant Smerdyakov stayed with him all night, sleeping on a cot in the entrance hall.

They had finished eating when Alyosha arrived. Fruit preserves and coffee had been served—Mr. Karamazov liked sweet things with brandy after his meal. Ivan was sipping his coffee. The servants, Gregory and Smerdyakov, stood by. Apparently all of them—masters and servants—were in high spirits. Mr. Karamazov was laughing very loudly. Alyosha heard the shrill laughter he knew so well while he was still in the hall, and realized from the sound of it that his father was still in the blissful state preceding drunkenness, but not yet drunk.

“Ah, here he is, here he is!” Karamazov shouted, obviously greatly pleased at Alyosha’s arrival. “Come, join us, sit down, have some coffee—it’s lenten, for sure, but it’s nice and hot! I won’t offer you any brandy since you’re fasting, although perhaps . . . you’re sure you won’t have a drop after all? No, wait, have a little liqueur instead—it’s marvelous stuff, you know. Hey, Smerdyakov, go and get it. It’s in the cupboard, on the second shelf on the right. Here are the keys. Hurry!”

Alyosha tried to protest that he didn’t want any liqueur.

“It’ll be served anyway, and if you don’t want any, we’ll have some,” his father said, beaming happily. “Ah, but wait—have you had lunch?”

“I have,” Alyosha said, although actually he had only had a piece of bread and a glass of kvass in the Father Superior’s kitchen. “But I would love some hot coffee.”

“Good boy! Have some coffee then. Shall I have it heated up? No, it’s boiling hot as it is. It’s the famous Smerdyakov coffee. When it comes to coffee, pies, and fish soups—my Smerdyakov is a real artist. Come and have fish soup whenever you like—only let us know in advance when . . . No, wait, didn’t I tell you today to move back here, mattress, pillow, and all? Have you brought your mattress with you, hee-hee-hee?”

“No, I haven’t brought my mattress,” Alyosha said smilingly.

“But it gave you a fright, didn’t it, when I said that? Ah, my sweet boy, how could you think I would ever want to hurt you! Listen, Ivan, I can’t resist it when he looks into my eyes and laughs like that—all my innards begin to laugh too, looking at him . . . Ah, how I love this boy! Wait, Alyosha, I must give you my parental blessing right now.”

But as Alyosha stood up, Mr. Karamazov changed his mind.

“Never mind that—let me just cross you. That’ll do for now. Sit down. And now I’ll tell you something that will give you great pleasure, something that’s just your kind of thing. It’s certain to make you laugh: Balaam’s ass here has started talking, and you should hear him talk! It’s really something!”

By Balaam’s ass Mr. Karamazov meant the twenty-four-year-old servant Smerdyakov—an utterly taciturn and unsociable young man. It was not that he was shy or easily embarrassed. In fact, he was a rather arrogant fellow who seemed to despise everybody. But at this point we really must devote a few more words to him. He had been brought up by Martha and Gregory, but as he grew he felt no gratitude for what was done for him, as Gregory often pointed out, and turned into a wild and solitary boy who seemed to look out on the world from a lonely corner. In his childhood he loved to hang cats and then bury them with great ceremony. On those occasions he would wrap himself in a sheet, pretending it was a surplice, and chant over the dead cat, waving something over its head like a censer. And all this was done in great secrecy. Once, however, Gregory surprised him during such a ceremony and gave him a sound whipping. After that, young Smerdyakov crept into his corner and sat glowering from it for a whole week. “That little freak doesn’t like us,” Gregory remarked to Martha. “He doesn’t like anyone.” Then, suddenly addressing Smerdyakov directly, he said: “You aren’t a human being—you’re made of the slime of the bath-house—that’s what you are.” And, as it turned out later, Smerdyakov never forgave him for those words. Gregory taught him to read, and when Smerdyakov was twelve he began to teach him the Scriptures, but nothing came of it. When they were on the second or third lesson, Smerdyakov suddenly snorted scornfully.

“What’s the matter with you?” Gregory asked, looking at him threateningly over his glasses.

“Nothing. But if God created the world on the first day and the sun, the moon, and the stars only on the fourth day, where did the light come from on the first day?”

Gregory was horrified. The boy was looking at him and grinning. There was scorn in his look. Gregory lost all control.

“This is where it came from!” he yelled, furiously slapping the boy’s face. The boy took the slap without protest, and stayed in his corner for the next few days. And it so happened that a week after that he had his first fit of the falling sickness, an ailment that was to afflict him for the rest of his life.

When Mr. Karamazov found out about it, his attitude toward the boy underwent an abrupt change. Until then he had showed very little concern for the boy, although he never scolded him, occasionally gave him a kopek, and when in a good mood, sent him something sweet from his table. But when he heard that the boy was afflicted with the falling sickness, he showed a great deal of concern, and called in a doctor, in the hope that the child could be cured. It turned out, however, that the disease was incurable. The fits occurred irregularly, about once a month. Their severity varied—some were quite mild, others very violent. Karamazov forbade Gregory to raise a hand to the boy to punish him and started to allow young Smerdyakov into the upstairs rooms of his house. He also forbade Gregory to try to teach the boy anything at all. But then one day, when Smerdyakov was fifteen, Karamazov noticed that he was reading the titles of the books through the glass of the bookcase. Karamazov had quite a number of books, a hundred or more, although no one had ever seen him reading one. He at once gave Smerdyakov the key to the bookcase, telling him: “Here, go ahead, read if you feel like it. You’ll be the librarian. That’s better than running around in the yard. Sit down, then, and read this one.” Karamazov handed him Gogol’s 
Evening on a Farm near Dikanka
. Smerdyakov read it, but he didn’t like it; he never smiled once, and when he had finished it, he screwed up his nose in disapproval.

“What’s the matter? You don’t think it’s funny?”

Smerdyakov remained silent.

“Answer me, you fool.”

“It’s all about a lot of things that aren’t true,” Smerdyakov mumbled with a smirk.

“All right, the hell with you—you have a flunkey’s spirit. No, wait, here’s Smaragdov’s 
Universal History
. It’s all about true things. Read it then.”

But Smerdyakov could not get through more than ten pages of it: it was too boring. And so, as a result, the bookcase was locked again.

Soon after this Gregory and Martha reported to their master that Smerdyakov had suddenly become peculiarly fastidious. He would, for instance, sit in front of his plate and feel around in his soup with his spoon, as if searching for something, leaning over it, holding up spoonfuls to the light and examining them.

“What have you found there, a cockroach?” Gregory would ask him.

“A fly?” Martha would inquire.

The fussy young man never answered. And it was the same with the bread and the meat and whatever else he ate: he would spear a piece of meat with his fork and then lift it in the air to examine it minutely in the light, giving it a microscopic examination, thoroughly and at great length before finally deciding to put it in his mouth. “Who is this young gentleman we’re saddled with?” Gregory and Martha muttered, watching him. But when Karamazov learned of this new development in Smerdyakov, he at once decided that he was destined to be a cook and sent him off to Moscow to be trained.

Smerdyakov spent several years as an apprentice-cook, and when he came back, his appearance had changed a great deal. He had aged tremendously and now looked much older than he was: wrinkled, shriveled, and yellow-faced, he reminded one of a eunuch. But his character was the same as before he had left for Moscow: he was still as unsociable as ever and seemed to have no need whatever for anyone’s company. And it was learned later that even in Moscow Smerdyakov had been his usual silent self. The city itself had aroused very little interest in him and, although he learned something there, he paid little attention to the rest. He went to the theater once, but came back bored and displeased. He returned from Moscow wearing good, neat clothes with a clean shirt and underwear. He brushed his suit with great care twice a day. But most of all he loved his beautiful boots, which he took great joy in polishing with English boot polish until they shone like mirrors.

He proved to be an excellent cook. Mr. Karamazov decided to pay him regular wages, which Smerdyakov spent almost entirely on clothes, hair pomades, perfumes, and so on. However, he seemed to despise women as much as he despised men and was cool and distant with them.

Now Karamazov started to look at him again with different eyes. Smerdyakov’s epileptic fits became worse and on those days Martha had to cook for the master. Karamazov did not like that at all.

“Why should your fits occur more often now?” he would mutter sometimes, glaring at his Moscow-trained cook and studying Smerdyakov’s face intently. “What about getting married? Would you like me to get you a wife?”

Such suggestions only made Smerdyakov turn pale with indignation, although he never answered anything. Karamazov would throw up his hands helplessly and turn away.

A very important fact is that Karamazov was completely and unshakably convinced that Smerdyakov was honest and would never steal or take anything that wasn’t his. Once, when he was drunk, Karamazov dropped three hundred-ruble bills, which he had just received, into the mud of his own courtyard. He only remembered about them the next morning, and then, as he started feverishly searching through his pockets, he saw the three bills lying on his dining table. How had they gotten there? Smerdyakov had picked them out of the mud and put them there. “Well,” Karamazov liked to conclude, “I’ve never known a servant like that!” He gave Smerdyakov ten rubles as a reward. It should be added that Karamazov was not only convinced of Smerdyakov’s honesty—he was even fond of him somehow, although Smerdyakov made no exception for him, looking at him with the same jaundiced eye as he looked at the rest of the world and seldom saying anything to him. If at that time anyone had looked at Smerdyakov, he could not possibly have told what he was interested in or what he was thinking about. And yet, sometimes, even in the house, and more often in the yard or as he was walking along the street, he would suddenly stop and stand stock still, deep in thought, for ten minutes or so. A physiognomist might have said that there were no ideas, no thoughts in his head, that it was a sort of contemplation. The painter Kramsky has a remarkable painting called “The Contemplator”: a road with a wintry forest in the background and on the road, wearing a ragged coat and felt shoes, stands a lonely, forlorn peasant who has lost his way, and who seems to be thinking hard about something, but is actually not thinking at all, but just “contemplating.” If you pushed him, he would give a start and stare at you uncomprehendingly as if you had just awakened him. True, he would collect his wits right away, but if you asked him what he’d been thinking about as he stood there, he would be quite unable to remember. He certainly would remember, however, the inexpressible sensations he experienced during his contemplation. And these sensations would be dear to him and he would treasure them without realizing it himself, indeed, without knowing why or what he would ever do with them. Perhaps, having accumulated in the course of the years a great many such sensations, he would suddenly leave everything behind and go off on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem to seek salvation, or he might just as likely set fire to his own village, or possibly both. There are many contemplators among the simple people. Probably Smerdyakov was one of them; most likely he, too, was eagerly collecting the sensations he experienced, although hardly aware of it himself.

Chapter 7: The Debate

BUT BALAAM’S ass suddenly spoke up. And the subject was a rather strange one. That morning Gregory had gone in Lukyanov’s shop to buy something, and the owner had told him a story about a Russian soldier who, while serving somewhere far away, on the frontier, had been taken prisoner by Asian tribesmen. Under threat of torture, he was ordered to renounce the Christian religion and be converted to the Muslim faith. He refused and underwent the ordeal. They flayed him alive and he died a martyr’s death, praising and glorifying Christ. His act of heroism had also been reported that day in the newspapers. It was this that Gregory had mentioned when Mr. Karamazov and Ivan were sitting at table. Mr. Karamazov had always liked to exchange a few words and a joke or two at the end of the meal, while he was having dessert, even with Gregory. And today he was in a gay, exuberant mood. He listened to the story, sipping his brandy, and remarked that the soldier in question ought to be immediately promoted to sainthood and the skin that had been peeled off him sent to some monastery: “You can just imagine all the people who’d go running, and all the money they’d make.” When Gregory saw that Karamazov was not in the least moved by his story, and was making the usual irreverent comments, he frowned in disapproval. But Smerdyakov, who was standing by the door, twisted his lips in a sneer. Smerdyakov was often allowed to stand by the table, at the end of the meal, and always took advantage of the privilege when Ivan was there.

“What’s the matter with you?” Mr. Karamazov asked, noticing the sneer and realizing at once that it was directed at Gregory.

“It’s about that soldier, sir,” Smerdyakov said in an unexpectedly loud, brisk voice. “Even if his act was very brave, I still think he would not have sinned if he had renounced Christ on that occasion, as well as his own baptismal vows, so as to save his life for good works, which in time would have made up for his moment of weakness.”