The Brothers Karamazov (82 page)

“What is it? What’s going on, gentlemen?” Mitya asked at first, but a second later he shouted in a strangely loud voice, as though he had been turned into someone else: “I under-stand!”

The bespectacled young man stepped toward Mitya and said quickly, albeit in a very dignified tone:

“We have something . . . to make it short, I would appreciate it if you would come over here, to the sofa . . . There are certain questions we’d like you to answer . . .”

“The old man!” Mitya shouted in despair. “The old man . . . his blood! I understand . . .” and he dropped in a heap into a nearby chair.

“Ah, you understand, do you, you father-killer, you parricide monster!” the old police inspector roared suddenly, moving toward Mitya’s chair. His face had turned dark purple and he was shaking all over.

“This is quite inadmissible!” cried the short young man. “Please, inspector, this is most improper, absolutely improper! I insist that I be allowed to speak without interference from you. I never expected such an outburst from you!”

“But this is sheer delirium, gentlemen,” the police inspector exclaimed. “Just look at him: in the middle of the night with a loose woman, covered with his father’s blood . . . Nightmarish delirium, gentlemen, sheer delirium!”

“I must beg you to control yourself, sir, please,” the dandified assistant prosecutor whispered quickly into the old inspector’s ear, “otherwise, I’ll have to take the necessary steps . . .”

But the little examining magistrate did not give him a chance to finish his threat and, turning toward Mitya, he said in a firm, loud, dignified voice:

“Retired Lieutenant Dmitry Karamazov, it is my duty to inform you that you are charged with the murder of your father, Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov, committed earlier tonight . . .”

He went on to say something else and then the public prosecutor put in a few words of his own, but, although Mitya heard their voices, he could no longer understand what they were saying. He just stared wildly around him.

Book IX: Preliminary Investigation

Chapter 1: Peter Perkhotin Starts Out On His Career As Civil Servant

WE LEFT Peter Perkhotin banging wildly on the solid gate of Mrs. Morozov’s house. In the end, of course, the gate was opened. Fenya, whose frightening experience of two hours before had left her in such a state of fear and anxiety that she could not make up her mind to go to bed, was now frightened almost into hysterics by the banging at the gate. She was convinced it was Dmitry again (although she had seen him drive away), for she knew of no one else who would bang on the gate like that. She hurried to the janitor, who by then had been awakened and was on his way to the gate, and begged him not to open it. But the janitor asked Perkhotin what he wanted and, upon hearing that he had to see Fenya most urgently, decided to let him in. They all went to Fenya’s kitchen, she asking the janitor to come in too, “just in case,” and hoping Mr. Perkhotin “wouldn’t mind.” Perkhotin started to question her at once and within a second had elicited from her a most important piece of information—that, as he was dashing off in search of Grushenka, Dmitry Karamazov had snatched the pestle out of the mortar and that, when he had come back, he did not have the pestle, but his hands were covered with blood. “It was still dripping from them, the blood, dripping, dripping, dripping!” Fenya exclaimed, having obviously conjured up that picture out of her distraught imagination. But then Perkhotin had also seen Dmitry’s bloodstained hands and, in fact, had helped him wash them. True, he had not seen blood dripping from them, but the point of interest was not how quickly the blood had dried; rather it was where Dmitry had gone with the pestle, whether it was to his father’s house, and what conclusions could be drawn from that fact. It was on this point that Perkhotin dwelt most insistently, and although he did not find out any conclusive facts, he felt pretty certain that Dmitry could not possibly have gone anywhere else but to his father’s house and that, therefore, 
something
 must have happened there.

“And when he came back,” Fenya added in great agitation, “and I told him all about my mistress, and then said to him, ‘How come, Mr. Karamazov, sir, your hands are all covered with blood?’ I think he answered me right away that it was human blood, that he had just killed a man—he admitted it just like that—and then he suddenly rushed out like a madman. So I sat down and I thought: ‘Now where can he be rushing to like a madman? What if he goes to Mokroye and kills my mistress?’ That’s when I ran out to plead with him not to kill Miss Svetlov. I was going to his place, but on my way there I saw him outside the Plotnikov store. He was just about to drive off. I also saw that there was no blood on his hands anymore . . .” (This fact had struck Fenya and she had remembered it.)

Fenya’s grandmother confirmed Fenya’s statements as far as she could. Perkhotin asked them a few more questions and then left. He was even more worried now, upon leaving this house, than he had been when he had entered it.

The most obvious and direct course seemed to be to go straight to Fyodor Karamazov’s house, find out whether anything had happened there and exactly what, and, having ascertained the facts, to pass the information on to the police inspector. And this was exactly what Perkhotin decided to do. But then, it was a dark night, the gate of Mr. Karamazov’s house was very solid, so it would again involve a lot of knocking, and, if he was wrong and nothing had really happened there, he was afraid Mr. Karamazov (with whom he was hardly acquainted, but who had the reputation of being a very sarcastic man) would go all over town the next day talking about how Peter Perkhotin had broken into his house in the middle of the night just to find out whether he had not, by any chance, been murdered by someone! It would be a public scandal, and public scandal was something Perkhotin dreaded more than anything.

However, the impulse to go ahead and do something was so strong that Perkhotin at once dashed off again. Instead of going to Mr. Karamazov’s house, he went to Mrs. Khokhlakov’s. If she denied giving three thousand rubles to Dmitry Karamazov, he decided, then he would go straight to the police inspector without going to old Karamazov’s place. If, on the other hand, she confirmed it, he would put off further investigations till the next day and return home.

It may, of course, seem a strange decision—for a young man to go so late at night, at almost eleven o’clock, to the house of a society lady to whom he had not even been introduced, to possibly rouse her out of bed, and then ask her a question that would sound quite strange under the circumstances. All this was even more likely to cause a public scandal than going to Mr. Karamazov’s. But even the most cool-headed and efficient people are liable to make very peculiar decisions when faced with such dilemmas, and at that moment Peter Perkhotin was anything but cool-headed. He was to remember for the rest of his life that his restlessness that night became so overwhelmingly painful that it impelled him to act against his own better judgment. He was, in fact, quite furious with himself all the way to the lady’s house, but he repeated to himself about ten times: “I’ll go through with it, happen what may!” And he did go through with it.

It was exactly eleven o’clock when he entered Mrs. Khokhlakov’s house. The porter opened the door quickly enough, but he was unable to tell Perkhotin whether his mistress was still up; he could only say that she usually went to bed at about that time.

“Why don’t you go upstairs, sir. The servant will announce you, and if the lady wishes to receive you she will, if not she won’t.” Perkhotin went upstairs, but there things became more complicated. The butler refused to announce him himself. Finally he summoned a maid, to whom Perkhotin explained politely but firmly that he was a local government official, that he had to see her mistress on urgent business, and that if it had not been so very urgent he would never have dreamt of disturbing her at such an hour. “Please tell her that in exactly those words,” he told the maid. She left, and he waited in the hall.

Mrs. Khokhlakov was already in her bedroom but had not yet gone to bed. She had been quite upset by Mitya’s visit and felt that she would not escape the migraine from which she usually suffered after a commotion of that kind. The message greatly surprised her and, although her curiosity was considerably aroused by a “government official” visiting her at such an hour, she told the maid irritatedly that she would not receive him. But on this occasion Peter Perkhotin proved to be as stubborn as a mule, and when the maid told him of her mistress’s refusal, he demanded that she go back and tell Mrs. Khokhlakov, “in exactly these words,” that he had come about something extremely important and that she would be very sorry later if she did not receive him now. “I was desperate,” he explained later. “I felt I just had to see her . . .” The maid looked at him in surprise and went back with the message. Mrs. Khokhlakov was amazed, pondered for a while, then asked the maid what the visitor looked like. She was informed that he was well dressed, young, and very polite (we may add parenthetically that Perkhotin was a rather handsome young man and was well aware of it himself). Finally Mrs. Khokhlakov decided to see him. She was already in her dressing gown and slippers, so she threw a black shawl over her shoulders. Perkhotin was ushered into the same drawing room where she had received Mitya a few hours earlier. She entered with a stern and questioning look and, without inviting him to sit down, started right off with a crisp, “What is it?”

“I have taken the liberty of intruding upon you, madam, because of a matter that concerns a mutual acquaintance, Mr. Dmitry Karamazov,” Perkhotin began; but as soon as he mentioned that name, the lady’s face showed violent irritation and she interrupted him in a voice shrill with fury:

“Why have you come to pester me about that terrible man!” she screamed. “How dare you come to the house of a lady who does not know you at such an hour! And, what’s more, to speak to her about a man who only three hours ago came here, to this very drawing room, with the intention of killing me and who, when he walked out of here, was stamping his feet in a way no gentleman ever does when leaving a respectable house! And I warn you, sir, I am not going to allow you to get away with this: I will lodge a complaint against you. You’ll hear of it . . . Please leave at once . . . I am a mother, you know, and I will . . . at once . . . I will . . . I . . .”

“Killing you, did you say? So he wanted to kill you, too?”

“Why, has he already killed someone?”

“If you would only listen to me for half a minute, madam, I’d explain everything to you,” Perkhotin said firmly. “At five p.m. today, Mr. Karamazov borrowed ten rubles from me, as a friend . . . Well, I know for a fact that at that time he had no money whatsoever. Then, at nine p.m., he walked into my apartment with a bundle of hundred-ruble bills. I’d say he had two or even three thousand rubles. Now, his face and his hands were covered with blood and his behavior was not that of a normal man. When I asked him where he had got all that money, he told me very clearly that you had just given him three thousand rubles to go to the gold mines . . .”

Mrs. Khokhlakov suddenly looked incredibly pained and shocked.

“Oh God! He must have murdered his old father then! I never gave him any money, never! Oh, run, please run quickly—save the old man! Run and save old Karamazov!”

“Forgive me, madam, are you quite sure you never gave him any money? You are absolutely certain?”

“I didn’t give him anything. I didn’t! I refused to, because I knew he wouldn’t appreciate it . . . So he left stamping his feet. He tried to attack me, but I jumped aside and escaped . . . And let me tell you—for I don’t intend to hide anything from you now—he even spat at me. Can you imagine that! But why are we standing here like this? Won’t you sit down? Please forgive me . . . Unless, maybe you should run over there and save the unfortunate old man from a horrible death?”

“But since he has already killed him . . .”

“Ah, good Lord, of course, of course! But what are we going to do now? What do you think our next move should be?”

Meanwhile she had made Perkhotin sit down and herself sat facing him. He gave her a concise account of the business, at least of the part of the story of which he himself had been a witness earlier that day, and also of his visit to Fenya just before and what he had learned there about the pestle. All these details were a terrible shock to the impressionable lady and she kept shrieking and covering her eyes with her hands.

“The most extraordinary thing is that I had a feeling this would happen! I have a gift of premonition—I always feel in advance when something is going to happen and it unfailingly does. You know, many, many times before, I have looked at that terrible man and I always thought that he would end up killing me. And now that’s exactly what happened . . . I mean, if this time he didn’t actually kill me, but only his father, I see in that a sign of God’s intervention . . . Besides, he would have been ashamed to kill me at that moment, because I had just put the icon of St. Barbara, the holy martyr, around his neck . . . Ah, when I think how close I was to death as I stood there within his reach, putting it around his outstretched neck! You know, Mr. Perkhotin—I hope I have your name right. It is Mr. Perkhotin, isn’t it?—generally speaking, I do not believe in miracles, but this time, with that icon, it’s really amazing! I’m so impressed that I think I’m prepared to believe anything . . . Did you hear, by the way, about Elder Zosima? Now I’ve forgotten what I was going to say . . . But, imagine, that man actually spat at me while he had the icon I’d given him around his neck! Of course, he just spat at me, instead of murdering me . . . So that’s where he rushed off to afterward! What are we going to do now? What is next? What do you think?”

Perkhotin stood up, saying that he was going straight to the police inspector to tell him what he knew and that then it would be up to him.

“Ah, he’s such a wonderful man! I have known Mikhail Makarov for a long time. Yes, you must absolutely go and see him right now. You’re so clever and so quick-thinking, Mr. Perkhotin. That’s really a good idea! You know, I would have never thought of it myself.”

“It so happens that I know the police inspector very well myself,” Perkhotin said, obviously anxious to escape from the impetuous lady, who would not give him a chance to take his leave.

“And you know what,” she prattled on, “you absolutely must come back and tell me what you find out, what happens next, what they decide, what sentence he gets, and where he is to serve it . . . Tell me, we don’t have capital punishment anymore, do we? But you must come and tell me, even if it’s three in the morning, even four, even half-past four! Tell them to wake me up, and to give me a good shake if I don’t get up. Oh, I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep at all now . . . I have an idea, though—what would you say if I came with you?”

“Hm . . . I really don’t think so, madam . . . But, on the other hand, I think it would be helpful if you wrote three lines in your own hand to the effect that you never gave any money to Dmitry Karamazov . . . just in case it should come up.”

“I will certainly be very glad to do so!” Mrs. Khokhlakov cried ecstatically, actually skipping over to her desk. “You know, I am simply flabbergasted and stunned by your ingenuity, by your inventiveness in an affair of this sort . . . Where do you work? Oh, it’s so nice to know that you are serving in our town . . .”

And she went on talking, while scribbling in a large, hurried scrawl three lines on a half sheet of notepaper that went: “I have never in my life lent to the unhappy Dmitry Karamazov (because, after all, he is unhappy at this moment) three thousand rubles or any other sum, today, or at any time. I swear this by everything that is holy in this world. Katerina Khokhlakoy.”

“Here it is!” she said, turning quickly to Perkhotin. “So go and save . . . This is a heroic deed on your part.”

She made the sign of the cross over him three times and saw him off to the door.