Текст книги "The Brothers Karamazov"
Автор книги: Федор Достоевский
сообщить о нарушении
Текущая страница: 35 (всего у книги 70 страниц)
He flew home, washed, combed his hair, brushed his clothes, got dressed, and went to see Madame Khokhlakov. Alas, his “plan” lay there. He had made up his mind to borrow the three thousand from this lady. Moreover, suddenly, somehow unexpectedly, he had acquired a remarkable certainty that she would not refuse him. It may be wondered why, given such certainty, he had not gone there first, to his own society, so to speak, but had gone instead to Samsonov, a man of alien caste, with whom he did not even know how to speak. But the thing was that for the past month he had almost broken off relations with Madame Khokhlakov, and even before then had been only slightly acquainted with her, and, moreover, he knew very well that she could not stand him. The lady had detested him from the beginning, simply because he was Katerina Ivanovna’s fiancé, whereas she, for some reason, suddenly wanted Katerina Ivanovna to drop him and marry “the dear, chivalrously educated Ivan Fyodorovich, who has such beautiful manners.” Mitya’s manners she detested. Mitya even laughed at her and had said of her once that this lady “is as bold and lively as she is uneducated.” And so that morning, in the wagon, he had been illumined by a most brilliant idea: “If she is so much against my marrying Katerina Ivanovna, and against it to such a degree” (he knew it was almost to the point of hysterics), “then why should she deny me the three thousand now, when this money would precisely enable me to leave Katya and clear out of here forever? These spoiled high-up ladies, if they take it into their heads to want something, will spare nothing to get their way. Besides, she’s so rich,” Mitya reasoned. As for the “plan” itself, it was all the same as before, that is, the offer of his rights to Chermashnya, but now with no commercial purpose, as with Samsonov the day before, not trying to tempt this lady, like Samsonov the day before, with the prospect of picking up twice the sum, about six or seven thousand, but merely as an honorable pledge for the borrowed money. Mitya went into ecstasies developing his new idea, but that is what always happened to him in all his undertakings, all his sudden decisions. He gave himself passionately to every new idea. Nevertheless, as he stepped onto the porch of Madame Khokhlakov’s house, he suddenly felt a chill of horror run down his spine: only at that second did he realize fully and now with mathematical clarity that this was his last hope, that if this should fall through, there was nothing left in the world but “to kill and rob someone for the three thousand, and that’s all . . “It was half past seven when he rang the bell.
At first things seemed to smile on him: he was received at once, with remarkable promptness, as soon as he was announced. “Just as if she were expecting me,” flashed through Mitya’s mind, and then suddenly, as soon as he was shown into the drawing room, the hostess all but ran in and declared directly that she had been expecting him . . .
“I was expecting you, expecting you! I could not even think you would come to me, you must agree, and yet I was expecting you—just marvel at my instinct, Dmitri Fyodorovich, all morning I felt certain you would come today.”
“That is indeed amazing, madame,” Mitya uttered, sitting down clumsily, “but ... I’ve come on extremely important business ... the most important business, for me, that is, madame, for me alone, and I am in a hurry...”
“I know you have the most important business, Dmitri Fyodorovich, here there’s no question of presentiments, no retrograde pretense to miracles (have you heard about the elder Zosima?), this, this is mathematics: you could not fail to come after all that’s happened with Katerina Ivanovna, you could not, you simply could not, it’s mathematics.”
“The realism of actual life, madame, that’s what it is! Allow me, however, to explain ...”
“Realism precisely, Dmitri Fyodorovich. I’m all for realism now, I’ve been taught a good lesson about miracles. Have you heard that Zosima died?”
“No, madame, this is the first I’ve heard of it,” Mitya was a little surprised. Alyosha’s image flashed through his mind.
“Last night, and just imagine...”
“Madame,” Mitya interrupted, “I can imagine only that I am in a most desperate position, and that if you do not help me, everything will fall through, and I will fall through first of all. Forgive the triviality of the expression, but I feel hot, I am in a fever...”
“I know, I know you’re in a fever, I know everything, and you could hardly be in any other state of spirit, and whatever you may say, I know everything beforehand. I took your fate into consideration long ago, Dmitri Fyodorovich, I’ve been following it, studying it ... Oh, believe me, I am an experienced doctor of souls, Dmitri Fyodorovich.”
“Madame, if you are an experienced doctor, I am an experienced patient,” Mitya forced himself into pleasantry, “and I have a feeling that if you have been following my fate as you say, you will help it in its ruination, but for that allow me, finally, to explain the plan with which I’ve ventured to come ... and what I expect from you ... I’ve come, madame ...”
“Don’t explain, it’s secondary. As for helping, you will not be the first I’ve helped, Dmitri Fyodorovich. You’ve probably heard about my cousin, Madame Belmesov, her husband was ruined, he fell through, as you so characteristically expressed it, Dmitri Fyodorovich, and what did I do ... ? I sent him into horse-breeding, and now he’s flourishing. Do you have any notion of horse-breeding, Dmitri Fyodorovich?”
“Not the slightest, madame—oh, madame, not the slightest!” Mitya exclaimed in nervous impatience, and even rose from his seat. “I only beg you, madame, to listen to me, allow me just two minutes to speak freely, so that I can first of all explain everything to you, the whole project with which I have come. Besides, I’m short of time, I’m in a terrible hurry!” Mitya shouted hysterically, feeling that she was about to start talking again and hoping to out-shout her. “I’ve come in despair ... in the last degree of despair, to ask you to lend me money, three thousand, but to lend it on a sure, on the surest pledge, madame, on the surest security! Only let me explain...”
“All of that later, later!” Madame Khokhlakov waved her hand at him in turn, “and whatever you are going to say, I know it all beforehand, I’ve already told you that. You are asking for a certain sum, you need three thousand, but I will give you more, infinitely more, I will save you, Dmitri Fyodorovich, but you must do as I say!”
Mitya reared up from his seat again.
“Madame, can you possibly be so kind!” he cried with extreme feeling. “Oh, Lord, you’ve saved me. You are saving a man from a violent death, madame, from a bullet ... My eternal gratitude...”
“I will give you more, infinitely more than three thousand!” Madame Khokhlakov cried, gazing at Mitya’s rapture with a beaming smile.
“Infinitely? But I don’t need so much. All that’s necessary is that fatal three thousand, and I, for my part, am prepared to guarantee the sum to you, with infinite gratitude, and I’ve come to offer you a plan that...”
“Enough, Dmitri Fyodorovich, it’s said and done,” Madame Khokhlakov spoke abruptly, with the virtuous triumph of a benefactress. “I’ve promised to save you, and I will save you. I will save you as I did Belmesov. What do you think about gold mines, Dmitri Fyodorovich?”
“Gold mines, madame! I’ve never thought anything about them.”
“But I have thought for you! I’ve thought and thought about it! I’ve been watching you for a whole month with that in mind. I’ve looked at you a hundred times as you walked by, saying to myself: here is an energetic man who must go to the mines. I even studied your gait and decided: this man will find many mines.”
“From my gait, madame?” Mitya smiled.
“And why not from your gait? What, do you deny that it’s possible to tell a man’s character from his gait, Dmitri Fyodorovich? Natural science confirms it. Oh, I’m a realist now, Dmitri Fyodorovich. From this day on, after all that story in the monastery, which upset me so, I’m a complete realist, and want to throw myself into practical activity. I am cured. Enough! as Turgenev said.” [237]
“But, madame, this three thousand, which you have so generously promised to lend me...”
“You will get it, Dmitri Fyodorovich,” Madame Khokhlakov at once cut him short, “you may consider it as good as in your pocket, and not three thousand, but three million, Dmitri Fyodorovich, and in no time! I shall tell you your idea: you will discover mines, make millions, return and become an active figure, and you will stir us, too, leading us towards the good. Should everything be left to the Jews? You’ll build buildings, start various enterprises. You will help the poor, and they will bless you. This is the age of railroads, Dmitri Fyodorovich. You will become known and indispensable to the Ministry of Finance, which is in such need now. The decline of the paper rouble allows me no sleep, Dmitri Fyodorovich, few know this side of me...”
“Madame, madame!” Dmitri Fyodorovich again interrupted with a certain uneasy foreboding. “Perhaps I will really and truly follow your advice, your sound advice, and go there, perhaps ... to these mines ... we can talk more about it ... I’ll come again ... even many times ... but about this three thousand, which you have so generously ... Oh, it would set me free, today if possible ... That is, you see, I don’t have any time now, not a moment...”
“Enough, Dmitri Fyodorovich, enough!” Madame Khokhlakov interrupted insistently. “The question is: are you going to the mines or not? Have you fully decided? Answer mathematically.”
“I will go, madame, later ... I’ll go wherever you like, madame, but now...”
“Wait, then!” cried Madame Khokhlakov, and, jumping up, she rushed to her magnificent bureau with numerous little drawers and began pulling out one drawer after another, looking for something and in a terrible hurry.
“The three thousand!” Mitya’s heart froze, “and just like that, without any papers, without any deed ... oh, but how gentlemanly! A splendid woman, if only she weren’t so talkative...”
“Here!” Madame Khokhlakov cried joyfully, coming back to Mitya. “Here is what I was looking for!”
It was a tiny silver icon on a string, of the kind sometimes worn around the neck together with a cross.
“It’s from Kiev, Dmitri Fyodorovich,” she continued reverently, “from the relics of the great martyr Varvara. [238]Allow me personally to put it around your neck and thereby bless you for a new life and new deeds.”
And she indeed put the icon around his neck and began tucking it in. Mitya, in great embarrassment, leaned forward and tried to help her, and finally got the icon past his tie and collar and onto his chest.
“Now you can go!” Madame Khokhlakov uttered, solemnly resuming her seat.
“Madame, I am so touched ... I don’t know how to thank ... for such kindness, but ... if you knew how precious time is to me now...! That sum, which I am so much expecting from your generosity ... Oh, madame, since you are so kind, so touchingly generous to me,” Mitya suddenly exclaimed inspiredly, “allow me to reveal to you ... what you, however, have long known ... that I love a certain person here ... I’ve betrayed Katya ... Katerina Ivanovna, I mean. Oh, I was inhuman and dishonorable towards her, but here I’ve come to love another ... a woman you perhaps despise, madame, for you already know everything, but whom I absolutely cannot part with, absolutely, and therefore, now, this three thousand...”
“Part with everything, Dmitri Fyodorovich!” Madame Khokhlakov interrupted him in the most determined tone. “Everything, women especially. Your goal is the mines, and there’s no need to take women there. Later, when you return in wealth and glory, you will find a companion for your heart in the highest society. She will be a modern girl, educated and without prejudices. By then the women’s question, which is just beginning now, will have ripened, and a new woman will appear ...”
“Madame, that’s not it, not it ... ,” Dmitri Fyodorovich clasped his hands imploringly.
“That is it, Dmitri Fyodorovich, that is precisely what you need, what you thirst for, without knowing it. I am no stranger to the present women’s question, Dmitri Fyodorovich. The development of women and even a political role for women in the nearest future—that is my ideal. I myself have a daughter, Dmitri Fyodorovich, and few know this side of me. I wrote in this regard to the writer Shchedrin. This writer has shown me so much, so much about the woman’s vocation, that last year I sent him an anonymous letter of two lines: ‘I embrace you and kiss you, my writer, for the contemporary woman: carry on.’ And I signed it: A mother.’ I almost wrote ‘a contemporary mother,’ but I hesitated, and then decided just to be a mother: it has more moral beauty, Dmitri Fyodorovich, and besides, the word contemporary’ would have reminded him of The Contemporary—a bitter recollection for him, owing to our censorship . . . [239]Oh, my God, what’s the matter with you?”
“Madame,” Mitya jumped up at last, clasping his hands in helpless supplication, “you will make me weep, madame, if you keep putting off what you have so generously...”
“Weep, Dmitri Fyodorovich, weep! Such feelings are beautiful ... and with such a path before you! Tears will ease you, afterwards you will return and rejoice. You will come galloping to me on purpose from Siberia, to rejoice with me ...”
“But allow me, too,” Mitya suddenly yelled, “for the last time I implore you, tell me, am I to have this promised sum from you today? And if not, precisely when should I come for it?”
“What sum, Dmitri Fyodorovich?” “The three thousand you promised ... which you so generously ...”
“Three thousand? You mean roubles? Oh, no, I haven’t got three thousand,” Madame Khokhlakov spoke with a sort of quiet surprise. Mitya was stupefied . . .
“Then why ... just ... you said ... you even said it was as good as in my pocket...”
“Oh, no, you misunderstood me, Dmitri Fyodorovich. In that case, you misunderstood me. I was talking about the mines ... It’s true I promised you more, infinitely more than three thousand, I recall it all now, but I was only thinking about the mines.”
“And the money? The three thousand?” Dmitri Fyodorovich exclaimed absurdly.
“Oh, if you meant money, I don’t have it. I don’t have any money at all now, Dmitri Fyodorovich, just now I’m fighting with my manager, and the other day I myself borrowed five hundred roubles from Miusov. No, no, I have no money. And you know, Dmitri Fyodorovich, even if I had, I would not give it to you. First, I never lend to anyone. Lending means quarreling. But to you, to you especially I would not give anything, out of love for you I would not give anything, in order to save you I would not give anything, because you need only one thing: mines, mines, mines...!”
“Ah, devil take . . .!” Mitya suddenly roared, and banged his fist on the table with all his might.
“Aiee!” Khokhlakov cried in fear and flew to the other end of the drawing room.
Mitya spat and with quick steps walked out of the room, out of the house, into the street, into the darkness! He walked like a madman, beating himself on the chest, on that very place on his chest where he had beaten himself two days before, with Alyosha, when he had seen him for the last time, in the evening, in the darkness, on the road. What this beating on the chest, on that spot,meant, and what he intended to signify by it—so far was a secret that no one else in the world knew, which he had not revealed then even to Alyosha, but for him that secret concealed more than shame, it concealed ruin and suicide, for so he had determined if he were unable to obtain the three thousand to pay back Katerina Ivanovna and thereby lift from his chest, “from that place on his chest,” the shame he carried there, which weighed so heavily on his conscience. All this will be perfectly well explained to the reader later on, but now, after his last hope had disappeared, this man, physically so strong, having gone a few steps from Madame Khokhlakov’s house, suddenly dissolved in tears like a little child. He walked on, unconsciously wiping his tears away with his fist. Thus he came out into the square and suddenly felt that he had bumped into something with his full weight. He heard the squeaking howl of some little old woman whom he had almost knocked over.
“Lord, he nearly killed me! What are you stomping around here for, hooligan!”
“What, is it you?” Mitya cried, recognizing the old woman in the darkness. It was the same old serving-woman who served Kuzma Samsonov, and whom Mitya had noticed only too well the day before.
“And you, who are you, my dear?” the old woman said in quite a different voice. “I can’t make you out in the dark.”
“You live at Kuzma Kuzmich’s, you’re a servant there?”
“That’s so, my dear, I’ve just run over to Prokhorich’s ... But how is it I still don’t recognize you?”
“Tell me, granny, is Agrafena Alexandrovna there now?” Mitya asked, beside himself with impatience. “I took her there some time ago.”
“She was, my dear, she came, she stayed for a while and left.”
“What? Left?” cried Mitya. “When?”
“Right then she left, she only stayed for a minute, told Kuzma Kuzmich some story, made him laugh, and ran away.”
“You’re lying, damn you!”yelled Mitya.
“Aiee!” cried the little old woman, but Mitya’s tracks were already cold; he ran as fast as he could to the widow Morozov’s house. It was exactly at the same time that Grushenka drove off to Mokroye, not more than a quarter of an hour after her departure. Fenya was sitting in the kitchen with her grandmother, the cook Matryona, when the “captain” suddenly ran in. Seeing him, Fenya screamed to high heaven.
“You’re screaming?” Mitya yelled. “Where is she?” And without giving the terror-stricken Fenya time to say a word, he suddenly collapsed at her feet:
“Fenya, for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ, tell me where she is!”
“My dear, I know nothing, dear Dmitri Fyodorovich, I know nothing, even if you kill me, I know nothing,” Fenya began swearing and crossing herself. “You took her yourself...”
“She came back...!”
“She didn’t, my dear, I swear to God she didn’t!”
“You’re lying,” roared Mitya. “I can see by how scared you are, you know where she is...!”
He dashed out. The frightened Fenya was glad to have gotten off so easily, but she knew very well that he simply had no time, otherwise it would have gone badly for her. But as he ran out, he still surprised both Fenya and old Matryona by a most unexpected act: on the table stood a brass mortar with a pestle in it, a small brass pestle, only seven inches long. As he was running out, having already opened the door with one hand, Mitya suddenly, without stopping, snatched the pestle from the mortar with his other hand, shoved it into his side pocket, and made off with it.
“Oh, Lord,” Fenya clasped her hands, “he’ll kill somebody!”
Chapter 4: In the Dark
Where did he run to? But of course: “Where could she be if not with Fyodor Pavlovich? She ran straight to him from Samsonov’s, it’s all clear now. The whole intrigue, the whole deception is obvious now . . .” All this flew like a whirlwind through his head. He did not even run over to Maria Kondratievna’s yard: “No need to go there, no need at all ... mustn’t cause any alarm ... they’ll all play and betray at once ... Maria Kondratievna is obviously in on the conspiracy, Smerdyakov, too, they’ve all been bought!” A different plan took shape in him: he ran down a lane, making a long detour around Fyodor Pavlovich’s house, ran along Dmitrovsky Street, then ran across the footbridge, and came straight to the solitary back lane, empty and uninhabited, bordered on one side by the wattle fence of the neighbor’s garden, and on the other by the strong, high fence surrounding Fyodor Pavlovich’s garden. There he chose a spot that seemed, according to the story he had heard, to be the same spot where Stinking Lizaveta had once climbed over the fence. “If she could climb over,” the thought flashed, God knows why, through his head, “surely I can climb over.” He jumped, and indeed managed at once to grasp the top of the fence with his hands, then he pulled himself up energetically, climbed right to the top, and sat astride the fence. There was a little bathhouse nearby in the garden, but from the fence the lighted windows of the house could also be seen. “Just as I thought, there’s a light in the old man’s bedroom—she’s there!” and he jumped down from the fence into the garden. Though he knew that Grigory was sick, and that Smerdyakov, perhaps, was indeed sick as well, and that there was no one to hear him, he instinctively hid himself, stood stock still, and began listening. But there was dead silence and, as if on purpose, complete stillness, not a breath of wind.
“And naught but the silence whispers,” [240]the little verse for some reason flashed through his head, “that is, if no one heard me jump over; and it seems no one did.” Having paused for a minute, he quietly walked across the garden, over the grass; he walked for a long time, skirting the trees and bushes, concealing each step, listening himself to each of his own steps. It took him about five minutes to reach the lighted window. He remembered that there, right under the window, there were several large, high, thick bushes of elder and snowball. The door from the house into the garden on the left side of the house was locked—he purposely and carefully checked it as he passed by. At last he reached the bushes and hid behind them. He held his breath. “I must wait now,” he thought, “till they reassure themselves, in case they heard my footsteps and are listening ... if only I don’t cough, or sneeze...”
He waited for about two minutes, but his heart was pounding terribly, and he felt at moments as if he were suffocating. “No, my heart won’t stop pounding,” he thought, “I can’t wait any longer.” He was standing behind a bush in the shadow; the front part of the bush was lighted from the window. “Snowball berries, how red they are!” he whispered, not knowing why. Quietly, with careful, noiseless steps, he approached the window and stood on tiptoe. Before him lay the whole of Fyodor Pavlovich’s bedroom. It was a small room, divided all the way across by red screens, “Chinese,” as Fyodor Pavlovich called them. “Chinese” raced through Mitya’s mind, “and behind the screens—Grushenka.” He began examining Fyodor Pavlovich. He was wearing his new striped silk dressing gown, which Mitya had never seen on him before, tied with a tassled cord also of silk. Clean, stylish linen, a fine Dutch shirt with gold studs, peeped out from under the collar of the gown. On his head Fyodor Pavlovich had the same red bandage Alyosha had seen him wearing. “All dressed up,” thought Mitya. Fyodor Pavlovich stood near the window, apparently deep in thought; suddenly he jerked his head up, listened for a moment, and, having heard nothing, went over to the table, poured half a glass of cognac from a decanter, and drank it. Then he heaved a deep sigh, paused again for a moment, absentmindedly went up to the mirror on the wall between the windows, lifted the red bandage from his forehead a little with his right hand, and began to examine his scrapes and bruises, which had still not gone away. “He’s alone,” thought Mitya, “most likely he’s alone.” Fyodor Pavlovich stepped away from the mirror, suddenly turned to the window, and looked out. Mitya instantly jumped back into the shadow.
“Maybe she’s behind the screen, maybe she’s already asleep,” the thought needled his heart. Fyodor Pavlovich stepped away from the window. “He was looking for her from the window, so she must not be there: why else would he stare into the dark ... ? So he’s eaten up with impatience . . .”Mitya at once jumped closer and began looking through the window again. The old man was now sitting at the table, obviously feeling dejected. Finally he leaned on his elbow and put his right hand to his cheek. Mitya stared greedily. “Alone, alone!” he again repeated. “If she were here, his face would be different.” Strangely, some weird and unreasonable vexation suddenly boiled up in his heart because she was not there. “Not because she’s not here,” Mitya reasoned and corrected himself at once, “but because I have no way of knowing for certain whether she’s here or not. “ Mitya himself later recalled that his mind at that moment was remarkably clear and took in everything to the last detail, grasped every smallest feature. But anguish, the anguish of ignorance and indecision, was growing in his heart with exceeding rapidity. “Is she here, finally, or is she not?” boiled angrily in his heart. And he suddenly made up his mind, reached out his hand, and tapped softly on the windowpane. He tapped out the signal agreed upon between the old man and Smerdyakov: twice slowly, then three times more quickly, tap-tap-tap—the signal meaning “Grushenka is here.” The old man gave a start, jerked his head up, jumped quickly to his feet, and rushed to the window. Mitya jumped back into the shadow. Fyodor Pavlovich opened the window and stuck his head all the way out.
“Grushenka, is it you? Is it you?” he said in a sort of trembling half-whisper. “Where are you, sweetie, my little angel, where are you?” He was terribly excited; he was breathless.
“Alone!” Mitya decided.
“But where are you?” the old man cried again, and stuck his head out even further, stuck it out to the shoulders, looking in all directions, right and left. “Come here; I have a little present waiting for you; come, I’ll show you . . .!”
“He means the envelope with the three thousand,” flashed through Mitya’s mind.
“But where are you . .? At the door? I’ll open at once...”
And the old man leaned almost all the way out the window, looking to the right, in the direction of the garden gate, and peering into the darkness. In another second he would surely run to open the door, without waiting for any answer from Grushenka. Mitya watched from the side, and did not move. The whole of the old man’s profile, which he found so loathsome, the whole of his drooping Adam’s apple, his hooked nose, smiling in sweet expectation, his lips—all was brightly lit from the left by the slanting light of the lamp shining from the room. Terrible, furious anger suddenly boiled up in Mitya’s heart: “There he was, his rival, his tormentor, the tormentor of his life!” It was a surge of that same sudden, vengeful, and furious anger of which he had spoken, as if in anticipation, to Alyosha during their conversation in the gazebo four days earlier, in response to Alyosha’s question, “How can you say you will kill father?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know,” he had said then. “Maybe I won’t kill him, and maybe I will. I’m afraid that his face at that momentwill suddenly become hateful to me. I hate his Adam’s apple, his nose, his eyes, his shameless sneer. I feel a personal loathing. I’m afraid of that, I may not be able to help myself...”
The personal loathing was increasing unbearably. Mitya was beside himself, and suddenly he snatched the brass pestle from his pocket. . .”
“God was watching over me then,” Mitya used to say afterwards: just at that time, the sick Grigory Vasilievich woke up on his bed. Towards evening of that day he had performed upon himself the famous treatment Smerdyakov had described to Ivan Fyodorovich—that is, with his wife’s help he had rubbed himself all over with some secret, very strong infusion made from vodka, and had drunk the rest while his wife whispered “a certain prayer” over him, after which he lay down to sleep. Marfa Ignatievna also partook, and, being a nondrinker, fell into a dead sleep next to her husband. But then, quite unexpectedly, Grigory suddenly woke up in the middle of the night, thought for a moment, and, though he at once felt a burning pain in the small of his back, sat up in bed. Again he thought something over, got up, and dressed hurriedly. Perhaps he felt pangs of conscience for sleeping while the house was left unguarded “at such a perilous time.” Smerdyakov, broken by the falling sickness, lay in the next room without moving. Marfa Ignatievna did not stir. “She’s gone feeble,” Grigory Vasilievich thought, glancing at her, and, groaning, went out onto the porch. Of course he only wanted to take a look from the porch, for he was quite unable to walk, the pain in his lower back and right leg was unbearable. But just then he remembered that he had not locked the garden gate that evening. He was a most precise and punctilious man, a man of established order and age-old habit. Limping and cringing with pain, he went down the porch steps and walked out towards the garden. Yes, indeed, the gate was wide open. Mechanically he stepped into the garden: perhaps he fancied something, perhaps he heard some noise, but, glancing to the left, he saw his master’s window open, and the window was now empty, no one was peering out of it. “Why is it open? It’s not summertime!” Grigory thought, and suddenly, just at that very moment, he caught a glimpse of something unusual right in front of him in the garden. About forty paces away from him a man seemed to be running in the darkness, some shadow was moving very quickly. “Lord!” said Grigory, and, forgetting himself and the pain in the small of his back, he rushed to intercept the running man. He took a short cut, obviously knowing the garden better than the running man; the latter was heading for the bathhouse, ran behind the bathhouse, dashed for the wall. . . Grigory kept his eyes on him and ran, forgetting himself. He reached the fence just as the fugitive was climbing over it. Beside himself, Grigory yelled, rushed forward, and clutched his leg with both hands.
Just so, his forebodings had not deceived him; he recognized the man, it was him, the “monster,” the “parricide”!
