Текст книги "The Brothers Karamazov"
Автор книги: Федор Достоевский
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Текущая страница: 39 (всего у книги 70 страниц)
Mitya waited confidently for an answer. He had no doubts. Something extremely resolute flashed in the pan’s face. “And the roubles, panie?”
“We’ll do it this way, panie: I’ll give you five hundred roubles right now, for the coachman and as a first installment, and two thousand five hundred will come tomorrow in town—I swear on my honor, I’ll dig it up somewhere!” Mitya cried.
The Poles exchanged glances again. The pan’s expression took a turn for the worse.
“Seven hundred, seven hundred, not five, right now, this minute, in your hands!” Mitya upped his offer, sensing that things were not going well. “What’s the matter, pan?You don’t believe me? I’m not going to give you all three thousand at once. I’d give it to you, and you’d go back to her tomorrow ... And I don’t have the whole three thousand with me, I have it at home, in town,” Mitya babbled weakly, losing heart with each word, “by God, I have it, hidden ...”
In an instant a sense of extraordinary dignity shone on the little pan’s face.
“Czy nie potrzebujesz jeszcze czego(Is there anything else you’d like) ?” he asked ironically. “Pfui! Ah, pfui(Shame on you)!” And he spat. Pan Vrublevsky also spat.
“You spit, panie, because,” Mitya spoke as one in despair, realizing that all was over, “because you hope to get more from Grushenka. You’re a couple of capons, that’s what!”
“Jestem do zywego dotkniety(That is a mortal insult)!” the little pansuddenly turned red as a lobster, and briskly, in terrible indignation, as though unwilling to listen any longer, walked out of the room. Vrublevsky went swinging after him, and Mitya, confused and at a loss, followed them out. He was afraid of Grushenka, he anticipated that the panwould now make an uproar. And that, indeed, is what happened. The panwalked into the room and stood theatrically before Grushenka.
“Pani Agrippina, jestem do zywego dotkniety!”he began exclaiming, but Grushenka suddenly seemed to lose all patience, as if she had been touched on her sorest spot.
“Russian, speak Russian, not a word of Polish!” she shouted at him. “You used to speak Russian, did you forget it in five years?” She was all flushed with anger.
“Pani Agrippina ...”
“I am Agrafena, I am Grushenka, speak Russian or I won’t listen to you!” The panwas panting with gonor,and in broken Russian quickly and pompously declared:
“Pani Agrafena, I came to forget the past and to forgive it, to forget what has happened until today ...” “Forgive? You mean you came to forgive me?” Grushenka interrupted and jumped up from her seat.
“Just so, pani, I am not pusillanimous, I am magnanimous. But I was surprised when I saw your lovers. Pan Mitya, in the other room, offered me three thousand to depart. I spat in the pan’s face.”
“What? He offered you money for me?” Grushenka cried hysterically. “Is it true, Mitya? How dare you! Am I for sale?”
“Panie, panie,” Mitya cried out, “she is pure, she is shining, and I have never been her lover! It’s a lie...”
“How dare you defend me to him,” Grushenka went on shouting. “I have been pure not out of virtue, and not from fear of Kuzma, but in order to stand proudly before him and have the right to call him a scoundrel when I met him. But did he really not take your money?”
“He was, he was taking it!” Mitya exclaimed. “Only he wanted all three thousand at once, and I offered him just seven hundred down.”
“But of course: he heard I had money, so he came to marry me!”
“Pani Agrippina,” cried the pan,“I am a knight, a nobleman, not a lajdak.I arrived to take you for my wife, but I see a new pani, not as she was before, but wanton and shameless.”
“Ah, go back where you came from! I’ll order them to throw you out right now, and they will!” Grushenka cried in a rage. “I was a fool, a fool to torment myself for five years! And I didn’t torment myself because of him at all, I tormented myself out of spite! And this isn’t him at all! Was he like that? This one’s more like his father! Where did you get such a wig? He was a falcon, and this one is a drake. He laughed and sang songs to me ... And I, I have been shedding tears for five years, cursed fool that I am, mean, shameless!”
She fell onto her armchair and covered her face with her hands. At that moment the chorus of Mokroye girls, finally assembled in the next room to the left, suddenly burst into a rollicking dance song.
“This is Sodom!” Pan Vrublevsky suddenly bellowed. “Innkeeper, throw these shameless people out!”
The innkeeper, who had been peeking curiously through the door for a long time already, hearing shouts and seeing that his guests were quarreling, came into the room at once.
“What are you yelling about? Shut your trap!” he addressed Vrublevsky with a sort of discourtesy that was even impossible to explain.
“Swine!” roared Pan Vrublevsky.
“Swine, am I? And what sort of cards have you just been playing with? I gave you a deck and you hid it! You were playing with marked cards! I can pack you off to Siberia for marked cards, do you know that, it’s the same as bad money ...” And going over to the sofa, he put his fingers between the cushion and the back and pulled out an unopened deck of cards.
“Here’s my deck, unopened!” He held it up and showed it all around. “From there I saw him shove my deck behind the cushion and put his own in place of it—you’re not a pan,you’re a cheat!”
“And I saw the other panpalm a card twice,” cried Kalganov.
“Ah, what shame, what shame!” exclaimed Grushenka, clasping her hands and genuinely blushing with shame. “Lord, what he’s come to!”
“And I thought so, too!” shouted Mitya. But he had barely spoken when Pan Vrublevsky, embarrassed and infuriated, turned to Grushenka and, shaking his fist at her, shouted:
“Public slut!” But he had barely exclaimed it when Mitya flew at him, seized him with both hands, lifted him up in the air, and in an instant carried him out of the room into the bedroom on the right, the one where he had just taken the two pans.
“I left him there on the floor!” he announced, returning at once, breathless with excitement. “He’s struggling, the scum, but there’s no chance he’ll get out . . .!”He closed one half of the door, and holding the other wide open, he called out to the little pan:
“Excellency, would you care to follow him? If you please!”
“Mitri Fyodorovich, my dear,” exclaimed Trifon Borisich, “take back the money you lost to them! It’s the same as if they’d stolen it from you.”
“I don’t want my fifty roubles back,” Kalganov suddenly answered.
“And I don’t want my two hundred!” exclaimed Mitya. “Not for anything will I take it back, let him keep it as a consolation.”
“Bravo, Mitya! Well done!” cried Grushenka, and a terribly malicious note rang in her exclamation. The little pan,purple with fury, yet by no means losing his stateliness, started for the door, but stopped and suddenly said, addressing Grushenka:
“Pani, jesli chcesz isc za mna, idzmy; jesli nie—bywaj zdrowa (Pani, if you want to come with me, come; if not—farewell).’”
And pompously, puffing with ambition and indignation, he went through the door. The man had character: after all that had taken place, he did not lose hope that the paniwould follow after him—so highly did he value himself. Mitya slammed the door behind him.
“Lock it with a key,” said Kalganov. But the lock clicked from the other side; they had locked themselves in.
“Bravo!” Grushenka cried again, mercilessly and maliciously. “Bravo! And good riddance!”
Chapter 8: Delirium
What began then was almost an orgy, a feast of feasts. Grushenka was the first to call for wine: “I want to drink, I want to get quite drunk, like before—remember, Mitya, remember how we were coming to know each other then?” Mitya himself was as if in delirium, anticipating “his happiness.” Grushenka, incidentally, kept chasing him away from her all the while: “Go, enjoy yourself, tell them to dance, everyone should enjoy themselves, sing ‘Dance cottage, dance stove’ like before!” [261]she kept exclaiming. She was terribly excited. And Mitya would run to give orders. The chorus gathered in the next room. The room they had been sitting in so far was small in any case; it was divided in two by a cotton curtain, behind which, again, there was an enormous bed with a plump down mattress and a pile of the same sort of cotton pillows. Indeed, in all four “good” rooms of the house, there were beds everywhere. Grushenka settled herself just by the door; Mitya brought her an armchair: she had sat in the same place “then,” on the day of their first spree, and from there had watched the chorus and the dancing. The girls who gathered were the same as then; the Jews with fiddles and zithers arrived, and finally the long-awaited troika arrived with its cart full of wines and provisions. Mitya bustled about. Uninvited guests came to watch, peasant men and women who had already gone to sleep but woke up sensing an unheard-of entertainment, like that of a month before. Mitya greeted and embraced those he knew, recalling their faces; he uncorked bottles and poured for all comers. Champagne was popular only with the girls; the men preferred rum and cognac and especially hot punch. Mitya ordered hot chocolate for all the girls, and three samovars to be kept boiling all night so that everyone who came could have tea or punch: whoever wants to can help himself. In a word, something disorderly and absurd began, but Mitya was in his natural element, as it were, and the more absurd it all became, the more his spirits rose. If some peasant had asked him for money at that moment, he would at once have pulled out his whole wad and started giving it away right and left without counting. That is probably why, in order to protect Mitya, the innkeeper Trifon Borisich, who seemed to have quite given up any thought of going to sleep that night, and who nevertheless drank little (he only had one glass of punch), was almost constantly scurrying around him, vigilantly looking out, in his own way, for Mitya’s interests. When necessary, he intervened in a friendly and servile manner, reasoning with him, not letting him, as he had “then,” present the peasants with “cigarettes and Rhine wine” or, God forbid, with money, and was highly indignant that the girls were drinking liqueur and eating candy: “There’s nothing but lice there, Mitri Fyodorovich,” he would say, “I’d give them a knee in the backside, every one of them, and tell them to count it an honor—that’s what they’re like!” Mitya again remembered Andrei and ordered punch to be sent out to him. “I offended him before,” he kept saying in a weak and tender voice. Kalganov did not want to drink at first, and very much disliked the girls’ chorus, but after drinking two more glasses of champagne, he became terribly happy, paced about the rooms, laughed, and praised everyone and everything, songs and music. Maximov, blissful and tipsy, never left his side. Grushenka, who was also beginning to get drunk, kept pointing at Kalganov and saying to Mitya: “What a darling he is, what a wonderful boy!” And Mitya would run in rapture to kiss Kalganov and Maximov. Oh, he was expecting so much; she had not yet said anything to him, she obviously put off saying anything on purpose, and only glanced at him from time to time with caressing but ardent eyes. Finally she suddenly caught him fast by the hand and pulled him forcefully to herself. She was then sitting in the armchair by the door.
“How you walked in tonight, eh? How you walked in . . .! I was so frightened. So you wanted to give me up to him, hm? Did you really?”
“I didn’t want to ruin your happiness!” Mitya prattled blissfully. But she did not even need his answer.
“Now go ... enjoy yourself,” she chased him away again, “and don’t cry, I’ll call you back.”
He would run off, and she would begin listening to the songs and watching the dancing again, following him with her eyes wherever he went, but after a quarter of an hour she would call him again, and he would again come running to her.
“Here, sit beside me now. Tell me, how did you hear about me yesterday, that I had come here? Who told you first?”
And Mitya would start telling her everything, incoherently, disconnectedly, feverishly, yet he spoke strangely, often suddenly frowning and breaking off.
“Why are you frowning?” she asked.
“It’s nothing ... I left a man sick there. I’d give ten years of my life for him to recover, just to know he’d recover!”
“Well, if he’s sick, God help him! Were you really going to shoot yourself tomorrow? What a silly man! But why? I love such men, reckless men, like you,” she prattled to him with a somewhat heavy tongue. “So you’re ready to do anything for me? Eh? But were you really going to shoot yourself tomorrow, you little fool? No, wait now, tomorrow maybe I’ll have something to tell you ... not today, but tomorrow. And you’d like it to be today? No, today I don’t want to ... Go now, go, enjoy yourself.”
Once, however, she called him over with a worried and perplexed look.
“Why are you sad? I can see you’re sad ... Yes, I see it,” she added, peering sharply into his eyes. “Though you’re kissing peasants and shouting in there, still I can see something. No, enjoy yourself. I’m enjoying myself, you enjoy yourself, too ... I love someone here—guess who ... ? Ah, look: my boy fell asleep, he’s had too much, the dear.”
She was referring to Kalganov: he had indeed had too much, and fell asleep for a moment sitting on the sofa. He fell asleep not only from drink; for some reason he suddenly felt sad, or “bored,” as he put it. Towards the end he was also greatly disheartened by the girls’ songs, which, as the drinking party wore on, gradually became rather non-lenten and licentious. And their dancing, too: two girls dressed themselves up as bears, and Stepanida, a pert girl with a stick in her hand, acted as their keeper and began “showing” them. “Faster, Maria,” she cried, “or I’ll use the stick!” The bears finally rolled on the floor somehow quite indecently, amid the loud laughter of the closely packed audience of peasants and their women. “Well, let them, let them,” Grushenka kept saying sententiously, with a blissful look on her face, “how often do they have fun like this, so why shouldn’t people enjoy themselves?” Kalganov looked as if he had soiled himself with something. “It’s all swinishness, all this populism,” he observed, drawing aside, “it’s all spring revels, when they keep watch on the sun through the summer night.” He especially disliked one “new” song with a perky dance tune, [262]where they sang of how a master rode around searching out the girls:
And all the girls the master sought: Would they love him, or would they not?
But the girls decided they would not love the master:
For he will beat me cruelly, And love like that is not for me.
Then along comes a gypsy:
And all the girls the gypsy sought: Would they love him, or would they not?
But they would not give their love to the gypsy either: For he’ll turn out to be a thief,
And that, I’m sure, will bring me grief.
Many more people come in the same way, searching out the girls, even a
soldier:
And all the girls the soldier sought: Would they love him, or would they not?
‘‘But the soldier is rejected with contempt:
The soldier-boy will pack his kit And drag me with him through ...
There followed a most unprintable rhyme, sung quite openly, which caused a furore in the audience. The matter finally ended with a merchant:
And all the girls the merchant sought: Would they love him, or would they not?
And it turns out that they will love him very much, because, they say:
The merchant will have gold in store, I’ll be his queen forevermore.
Kalganov even got angry.
“That song is no older than yesterday,” he observed aloud, “and who is it writes such things for them? All they need is for a railroad man or a Jew to come seeking the girls: they’d win out over all of them.”And, almost offended, he declared then and there that he was bored, sat down on the sofa, and suddenly dozed off. His pretty face turned somewhat pale and fell back on the cushion of the sofa.
“Look how pretty he is,” Grushenka said, drawing Mitya over to him. “I was combing his hair earlier; it’s like flax, and so thick ...”
And, leaning over him tenderly, she kissed him on the forehead. Kalganov opened his eyes at once, looked at her, rose a little, and, with a most worried look, asked: “Where is Maximov?”
“That’s who he wants,” laughed Grushenka. “Do sit with me for a minute. Mitya, run and fetch his Maximov.”
Maximov, it turned out, now never left the girls, and only ran off from time to time to pour himself some liqueur, or some chocolate, of which he had had two cups. His little face had turned red, his nose was purple, his eyes were moist and sweet. He ran up to them and announced that he was about to dance the sabotière“to a certain little tune.”
“You see, I learned all these well-bred society dances when I was a young boy . . .” [263]
“Well, go, go with him, Mitya; I’ll watch how he dances from here.”
“And me, too, I’ll go and watch, too,” exclaimed Kalganov, rejecting in the most naive way Grushenka’s offer to sit with him. And they all went to watch. Maximov indeed danced his dance, but produced no special admiration in anyone, except for Mitya. The whole dance consisted in a sort of hopping and twisting aside of the feet, soles up, and with every hop Maximov slapped the sole of his foot with his hand. Kalganov did not like it at all, but Mitya even kissed the dancer.
“Well, thank you, you’re probably tired out, what do you have your eye on: would you like some candy, eh? How about a cigar?”
“A cigarette, sir.”
“Would you like a drink?”
“Some of that liqueur, sir ... Are there any chocolates, sir?”
“There, on the table, a whole pile of them, take whatever you want, you dear fellow!”
“No, sir, I’d like one with vanilla ... they’re for old folks, sir ... ]], hee!”
“No, brother, that’s one kind we haven’t got.”
“Listen!” the old man suddenly leaned close to Mitya’s ear. “This girl Marfushka—hee, hee—could I possibly make her acquaintance, would you be so kind ... ?”
“So that’s what you’re after! No, brother, it won’t do!”
“I don’t mean any harm, sir,” Maximov whispered dejectedly.
“All right, all right. They only come here to sing and dance, brother, but still ... ah, the devil! wait a while ... Eat for now, eat, drink, enjoy yourself. Do you need money?”
“Maybe later, sir,” Maximov smiled.
“All right, all right ...”
Mitya’s head was burning. He walked out to the hallway and on to the upper wooden veranda, which ran part way around the inner side of the building, overlooking the courtyard. The fresh air revived him. He stood alone in the darkness, in a corner, and suddenly clutched his head with both hands. His scattered thoughts suddenly came together, his sensations merged, and the result of it all was light. A terrible, awful light!”If I’m going to shoot myself, what better time than now?” swept through his mind. “Go and get the pistol, bring it out here, and end everything in this dark and dingy corner.” For almost a minute he stood undecided. Shame lay behind him that evening as he was flying there, the theft he had already committed, carried out, and the blood, that blood . . .! But it had been easier for him then, oh, much easier! Everything had been finished then: he had lost her, given her up, she had died for him, disappeared—oh, his sentence seemed lighter then, at least it appeared inevitable, necessary, for why should he remain in the world? And now? Was it the same now as then? Now at least one ghost, one bogey was out of the way: the “former one,” this indisputable and fatal man of hers, had vanished without a trace. The terrible ghost had suddenly turned into something so small, so comical; it was carried to the bedroom and locked up. It would never return. She was ashamed, and by her eyes he could now see clearly whom she loved. So now all he had to do was live, but ... but he could not live, he could not, oh, damnation!” “God, restore him who was struck down at the fence! Let this terrible cup pass from me! [264]You worked miracles, O Lord, for sinners just like me! And what, what if the old man is alive? Oh, then I will remove the shame of the remaining disgrace, I will return the stolen money, I’ll give it back, I’ll dig it up somewhere ... There will be no trace of shame left, except forever in my heart! But no, no, oh, fainthearted, impossible dreams! Oh, damnation!”
Yet it was as if a ray of some bright hope shone on him in the darkness. He tore himself away and rushed inside—to her, to her again, his queen forever! Isn’t one hour, one minute of her love worth the rest of my life, even in the torments of disgrace?” This wild question seized his heart. “To her, to her alone, to see her, to hear her, and not to think of anything, to forget everything, if only for this one night, for one hour, for one moment!” Still on the veranda, just at the door, he ran into the innkeeper, Trifon Borisich. He looked gloomy and worried, and seemed to be coming to find him.
“What is it, Borisich? Are you looking for me?”
“No, sir, not you,” the innkeeper seemed suddenly taken aback. “Why should I be looking for you? And you ... where were you, sir?”
“Why are you so glum? Are you angry? Wait a bit, you’ll get to bed soon ... What time is it?”
“It must be three by now. Maybe even past three.”
“We’ll stop, we’ll stop.”
“Don’t mention it, it’s nothing, sir. As long as you like, sir...”
“What’s with him?” Mitya thought fleetingly, and ran into the room where the girls were dancing. But she was not there. She was not in the blue room, either; only Kalganov was dozing on the sofa. Mitya peeked behind the curtain—she was there. She was sitting in the corner, on a chest, her head and arms leaning on the bed beside her, crying bitterly, trying very hard to hold back and stifle her sobs so that no one would hear her. Seeing Mitya, she beckoned to him, and when he ran over to her, she caught him firmly by the hand.
“Mitya, Mitya, I did love him!” she began in a whisper. “I loved him so, all these five years, all, all this while! Did I love him, or only my spite? No, him! Oh, him! It’s a lie that I loved only my spite and not him! Mitya, I was just seventeen then, he was so tender with me, so merry, he sang me songs ... Or did he only seem that way to me, to a foolish girl ... ? And now, Lord, it’s not the same man, not him at all. And it’s not his face, not his at all. I didn’t even recognize his face. I was driving here with Timofei and kept thinking, all the way I kept thinking: ‘How shall I meet him, what shall I say, how shall we look at each other ... ?’ My soul was frozen, and then it was as if he emptied a bucket of slops on me. He talks like a schoolmaster: it’s all so learned, so pompous, he greeted me so pompously I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t get a word in. At first I thought he was embarrassed in front of the other one, the tall one. I sat looking at them and thought: why is it I don’t know how to speak with him now? You know, it’s his wife that did it to him, the one he married then, after hedroppedme ... She’s the one that changed him. What shame, Mitya! Oh, I’m ashamed, Mitya, ashamed, so ashamed for my whole life! Cursed, cursed be those five years, cursed!” And again she dissolved in tears, yet without letting go of Mitya’s hand, holding on to it firmly.
“Mitya, my dear, wait, don’t go, I want to tell you something,” she whispered, and suddenly looked up at him. “Listen, tell me whom I love? I love one man here. Who is it? You tell me.” A smile lighted on her face swollen with tears, her eyes shone in the semidarkness. “Tonight a falcon walked in, and my heart sank inside me. ‘You fool, this is the one you love,’ my heart whispered to me at once. You walked in and brightened everything. ‘What is he afraid of?’ I thought. And you really were afraid, quite afraid, you couldn’t speak. ‘He’s not afraid of them—how can he be afraid of anyone? It’s me he’s afraid of, just me.’ But Fenya did tell you, you little fool, how I shouted to Alyosha out the window that I loved Mitenka for one hour, and am now going off to love ... another. Mitya, Mitya, how could I be such a fool to think I could love another after you! Do you forgive me, Mitya? Do you forgive me or not? Do you love me? Do you?”
She jumped up and grasped him by the shoulders with both hands. Mute with rapture, Mitya gazed into her eyes, at her face, her smile, and suddenly, embracing her firmly, began kissing her.
“Will you forgive me for tormenting you? I tormented all of you from spite. I drove that old man out of his mind on purpose, just from spite ... Do you remember how you once drank at my place and broke the glass? I remembered it, and today I, too, broke a glass as I drank to ‘my base heart.’ Mitya, my falcon, why aren’t you kissing me? You kissed me once and tore yourself away, to look, to listen ... Why listen to me! Kiss me, kiss me harder, like this! Let’s love, if we’re going to love! I’ll be your slave now, your lifelong slave! It’s sweet to be a slave...! Kiss me! Beat me, torment me, do something to me ... Oh, how I deserve to be tormented ... Stop! Wait, not now, I don’t want it to be like that ... ,” she suddenly pushed him away. “Go, Mitka, I’ll drink wine now, I want to get drunk, I’m going to get drunk and dance, I want to, I want to!”
She broke away from him and went out through the curtain. Mitya followed after her like a drunk man. “Come what may, whatever happens now, I’ll give the whole world for one minute,” flashed through his head. Grushenka indeed drank another glass of champagne at one gulp and suddenly became very tipsy. She sat in her former place, in the armchair, with a blissful smile. Her cheeks were glowing, her lips were burning, her bright eyes turned bleary, her passionate gaze beckoned. Even Kalganov felt a stab in his heart and went up to her.
“Did you feel how I kissed you while you were sleeping?” she babbled to him. “I’m drunk now, that’s what ... And you, aren’t you drunk? And why isn’t Mitya drinking? Why aren’t you drinking, Mitya? I drank and you’re not drinking ...”
“I’m drunk! Drunk anyway ... drunk with you, and now I’m going to get drunk with wine.” He drank another glass and—he found it strange himself—only this last glass made him drunk, suddenly drunk, though until then he had been sober, he remembered that. From then on everything began whirling around him as in delirium. He walked, laughed, talked with everyone, all oblivious of himself, as it were. Only one fixed and burning feeling made itself known in him every moment, “like a hot coal in my heart,” as he recalled afterwards. He would go over to her, sit down by her, look at her, listen to her ... And she became terribly talkative, kept calling everyone to her, would suddenly beckon to some girl from the chorus, the girl would come over, and she would sometimes kiss her and let her go, or sometimes make the sign of the cross over her. Another minute and she would have been in tears. She was also greatly amused by the “little old fellow,” as she called Maximov. He ran up to her every other minute to kiss her hands, “and each little finger,” and in the end danced one more dance to an old song, which he sang himself. He danced with particular ardor to the refrain: The piggy goes oink, oink, oink,
The calfy goes moo, moo, moo,
The ducky goes quack, quack, quack
And the goosey goes goo, goo, goo.
Then little henny walks in the door,
Cluck, cluck, she says, and cluck once more,
Ai, ai, she clucked once more!’ [265]
“Give him something, Mitya,” Grushenka said, “give him a present, he’s poor. Ah, the poor, the insulted...! You know, Mitya, I will go into a convent. No, really, someday I will. Alyosha said something to me today that I’ll never forget ... Yes ... But today let’s dance. Tomorrow the convent, but today we’ll dance. I want to be naughty, good people, what of it, God will forgive. If I were God I’d forgive all people: ‘My dear sinners, from now on I forgive you all.’ And I’ll go and ask forgiveness: ‘Forgive me, good people, I’m a foolish woman, that’s what.’ I’m a beast, that’s what. But I want to pray. I gave an onion. Wicked as I am, I want to pray! Mitya, let them dance, don’t interfere. Everyone in the world is good, every one of them. The world is a good place. We may be bad, but the world is a good place. We’re bad and good, both bad and good ... No, tell me, let me ask you, all of you come here and I’ll ask you; tell me this, all of you: why am I so good? I am good, I’m very good ... Tell me, then: why am I so good?” Thus Grushenka babbled on, getting more and more drunk, and finally declared outright that she now wanted to dance herself. She got up from her armchair and staggered. “Mitya, don’t give me any more wine, not even if I ask. Wine doesn’t bring peace. Everything is spinning, the stove and everything. I want to dance. Let everybody watch how I dance ... how well and wonderfully I dance ...”
The intention was serious: she took a white cambric handkerchief from her pocket and held it by one corner in her right hand, to wave while she danced. Mitya began bustling, the girls’ chorus fell silent, preparing to burst into a dancing song at the first signal. Maximov, learning that Grushenka herself was going to dance, squealed with delight and began hopping in front of her, singing:
Its legs are naught, its sides are taut, And its little tail’s all in a curl” [266]
I..
But Grushenka chased him away with a wave of her handkerchief.
“Shoo! Mitya, why aren’t they coming? Let everyone come ... to watch. Call them, too ... the locked-up ones ... What did you lock them up for? Tell them I’m dancing, let them watch me, too . . .” Mitya swept drunkenly to the locked door and began knocking for the panswith his fist.
“Hey, you ... Podvysotskys! Come out, she’s going to dance, she’s calling you.”
“Lajdak!”one of the pansshouted in reply.
“And you are a podlajdak! [267] A petty little Polish scoundrel, that’s what you are!”
