The Brothers Karamazov (29 page)

“It didn’t happen the way you expected, Mitya—it was different. You see, I saw . . . they were both there, Mitya. I found both of them there.”

“Both of whom?”

“Both Grushenka and Katerina.”

Dmitry was stunned.

“You must be raving . . . It couldn’t be . . . Grushenka in her house?”

Alyosha told him all he had seen and heard from the moment he had stepped into Katerina’s house. It took him ten minutes to tell it all, and it cannot be said that he told it very smoothly or in the best order. But he gave his brother an accurate enough picture, repeating the principal words exchanged, the key gestures, indicating his own reactions by some simple detail. Dmitry listened in complete silence, staring at him in terrible immobility, but Alyosha realized that his brother had already grasped what had happened and understood everything. As Alyosha continued his account, Mitya’s face became not only more dejected but also more threatening. He knit his brows and clenched his teeth, and his fixed glare became even more fixed and frightening. This made it all the more unexpected when Dmitry’s face, up to that second fierce and angry, underwent a sudden and total transformation: the tightly compressed lips relaxed and he burst into uncontrollable laughter. He literally rolled with laughter and could not talk for quite a while.

“So she wouldn’t kiss her hand! You say she got out of there without kissing it!” he yelled with a strange delight, a delight that might have seemed spiteful had it not been so sincere and unaffected. “So the other one called her a wild beast! Well, that’s exactly what she is . . . So she said she ought to be flogged in public? That’s absolutely true. I’ve been of that opinion myself all along, and I think a flogging is long overdue! You see, little brother, I don’t object to her being flogged, but I’d like first to get cured of her, to get her out of my system. I know her so well, that queen of arrogance, and that hand-kissing incident—that’s her all over, the hell cat! She’s really the queen of all the world’s imaginable she-devils! She’s really absolutely marvelous in her own way! And you say she went home from there? Well, I guess I’ll be going . . . I’ll run over and see her. Don’t judge me too harshly, Alyosha, my friend. I can’t help it really and, besides, I agree that hanging is too good for her . . .”

“But what about Katerina?” Alyosha asked sadly.

“I see right through that one too, and more clearly than ever now! I have now discovered the four—or is it five—continents of the world! Just think what a move she tried! It seems hard to imagine, doesn’t it, that this is the same schoolgirl who wasn’t afraid to go to the house of an absurd, uncouth army officer, exposing herself to terrible humiliation, in order to save her father’s honor! But her pride, her need to expose herself, to challenge everything and everybody, is just an endless defiance of the world. You told me her aunt said she’d tried to stop her. Well, that aunt is herself a pretty headstrong woman. She’s the sister of that general’s widow from Moscow and she used to be even more high-and-mighty than her sister until her husband got caught misappropriating government monies and lost everything he had. After that the proud lady quieted down somewhat, and she’s stayed pretty quiet . . . So you say she tried to stop Katya, but Katya wouldn’t listen to her? Well, she must’ve thought to herself: ‘There’s nothing I can’t manage, nothing I can’t cope with, and if I try, I’ll put my spell on Grushenka too, like anyone else.’ And she really believed it. If she had such delusions about her powers, who’s to blame but herself? But you may think that when she kissed Grushenka’s hand it was part of a stratagem, a cunning move to obtain something from her opponent? Well, it was nothing of the sort—she really fell in love with Grushenka, at least, not actually with Grushenka, but with her own idea, her own delusion, because it was 
her
 idea, 
her
 delusion. Oh, my dear boy, I can’t imagine how you managed to escape unscathed from those two women. I guess you just tucked up your cassock and ran away. Right? Ha-ha-ha!”

“I don’t think you even realize, Mitya, how much you hurt Katerina by telling Grushenka about her coming to your place. It was awful when Grushenka hit back at her by saying: ‘You’re a fine one to talk after trying to peddle your charms.’ How could you have insulted Katerina in a worse way than by telling Grushenka that?”

Alyosha was terribly bothered by his brother’s apparent delight in Katerina’s humiliation, even though he couldn’t quite believe it was genuine.

“Wait a minute!”

Dmitry frowned fiercely and slapped his forehead. Only now had his mind registered Katerina’s scorn and indignation at his indiscretion, although Alyosha had told him about her remark along with the rest.

“Yes,” Dmitry said, “I may very well have told Grushenka about that fateful day, as Katya likes to call it. Yes, yes, I remember now—I told her about it all right! It was that time in Mokroye. I was very drunk and the gypsies were singing . . . But I was sobbing myself as I told her. I was kneeling, holding Katya’s little icon before me and praying, and Grushenka understood . . . Yes, at that time she did understand and—I remember now—she cried herself . . . Ah, hell, but how could it be otherwise now? Then she wept and now she plunges the knife into Katya’s heart. Well, that’s women for you!”

He lowered his eyes and remained deep in thought for a moment.

“But I am a despicable creature, no doubt about it,” he announced in mournful tones. “Whether I was sobbing at the time or not changes nothing—I’m low and despicable! Tell her I agree with her, that I deserve the names she calls me, if that makes her feel any better. But enough of this, there’s no use wagging our tongues about it. It’s not a very cheerful subject anyway. You take your way and I’ll take mine. And I don’t want to see you again, except as a last resort. Good-by, Alexei.”

He squeezed Alyosha’s hand hard, still looking down. Then, without raising his eyes, he turned away, walking rapidly toward town. Alyosha followed him for a while with his eyes, unable to believe that his brother would leave him like that. And suddenly Dmitry turned back.

“Wait, Alexei! I must make one more confession, but to you alone!” Dmitry said. “Look at me, look hard: you see, here, here, something terribly dishonorable is being concocted!” And he struck his chest with his fist, as if the dishonorable thing were kept somewhere there, perhaps in a pocket or perhaps around his neck. “You already know what a low, despicable person I am, but I want you to know that, whatever I’ve done so far, it is nothing compared with the disgrace I am carrying inside my breast this very moment, here, right here, a disgrace that I could stop, for I want you to note, I am completely in control of the situation and could stop it if I so chose. But I won’t stop myself and I’ll do that dishonorable, disgraceful thing. I told you everything before, everything, but not that, because even I wasn’t brazen enough to talk about it. I can still stop myself and, if I did, I would still regain at least part of my honor. But I’m not going to stop. I’ll go through with my vile and dishonorable scheme, and I want you to be a witness to my ignominy in advance, to know that I’m acting with the full knowledge of what I’m doing. Death and loneliness! There’s nothing more to explain—you’ll find the rest out for yourself. There’s nothing for me but a stinking alley and that she-cat! Good-by then and don’t bother to pray for me—I’m not worth it and, anyway, there’s no need, no need at all. The hell with it all!”

And he walked off, this time for good. Alyosha set off for the monastery. “What did he mean when he said he wouldn’t see me again? What did he mean by that?” he wondered. The whole thing struck him as absolutely mad. “I’ll see him. By tomorrow at the very latest, I must find him . . . Ah, what is he talking about?”

*

Alyosha skirted the monastery, reaching the hermitage directly by going through the little pine wood. They let him in, although as a rule they didn’t open for anyone at that hour of the night. His heart was quivering as he entered the elder’s cell. Why did he, Alyosha, have to leave the monastery? Why had the elder told him to go back into the world? Here in the hermitage there was peace and holiness, while outside all was confusion and darkness, in which Alyosha was afraid to lose his way.

The novice Porfiry was in the cell when Alyosha arrived, and also Father Paisii, who had been coming in every hour throughout the day to inquire about Elder Zosima. Alyosha learned with consternation that the elder was getting worse and worse. He had not even been able to hold his regular evening meeting with the monks. As a rule, the monks gathered in the elder’s cell in the evening just before they separated for the night, and each monk confessed aloud the sins he had committed that day, his sinful desires, his thoughts and temptations, and also his quarrels with his brother monks, if there had been any. Some of them knelt as they made their confessions, and the elder advised, guided, exhorted, imposed penances, reconciled, gave his blessing, and dismissed them. It was to these informal confessions that the opponents of the institution of elder objected, claiming that they were a profanation of the sacrament of confession and a sacrilege, although they were entirely different from the usual confession. They had even pleaded with the diocesan authorities that such “confessions” not only failed to serve any useful purpose but, indeed, led directly to sin and temptation. They claimed that many monks did not like to go to the evening meetings at the elder’s but went, nevertheless, to avoid being accused of pride and disobedience. It was said that some of the monks went to these evening meetings after agreeing among themselves what they would “confess” to the elder. One, for instance, would suggest to another: “I’ll tell him I lost my temper with you this morning, and you confirm it”—and this, just to have something to tell, just to satisfy the elder. Alyosha knew that sometimes this was exactly what happened. He also knew that some monks were quite outraged by the custom in the hermitage of first bringing all letters received, even those from relatives, to the elder, who unsealed and read them before handing them over to the recipient. The assumption was, of course, that all this was an act of freely and sincerely accepted obedience and voluntary submission to salutary guidance. Often, however, it was quite insincere and, at times, even contrived and hypocritical. But the older and more experienced monks stood their ground and maintained that those who entered the monastery walls in a sincere search for salvation would find the acts of obedience and self-denial salutary and tremendously rewarding, and that those on whom it weighed and who recriminated against it were not real monks anyway and were just wasting their time in the monastery when they should be outside in the world. Since, they said, it is just as impossible to escape sin and the devil in the church as in the outside world, there was no point in coddling sinners.

Father Paisii blessed Alyosha and told him in a whisper:

“He has grown weaker. He sleeps all the time. It’s hard to wake him, and it’s better not to. He was awake for five minutes, asked me to send his blessings to the monks and to ask them to pray for him during the night. He wants to take the sacrament again in the morning. He asked about you, Alexei, whether you’d left, and we told him you were in town. ‘That’s where he ought to be,’ he said, ‘not here—he went with my blessing.’ He spoke of you with love and concern. Do you realize what a great honor that is for you? But what made him decide that you should go out into the world now? That means he foresees something in your destiny. You must understand, Alexei, that even if you return to the world, it will be to carry out the task assigned to you by the elder and not for vain pursuits and worldly pleasures.”

Father Paisii left. Alyosha was sure now that the elder was dying, although he might still live a day or two. So he firmly and ardently determined to disregard his promises to go and see his father, his brother, the Khokhlakovs, and Katerina, and to stay with his elder in the monastery until the end. His heart was burning with love for the elder and he reproached himself bitterly for having forgotten about the old man, whom he venerated more than anyone in the world, dying in the monastery while he himself had spent the day in town. Alyosha went down on his knees and bowed to the ground before the sleeping elder. The elder lay quite motionless in his sleep, breathing evenly and almost inaudibly; his face was serene.

Alyosha left the elder’s bedroom and went into the cell where Zosima had received his visitors earlier that day. Taking off his boots, he lay down without undressing on the hard narrow leather sofa on which he had slept every night for a long time now, bringing only his pillow with him. As to the mattress his father had mentioned, he had long since forgotten about it and had not bothered to put it on the hard sofa. He would simply remove his cassock and cover himself with that in place of a blanket.

But before he went to sleep, he threw himself down on his knees and prayed for a long time. In his fervent prayer, he did not ask God to clear up his confusion, but only sought the rapture he always experienced in the glorification of God, of which his nightly prayers consisted.

As he was praying now, he chanced to feel in his pocket the little envelope that the maid had given him after he had left Katerina’s house. Alyosha was disturbed by this discovery, but he completed his prayers and then, after a moment’s hesitation, opened the pink envelope. It contained a note signed by Lise, Mrs. Khokhlakov’s daughter, who had made fun of him that morning in front of the elder.

“Dear Alexei,” she wrote.

No one knows about this letter. Even mother is not in on the secret. I know it isn’t right. But I simply cannot go on living if I don’t tell you about something that has arisen in my heart, and that no one must know of for the time being, except the two of us. But how can I tell you what I so long to tell you? They say that paper cannot blush, but that isn’t true. It does blush, just as I am blushing myself at this moment. My sweet Alyosha, I love you, and I have loved you ever since I was a little girl in Moscow, when you were not at all the same as you are now, and I will love you all my life. My heart has chosen you—I want to be united with you and I want us to live out our lives together. Of course, provided you leave the monastery. As to being too young to marry, we will just have to wait as long as the law prescribes. And by that time I will certainly be completely cured and will be able to walk around, dance, and all; there’s no doubt about that.