Текст книги "The Brothers Karamazov"

Автор книги: Федор Достоевский

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 36 (всего у книги 70 страниц)

“Parricide!” the old man shouted for all the neighborhood to hear, but that was all he had time to shout; suddenly he fell as if struck by a thunderbolt. Mitya jumped back down into the garden and bent over the stricken man. There was a brass pestle in Mitya’s hand, and he threw it mechanically into the grass. The pestle fell two paces away from Grigory, not in the grass, however, but on a footpath, in a most conspicuous place. For a few seconds he examined the prostrate figure before him. The old man’s head was all covered with blood; Mitya reached out his hand and began feeling it. Afterwards he clearly recalled that at that moment he had wanted terribly “to find out for certain” whether he had cracked the old man’s skull or merely “dazed” him with the pestle. But the blood was flowing, flowing terribly, and instantly poured its hot stream over Mitya’s trembling fingers. He remembered snatching from his pocket the new white handkerchief he had provided himself with for his visit to Madame Khokhlakov, and putting it to the old man’s head, senselessly trying to wipe the blood from his forehead and face. But the handkerchief instantly became soaked with blood as well. “Lord, why am I doing this?” Mitya suddenly came to his senses. “If I’ve cracked his skull, how can I tell now ... ? And what difference does it make?” he suddenly added hopelessly. “If I’ve killed him, I’ve killed him ... You came a cropper, old man, now lie there!” he said aloud, and suddenly dashed for the fence, jumped over it into the lane, and started running. The blood-soaked handkerchief was crumpled in his right fist, and as he ran he stuffed it into the back pocket of his coat. He was running like mad, and the few rare passers-by he met in the darkness, in the streets of the town, remembered afterwards how they had met a wildly running man that night. He was flying again to the house of the widow Morozov. Fenya had rushed to the head porter, Nazar Ivanovich, just after he left, and begun begging him “by Christ God not to let the captain in again either today or tomorrow.” Nazar Ivanovich listened and agreed, but, as bad luck would have it, he went upstairs to his mistress, who had suddenly summoned him, and on his way, having met his nephew, a lad about twenty years old who had just come from the village, he told him to stay in the yard, but forgot to tell him about the captain. Mitya ran up to the gate and knocked. The lad recognized him instantly: Mitya had already tipped him several times. He at once opened the gate for him, let him in, and with a cheerful smile courteously hastened to inform him that “Agrafena Alexandrovna is not at home at the moment, sir.”

“Where is she, Prokhor?” Mitya stopped suddenly.

“She left about two hours ago, with Timofei, for Mokroye.”

“Why?” Mitya cried.

“That I can’t say, sir. To see some officer. Someone invited her there and sent horses...”

Mitya left him and ran like a madman for Fenya.

Chapter 5: A Sudden Decision

She was sitting in the kitchen with her grandmother; both were preparing to go to bed. Relying on Nazar Ivanovich, they had once again not locked the doors. Mitya ran in, rushed at Fenya, and seized her tightly by the throat.

“Talk now! Where is she? Who is she with in Mokroye?” he shouted in a frenzy.

Both women shrieked.

“Aie! I’ll tell you. Aie, Dmitri Fyodorovich, dear, I’ll tell you all right now, I won’t hide anything,” Fenya rattled out, frightened to death. “She went to Mokroye to see the officer.”

“What officer?” Mitya shouted.

“Her former officer, the same one from before, from five years ago, who left her and went away,” Fenya rattled out in the same patter.

Dmitri Fyodorovich relaxed his grip on her throat and let his hands fall. He stood before her, speechless and pale as death, but one could see from his eyes that he had understood everything at once, everything, everything all at once, at half a word, had understood it to the last detail and figured it all out. It was not for poor Fenya, of course, to notice at that moment whether he had understood or not. She sat on the chest where she had been sitting when he ran in, and remained like that, trembling all over, holding her hands out in front of her as if trying to protect herself, and froze in that position. She stared at him fixedly, her eyes terrified, her pupils dilated with fear. Worse still, both his hands were stained with blood. On the way, as he was running, he must have touched his forehead with them, wiping the sweat from his face, so that he left red patches of smeared blood both on his forehead and on his right cheek. Fenya was on the verge of hysterics, and the old cook jumped up, staring crazily, and nearly passed out. Dmitri Fyodorovich stood for a moment, then suddenly dropped mechanically into a chair next to Fenya.

He sat there, not pondering exactly, but as if in fear, as if in some kind of stupor. But everything was clear as day: this officer—he knew about him, he knew everything perfectly well, knew it from Grushenka herself, knew that a month ago a letter had come from him. So for a month, for a whole month this affair had been going on in deep secret from him, up to the present arrival of this new man, and he had not even given him a thought! But how could he, how could he not give him a thought? Why had he simply forgotten about the officer, forgotten the moment he learned of him? That was the question that stood before him like some sort of bogey. And he indeed contemplated this bogey in fear, in cold fear.

But suddenly he began speaking gently and meekly with Fenya, like a gentle and affectionate child, as if he had quite forgotten that he had just frightened, offended, and tormented her so much. He suddenly began questioning Fenya with great and, in his position, even surprising precision. And Fenya, though she gazed wildly at his bloodstained hands, also began answering each of his questions with surprising readiness and haste, as if she were even hastening to lay the whole “truthful truth” before him. Little by little, and even with a sort of joy, she began giving him all the details, not wishing in the least to torment him, but as if she were hastening, with all her heart, to please him as much as she could. She also told him to the last detail about that day, the visit of Rakitin and Alyosha, how she, Fenya, had kept watch, how her mistress had driven off, and that she had called from the window to Alyosha to bow to him, Mitenka, and tell him he should “remember forever how she had loved him for one hour.” Hearing of the bow, Mitya suddenly grinned and a blush came to his pale cheeks. At that same moment, Fenya, now not the least bit afraid of her curiosity, said to him:

“But your hands, Dmitri Fyodorovich, they’re all covered with blood!”

“Yes,” Mitya answered mechanically, looked distractedly at his hands, and immediately forgot about them and about Fenya’s question. Again he sank into silence. Some twenty minutes had already passed since he ran in. His initial fear was gone, but he was evidently now totally possessed by some new, inflexible resolve. He suddenly stood up and smiled pensively.

“What has happened to you, sir?” Fenya said, pointing again at his hands; said with regret, as if she were now the person closest to him in his grief.

Mitya again looked at his hands.

“That’s blood, Fenya,” he said, looking at her with a strange expression, “that is human blood, and, my God, why was it shed? But ... Fenya ... there is a fence here” (he looked at her as though he were setting her a riddle), “a high fence, and fearful to look at, but ... tomorrow at dawn, when the sun soars aloft,’ Mitenka will jump over that fence ... You don’t understand about the fence, Fenya, but never mind ... it doesn’t matter, tomorrow you will hear and understand everything ... and now, farewell! I won’t interfere, I’ll remove myself, I’ll know how to remove myself. Live, my joy ... you loved me for one little hour, so remember Mitenka Karamazov forever ... She always called me Mitenka, remember?”

And with those words he suddenly walked out of the kitchen. Fenya was almost more frightened by this exit than she had been earlier when he ran in and fell upon her.

Exactly ten minutes later, Dmitri Fyodorovich walked into the rooms of the young official, Pyotr Ilyich Perkhotin, to whom he had pawned his pistols earlier that day. It was then half past eight, and Pyotr Ilyich, having had his tea at home, had just dressed himself once more in his frock coat in order to set off to the “Metropolis” for a game of billiards. Mitya caught him as he was going out. Seeing him and his bloodstained face, the young man cried out:

“Lord! What’s with you?”

“So,” Mitya said quickly, “I’ve come for my pistols and brought you the money. Many thanks. I’m in a hurry, Pyotr Ilyich, please make it fast.”

Pyotr Ilyich grew more and more surprised: in Mitya’s hand he suddenly noticed a pile of money, and, what was more, he had walked in holding this pile as no one in the world holds money and comes walking in with it: he had all the bills in his right hand, and was holding his hand, as if for show, straight out in front of him. A boy, the official’s servant, who had met Mitya in the hallway, recounted later that he had walked through the front door just like that, with the money in his hand, which means that he had also been walking through the streets like that, carrying the money before him in his right hand. It was all in iridescent hundred-rouble bills, and he was holding them with his bloodied fingers. Afterwards, to the further questioning of certain interested persons as to how much money there was, Pyotr Ilyich replied that it was difficult to tell then by eye, maybe two thousand, maybe three, but it was a big, “hefty” wad. Dmitri Fyodorovich, as Perkhotin also testified later, “was not quite himself, as it were, not that he was drunk, but he seemed to be in some sort of ecstasy, quite distracted, and at the same time apparently concentrated, as if he were thinking about something, getting at something, but could not make up his mind. He was in a great hurry, responded abruptly in a very strange manner, and at moments seemed not grieved at all but even cheerful.” “But what is it, what’s happened?” Pyotr Ilyich shouted again, staring wildly at his visitor. “How did you get so covered with blood? Did you fall? Look!”

He seized Mitya by the elbow and placed him in front of a mirror. Mitya saw his bloodstained face, gave a start, and frowned wrathfully.

“Ah, the devil! Just what I need,” he muttered angrily, quickly shifted the bills from his right hand to his left, and convulsively snatched the handkerchief from his pocket. But the handkerchief, too, turned out to be all covered with blood (it was the same handkerchief he had used to wipe Grigory’s head and face): there was hardly a white spot left on it, and it had not merely begun to dry, but had stiffened into a ball and refused to be unfolded. Mitya angrily flung it to the floor.

“Eh, the devil! Have you got some rag ... to wipe myself off ... ?”

“So you’re only stained, you’re not wounded? Then you’d better wash,” Pyotr Ilyich answered. “There’s the basin, let me help you.”

“The basin? Good ... only where am I going to put this?” With quite a strange sort of bewilderment he pointed at his wad of bills, looking questioningly at Pyotr Ilyich, as if the latter had to decide where he should put his own money.

“Put it in your pocket, or here on the table—nothing will happen to it.”

“In my pocket? Yes, my pocket. Good ... No, you see, it’s all nonsense!” he cried, as if suddenly coming out of his distraction. “Look: first let’s finish this business, the pistols, I mean, give them back to me, and here’s your money ... because I really, really must ... and I have no time, no time at all...”

And taking the topmost hundred-rouble bill from the wad, he handed it to the official.

“But I don’t have any change,” the latter remarked, “don’t you have something smaller?”

“No,” Mitya said, glancing at the money again, and, as if uncertain of his words, he peeled back the first two or three bills with his fingers. “No, they’re all the same,” he added, and again looked questioningly at Pyotr Ilyich.

“How did you get so rich?” the latter asked. “Wait, I’ll have my boy run over to Plomikov’s. They close late—maybe they’ll change it. Hey, Misha!” he shouted into the hallway.

“To Plotnikov’s shop—splendid!” Mitya, too, shouted, as if some thought had struck him. “Misha,” he turned to the boy as he came in, “look, run over to Plotnikov’s and tell them that Dmitri Fyodorovich sends them his respects and will come himself shortly ... But listen, listen: tell them to have some champagne ready when he comes, three dozen bottles, let’s say, and packed the same way as when I went to Mokroye ... I bought four dozen that time,” he turned suddenly to Pyotr Ilyich. “Don’t worry, Misha, they’ll know what I mean,” he turned back to the boy. “And listen: some cheese, too, some Strasbourg pâté, smoked whitefish, ham, caviar, and everything, everything, whatever they’ve got, up to a hundred roubles, or a hundred and twenty, like the other time ... And listen: they mustn’t forget some sweets, candies, pears, watermelons—two, three, maybe four—well, no, one watermelon is enough, but there must be chocolate, sour balls, fruit-drops, toffee—well, all the same things they packed for me to take to Mokroye that time, it should come to about three hundred roubles with the champagne ... It must be exactly the same this time. Try to remember, Misha, if you are Misha ... His name is Misha, isn’t it?” he again turned to Pyotr Ilyich.

“But wait,” Pyotr Ilyich interrupted, staring at him and listening worriedly, “you’d better go yourself, then you can tell them, he’ll get it all wrong.”

“He will, I can see, he’ll get it all wrong! Eh, Misha, and I was about to give you a kiss for your services. If you keep it all straight, you’ll get ten roubles, now off with you ... Champagne above all, let them break out the champagne, and some cognac, and red wine, and white wine, and all the rest, like the other time ... They’ll remember how it was.”

“But listen to me!” Pyotr Ilyich interrupted, now with impatience. “I said, let him just run over to change the money and tell them not to lock up, and then you can go and talk to them yourself. . . Give me your bill. Off you go, Misha, shake a leg!” Pyotr Ilyich seemed to chase Misha out deliberately, because the boy was standing in front of the visitor, staring goggle-eyed at his bloody face and bloodstained hands, with a bunch of money in his trembling fingers, and just stood gaping in amazement and fear, probably grasping little of what Mitya was telling him to do.

“Well, now let’s go and wash,” Pyotr Ilyich said sternly. “Put the money on the table, or in your pocket ... That’s it, now come along. And take your frock coat off.”

And he began helping him to take off his frock coat, but suddenly he cried out again:

“Look, there’s blood on your coat, too!”

“It ... it’s not the coat. Only a little bit on the sleeve ... And then just here, where the handkerchief was. It soaked through the pocket. I sat down on it at Fenya’s and the blood soaked through,” Mitya explained at once with surprising trustfulness. Pyotr Ilyich listened, frowning.

“How on earth did you get like this? You must have had a fight with someone,” he muttered.

They began to wash. Pyotr Ilyich held the jug and poured water. Mitya hurried and did not soap his hands well. (His hands were trembling, as Pyotr Ilyich recalled afterwards.) Pyotr Ilyich at once ordered him to use more soap and scrub harder. It was as if, at that moment, he was gaining more and more of an upper hand over Mitya. Let us note in passing that the young man was not of a timid nature.

“Look, you didn’t clean under your nails; now scrub your face, here, on the temples, by your ear ... Will you go in that shirt? Where are you going? Look, the whole right cuff is bloody.”

“Yes, bloody,” Mitya remarked, examining the cuff of his shirt.

“Change your shirt, then.”

“No time. Look, I’ll just ... ,” Mitya went on with the same trustfulness, wiping his face and hands now and putting on his frock coat, “I’ll just tuck the edge of the sleeve in here, and it won’t show under the coat ... See!”

“Tell me, now, how on earth did you get like this? Did you have a fight with someone? Was it in the tavern, like the other time? It wasn’t that captain again—the one you beat and dragged around?” Pyotr Ilyich recalled as if in reproach. “Did you beat someone else ... or kill him, possibly?”

“Nonsense!” said Mitya.

“Why nonsense?”

“Never mind,” Mitya said, and suddenly grinned. “I just ran down a little old woman in the square.”

“Ran down? A little old woman?”

“An old man!” Mitya shouted, looking Pyotr Ilyich straight in the face, laughing, and shouting at him as if he were deaf.

“Ah, devil take it—an old man, an old woman ... Did you kill somebody?”

“We made peace. Had a fight, then made peace. Somewhere. We parted friends. Some fool ... he’s forgiven me ... surely he’s forgiven me by now ... If he’d gotten up, he wouldn’t have forgiven me,” Mitya suddenly winked, “only, you know, devil take him, do you hear, Pyotr Ilyich, devil take him! Never mind! No more now!” Mitya snapped resolutely.

“I mean, why go getting into trouble with everybody ... like the other time with that captain, over some trifle ... You’ve had a fight, and now you’re going off on a spree—that’s just like you! Three dozen bottles of champagne—what do you need so much for?”

“Bravo! Now give me the pistols. By God, I have no time. I’d like to chat with you, my dear, but I have no time. And there’s no need, it’s too late for talking. Ah! Where’s the money, where did I put it?” he cried, and began feeling in all his pockets.

“You put it on the table ... yourself. . . there it is. Did you forget? Really, money is like trash or water for you. Here are your pistols. Strange, at six o’clock you pawned them for ten roubles, and now look how many thousands you’ve got. Must be two, or three?”

“Must be three!” Mitya laughed, putting the money into the side pocket of his trousers.

“You’ll lose it that way. Have you got a gold mine or something?”

“A mine? A gold mine!” Mitya shouted at the top of his lungs, and burst out laughing. “Do you want to go to the gold mines, Perkhotin? There’s a lady here who’ll fork out three thousand on the spot if you’ll agree to go. She did it for me, she likes gold mines so much! You know Madame Khokhlakov?”

“Not personally, but I’ve heard about her and seen her. Did she really give you three thousand? Just forked it out like that?” Pyotr Ilyich looked doubtful.

“Go there tomorrow, when the sun soars aloft, when the ever-youthful Phoebus soars aloft, ^[241]praising and glorifying God, go to her, to Khokhlakov, and ask her yourself if she forked me out three thousand or not. See what she says.”

“I don’t know what terms you’re on ... since you say it so positively, I suppose she did ... And you grabbed the money, and instead of Siberia, you’re going on a spree ... But where are you really off to, eh?”

“Mokroye.”

“Mokroye? But it’s night!”

“Mastriuk had it all, Mastriuk had a fall,” ^[242]Mitya said suddenly.

“What do you mean, a fall? You’ve got thousands!”

“I’m not talking about thousands. To hell with thousands! I’m talking about a woman’s heart:

Gullible is the heart of woman, Ever-changing and full of vice.

I agree with Ulysses, it was he who said that.” ^[243]

“I don’t understand you.”

“You think I’m drunk?”

“Not drunk, worse than that.”

“I’m drunk in spirit, Pyotr Ilyich, drunk in spirit, and enough, enough...”

“What are you doing, loading the pistol?”

“Loading the pistol.”

Indeed, having opened the pistol case, Mitya uncapped the powder horn, carefully poured in some powder, and rammed the charge home. Then he took a bullet and, before dropping it in, held it up in two fingers near the candle. “What are you looking at the bullet for?” Pyotr Ilyich watched him with uneasy curiosity.

“Just a whim. Now, if you had decided to blow your brains out, would you look at the bullet before you loaded the pistol, or not?”

“Why look at it?”

“It will go into my brain, so it’s interesting to see what it’s like ... Ah, anyway, it’s all nonsense, a moment’s nonsense. There, that’s done,” he added, having dropped the bullet in and rammed the wadding in after it. “Nonsense, my dear Pyotr Ilyich, it’s all nonsense, and if you only knew what nonsense it is! Now give me a piece of paper.”

“Here’s some paper.”

“No, smooth, clean, for writing. That’s it.” And having snatched a pen from the table, Mitya quickly wrote two lines on the piece of paper, folded it in half twice, and put it in his waistcoat pocket. He put the pistols back in their case, locked it with a little key, and took the case in his hands. Then he looked at Pyotr Ilyich and gave him a long, meaning smile.

“Let’s go now,” he said.

“Go where? No, wait ... So you’re thinking about putting it into your brain, the bullet, I mean ... ?” Pyotr Ilyich asked uneasily.

“The bullet? Nonsense! I want to live, I love life! Believe me. I love golden-haired Phoebus and his hot light ... My dear Pyotr Ilyich, do you know how to remove yourself?”

“What do you mean, remove myself?”

“To make way. To make way for one you hold dear, and for one you hate. And so that the one you hate becomes dear to you—to make way like that! And to say to them: God be with you, go, pass by, while I...”

“While you ... ?”

“Enough. Let’s go.”

“By God, I’ll tell someone,” Pyotr Ilyich looked at him, “to keep you from going there. Why do you need to go to Mokroye now?”

“There’s a woman there, a woman, and let that be enough for you, Pyotr Ilyich, drop it!”

“Listen, even though you’re a savage, somehow I’ve always liked you ... That’s why I worry.”

“Thank you, brother. I’m a savage, you say. Savages, savages! That’s something I keep repeating: savages! Ah, yes, here’s Misha, I forgot about him.”

Misha came in, puffing, with a wad of small bills, and reported that “they all got a move on” at Plotnikov’s and were running around with bottles, and fish, and tea—everything would be ready shortly. Mitya snatched a ten-rouble note and gave it to Pyotr Ilyich, and he tossed another ten-rouble note to Misha.

“Don’t you dare!” Pyotr Ilyich cried. “Not in my house. Anyway, it’s a harmful indulgence. Hide your money away, put it here, why throw it around? Tomorrow you’ll need it, and it’s me you’ll come to asking for ten roubles. Why do you keep stuffing it into your side pocket? You’re going to lose it!”

“Listen, my dear fellow, let’s go to Mokroye together!”

“Why should I go?”

“Listen, let’s open a bottle now, and we’ll drink to life! I want to have a drink, and I want above all to have a drink with you. I’ve never drunk with you, have I?”

“Fine, let’s go to the tavern, I’m on my way there myself.”

“No time for the tavern, better at Plotnikov’s shop, in the back room. Now, do you want me to ask you a riddle?”

“Ask.”

Mitya took the piece of paper from his waistcoat pocket, unfolded it, and held it up. There was written on it in his large, clear hand:

“For my whole life I punish myself, I punish my whole life!”

“Really, I’m going to tell someone, I will go now and tell someone,” Pyotr Ilyich said, having read the paper.

“You won’t have time, my dear, let’s have a drink, come on!”

Plotnikov’s shop was only about two doors away from Pyotr Ilyich, at the corner of the street. It was the main grocery store in our town, owned by wealthy merchants, and in fact not bad at all. They had everything any store in the capital would have, all kinds of groceries: wines “bottled by Eliseyev brothers,” fruit, cigars, tea, sugar, coffee, and so on. There were always three clerks on duty, and two boys to run around with deliveries. Though things had gone poorly in our parts, landowners had left, trade had slackened, yet the grocery business flourished as before, and even got better and better every year: purchasers for such goods were never lacking. Mitya was awaited with impatience at the shop. They remembered only too well how three or four weeks earlier he had bought in the same way, all at once, all kinds of goods and wines, for several hundred roubles in cash (they would not, of course, have given him anything on credit); they remembered that he had a whole wad of money sticking out of his hand, just as now, and was throwing it around for nothing, without bargaining, without thinking and without wishing to think why he needed such a quantity of goods, wines, and so forth. Afterwards the whole town was saying that he had driven off to Mokroye with Grushenka then, “squandered three thousand at once in a night and a day, and came back from the spree without a kopeck, naked as the day he was born.” He had roused a whole camp of gypsies that time (they were in our neighborhood then), who in two days, while he was drunk, relieved him of an untold amount of money and drank an untold quantity of expensive wine. They said, laughing at Mitya, that in Mokroye he had drowned the cloddish peasants in champagne and stuffed their women and girls with candies and Strasbourg pâté. They also laughed, especially in the tavern, over Mitya’s own frank and public confession (of course, they did not laugh in his face; it was rather dangerous to laugh in his face) that all he got from Grushenka for the whole “escapade” was that “she let him kiss her little foot, and would not let him go any further.”

When Mitya and Pyotr Ilyich arrived at the shop, they found a cart ready at the door, covered with a rug, harnessed to a troika with bells and chimes, and the coachman Andrei awaiting Mitya. In the shop they had nearly finished “putting up” one box of goods and were only waiting for Mitya’s appearance to nail it shut and load it on the cart. Pyotr Ilyich was surprised.

“How did you manage to get a troika?” he asked Mitya.

“I met him, Andrei, as I was running to your place, and told him to drive straight here to the shop. Why waste time! Last time I went with Timofei, but now Timofei said bye-bye and went off ahead of me with a certain enchantress. Will we be very late, Andrei?”

“They’ll get there only an hour before us, if that, just an hour before!” Andrei hastily responded.”I harnessed Timofei up, I know how he drives. His driving’s not our driving, Dmitri Fyodorovich, not by a long shot. They won’t make it even an hour before us!” Andrei, a lean fellow with reddish hair, not yet old, dressed in a long peasant coat and with a caftan over his arm, added enthusiastically.

“I’ll give you fifty roubles for vodka if you’re only an hour behind them.”

“I guarantee you an hour, Dmitri Fyodorovich. An hour, hah! They won’t even be half an hour ahead of us!”

Though Mitya began bustling about, making arrangements, he spoke and gave commands somehow strangely, at random and out of order. He began one thing and forgot to finish it. Pyotr Ilyich found it necessary to step in and help matters along.

“It should come to four hundred roubles, not less than four hundred roubles, just like the other time,” Mitya commanded. “Four dozen bottles of champagne, not a bottle less.”

“Why do you need so much? What for? Stop!” Pyotr Ilyich yelled. “What’s this box? What’s in it? Four hundred roubles’ worth?” The bustling shop clerks explained to him at once, in sugary tones, that this first box contained only a half dozen bottles of champagne and “all sorts of indispensable starters,” such as appetizers, candies, fruit-drops, and so on. And that the main “provision” would be packed and sent separately that same hour, just as the other time, in a special cart, also drawn by a troika, and would get there in good time, “perhaps only an hour behind Dmitri Fyodorovich.”

“No more than an hour, no more than an hour, and put in as much candy and toffee as you can—the girls there love it,” Mitya hotly insisted.

“Toffee is one thing, but four dozen bottles—why do you need so much? One dozen is enough,” Pyotr Ilyich was almost angry now. He started bargaining, demanded to see the bill, would not be silenced. He saved, however, only a hundred roubles. They settled on delivering three hundred roubles’ worth of goods.

“Ah, devil take you!” Pyotr Ilyich cried, as if suddenly thinking better of it. “What do I care? Throw your money away, since you got it for nothing!”

“Come along, my economist, come along, don’t be angry,” Mitya dragged him into the back room of the shop. “They’re going to bring us a bottle here, we’ll have a sip. Eh, Pyotr Ilyich, let’s go together, because you’re a dear man, just the sort I like.”

Mitya sat down on a little wicker chair in front of a tiny table covered with a most filthy tablecloth. Pyotr Ilyich squeezed in opposite him, and the champagne appeared at once. The offer was made to serve the gentlemen oysters, “foremost oysters, the latest arrivals.”

“Devil take your oysters, I don’t eat them, bring us nothing,” Pyotr Ilyich snarled almost angrily.

“No time for oysters,” Mitya remarked, “and I have no appetite. You know, my friend,” he suddenly said with feeling, “I’ve never liked all this disorder.”

“Who likes it? Three dozen bottles, for peasants? Good Lord, anyone would explode!”

“I don’t mean that. I mean a higher order. There is no order in me, no higher order ... But ... that’s all over, nothing to grieve about. Too late, devil take it! My whole life has been disorder, and I must put it in order. Punning, am I?”

“You’re not punning, you’re raving.”

“Glory to the Highest in the world, Glory to the Highest in me!

That verse once burst from my soul, not a verse but a tear, I wrote it myself ... not, by the way, that time when I was dragging the captain by his beard ...” “Why mention him all of a sudden?”

“Why him all of a sudden? Nonsense! Everything ends, everything comes out even; a line—and a sum total.”

“I keep thinking about your pistols, really.”

“The pistols are nonsense, too! Drink and stop imagining things. I love life, I’ve grown to love life too much, so much it’s disgusting. Enough! To life, my dear, let us drink to life, I offer a toast to life! Why am I so pleased with myself? I’m base, but I’m pleased with myself, and yet it pains me to be base and still pleased with myself. I bless creation, I’m ready right now to bless God and his creation, but ... I must exterminate one foul insect, so that it will not crawl around spoiling life for others ... Let us drink to life, dear brother! What can be more precious than life! Nothing, nothing! To life, and to one queen of queens.”