Текст книги "The Brothers Karamazov"
Автор книги: Федор Достоевский
сообщить о нарушении
Текущая страница: 50 (всего у книги 70 страниц)
And he ran out to the entryway. He did not want to cry, but in the hall he started crying all the same. Alyosha found him in that state.
“Kolya, you absolutely must keep your word and come, otherwise he’ll grieve terribly,” Alyosha said emphatically.
“Absolutely! Oh, how I curse myself for not coming before,” Kolya muttered, crying and no longer embarrassed to be crying. At that moment the captain all but jumped out of the room and at once closed the door behind him. His face was frenzied, his lips trembled. He stood facing the two young men and threw up his arms.
“I don’t want a nice boy! I don’t want another boy!” he whispered in a wild whisper, clenching his teeth. “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my tongue cleave . . .’” [286]
He broke off as if he were choking, and sank helplessly on his knees in front of the wooden bench. Pressing his head with both fists, he began sobbing, shrieking somehow absurdly, restraining himself as much as he could, however, so that his shrieks would not be heard in the room. Kolya ran out to the street.
“Good-bye, Karamazov! And you, are you coming back?” he cried sharply and angrily to Alyosha.
“I’ll certainly come back in the evening.”
“What was that he said about Jerusalem ... ? What was it?”
“It’s from the Bible: ‘If I forget thee, O Jerusalem,’ meaning if I forget all that’s most precious tome, if I exchange it for anything, may I be struck...”
“Enough, I understand! So, make sure you come! Ici,Perezvon!” he shouted quite fiercely to the dog, and strode home with long, quick strides.
BOOK XI: BROTHER IVAN FYODOROVICH
Chapter 1: At Grushenka’s
Alyosha made his way towards Cathedral Square, to the house of the widow Morozov, to see Grushenka. Early that morning she had sent Fenya to him with an urgent request that he come. Having questioned Fenya, Alyosha found out that her mistress had been in some great and particular alarm ever since the previous day. During the two months following Mitya’s arrest, Alyosha had often visited the widow Morozov’s, both at his own urging and on errands for Mitya. Some three days after Mitya’s arrest, Grushenka had become quite ill and was sick for almost five weeks. For one of those five weeks she lay unconscious. Her face was greatly changed, she had become thin and sallow, though for almost two weeks she had already been able to go out. But in Alyosha’s opinion her face had become even more attractive, as it were, and he loved meeting her eyes when he entered her room. Something firm and aware seemed to have settled in her eyes. Some spiritual turnabout told in her; a certain steadfast, humble, but good and irrevocable resolution appeared. A small vertical wrinkle came to her forehead, between her eyebrows, giving her dear face a look of thoughtfulness concentrated upon itself, which was even almost severe at first glance. There was no trace, for example, of her former frivolity. Alyosha found it strange, too, that despite all the misfortune that had befallen the poor woman, engaged to a fiancé arrested on accusation of a terrible crime almost at the very moment she had become engaged to him, despite her illness afterwards, and the threat of the almost inevitable verdict to come, Grushenka still had not lost her former youthful gaiety. In her once proud eyes there now shone a certain gentleness, although ... although from time to time, nevertheless, those eyes blazed once again with a sort of ominous fire, whenever a certain old anxiety visited her, which not only had not abated, but had even grown stronger in her heart. The object of that anxiety was ever the same: Katerina Ivanovna, whom Grushenka even spoke of in her delirium when she was still lying sick. Alyosha understood that she was terribly jealous of her because of Mitya, the prisoner Mitya, despite the fact that Katerina Ivanovna had not once visited him in prison, though she could have done so whenever she liked. All of this turned into a somewhat difficult problem for Alyosha, because Grushenka opened her heart to him alone and constantly asked his advice; and sometimes he was utterly unable to tell her anything.
Preoccupied, he entered her apartment. She was home by then; it was half an hour since she had come back from seeing Mitya, and by the quick movement with which she jumped up from the armchair at the table to greet him, he concluded that she had been waiting for him with great impatience. There were cards on the table, and a game of “fools” had been dealt out. On the leather sofa on the other side of the table a bed had been made up on which Maximov, obviously ill and weak, though smiling sweetly, reclined in a dressing gown and cotton nightcap. Having returned with Grushenka from Mokroye about two months before, the homeless old man had simply stayed on with her and by her and never left. When he arrived with her that day in the rain and slush, drenched and frightened, he sat down on the sofa and stared at her silently with a timid, imploring smile. Grushenka, who was in terrible grief and in the first stages of a fever, and was so taken up with various troubles that she almost forgot about him for the first half hour after her arrival– suddenly looked at him somehow attentively: he giggled at her in a pathetic and lost way. She called Fenya and told her to give him something to eat. All that day he sat in the same place almost without stirring; when it grew dark and the shutters were closed, Fenya asked her mistress: “Well, miss, is he going to stay the night?” “Yes, make up a bed for him on the sofa,” Grushenka replied. Questioning him in more detail, Grushenka learned that he indeed had nowhere at all to go just then, and that “my benefactor, Mr. Kalganov, announced to me straight out that he would no longer receive me, and gave me five roubles.” “Well, stay then, God help you,” Grushenka decided in anguish, giving him a compassionate smile. The old man cringed at her smile, and his lips trembled with grateful weeping. And so the wandering sponger had remained with her ever since. Even during her illness he did not leave. Fenya and her mother, Grushenka’s cook, did not turn him out, but continued to feed him and make up his bed on the sofa. Later, Grushenka even got used to him, and, coming back from seeing Mitya (whom, as soon as she felt a bit better, she at once began visiting, even before she was fully recovered), in order to kill her anguish she would sit down and start talking with “Maximushka” about all sorts of trifles, just so as not to think about her grief. It turned out that the old man could occasionally come up with some story or other, so that finally he even became necessary to her. Apart from Alyosha, who did not come every day, however, and never stayed long, Grushenka received almost no one. By then her old man, the merchant, was terribly ill, “on the way out,” as people said in town, and indeed he died only a week after Mitya’s trial. Three weeks before his death, feeling that the finale was near, he at last summoned his sons upstairs, with their wives and children, and told them not to leave him thereafter. As for Grushenka, from that same moment he gave strict orders not to admit her, and to tell her if she came: “He wishes you a long and happy life, and asks you to forget him completely. “ Grushenka sent almost every day, however, to inquire about his health.
“You’ve come at last!” she cried, throwing down the cards and joyfully greeting Alyosha, “and Maximushka’s been scaring me that you might not come after all. Ah, how I need you! Sit down at the table; well, what will you have, some coffee?”
“Why not?” said Alyosha, sitting down at the table. “I’m very hungry.”
“So there. Fenya, Fenya, some coffee!” cried Grushenka. “I’ve had it ready for a long time, waiting for you. Bring some pirozhki, too, and make sure they’re hot. No, listen, Alyosha, I had a big storm over those pirozhki today. I took them to the prison for him, and would you believe it, he threw them back at me and wouldn’t eat them. He even flung one on the floor and trampled on it. So I said: ‘I’ll leave them with the guard; if you don’t eat them by evening, it means you’re feeding on your own venomous wickedness! ‘ and with that I left. We really quarreled again, do you believe it? Each time I go, we quarrel.”
Grushenka poured it all out in her excitement. Maximov, having at once grown timid, smiled and dropped his eyes.
“But what did you quarrel about this time?” asked Alyosha.
“I didn’t even expect it! Imagine, he got jealous over my ‘former’ one: ‘Why are you keeping him?’ he said. ‘So you’ve started keeping him, have you?’ He gets jealous all the time, jealous over me! He gets jealous eating and sleeping. Once last week he even got jealous of Kuzma.”
“But he knew about the ‘former’ one, didn’t he?”
“What can I say? He’s known about him from the very beginning right down to this day, and today he suddenly gets up and starts scolding me. It’s shameful even to tell what he was saying. Fool! Rakitka came to see him as I was leaving. Maybe it’s Rakitka who has been baiting him, eh? What do you think?” she added as if absentmindedly.
“He loves you, that’s what, he loves you very much. And he’s worried now, too.”
“How could he not be worried, the trial is tomorrow. I went to say something to him about tomorrow, because, Alyosha, I’m afraid even to think about what will happen tomorrow! You say he’s worried, but how about me! And he talks about the Pole! What a fool! Well, there’s no fear he’ll get jealous of Maximushka here.”
“My spouse was also very jealous over me, ma’am,” Maximov put a little word in.
“Over you, really?” Grushenka laughed despite herself. “Who was she jealous of?”
“The chambermaids, ma’am.”
“Eh, keep still, Maximushka, it’s no time for laughing now. I even feel angry. Don’t ogle the pirozhki, you won’t get any, they’re not good for you, and you won’t get your little drop either. Must I bother with him, too? Really, it’s like running an almshouse,” she laughed.
“I am unworthy of your benefactions, ma’am, I am nothing, ma’am,” Maximov said in a tearful little voice. “You’d do better to lavish your benefactions on those who are more useful than I am, ma’am.”
“Ahh, everyone is useful, Maximushka, and how can anyone say who is more useful? I wish that Pole wasn’t here at all, Alyosha, you know, he decided to get sick today. I visited him, too. And now I’m going to send him some pirozhki on purpose, I didn’t send him any, but Mitya accused me of it, so now I’ll send some on purpose, on purpose! Ah, here’s Fenya with a letter! Well, just as I thought, it’s from the Poles again, asking for money again.”
Pan Mussyalovich had indeed sent an extremely long and, as was his custom, flowery letter, in which he asked for a loan of three roubles. The letter was accompanied by a receipt and a note promising payment within three months; Pan Vrublevsky also signed the receipt. Grushenka had already received many such letters from her “former” one, all with such receipts. It started with her recovery, about two weeks before. She knew, however, that both pans had also come during her illness to inquire about her health. The first letter Grushenka had received was long, on stationery of large format, sealed with a big family crest, and terribly obscure and flowery, so that she read only halfway through and dropped it without having understood a thing. And she could hardly be bothered with letters then. The first letter was followed the next day by a second one, in which Pan Mussyalovich asked for a loan of two thousand roubles for a very short term. This letter Grushenka also left unanswered. After that a whole series of letters followed, one letter a day, all equally pompous and flowery, but in which the amount requested, gradually diminishing, went down to a hundred roubles, to twenty-five roubles, to ten roubles, and finally Grushenka suddenly received a letter in which the two pansasked her for only one rouble, and enclosed a receipt which they both had signed. Then Grushenka suddenly felt sorry for them, and at dusk she herself ran over to see the pan.She found the two Poles in terrible, almost abject poverty, without food, without firewood, without cigarettes, in debt to their landlady. The two hundred roubles they had won from Mitya at Mokroye had quickly disappeared somewhere. Grushenka found it surprising, however, that both pansmet her with haughty pomposity and independence, with the greatest ceremony, with high-flown speeches. Grushenka merely laughed and gave her “former” one ten roubles. That time she had laughingly told Mitya about it, and he was not jealous at all. But from then on the panshad kept hold of Grushenka, bombarding her daily with letters asking for money, and each time she sent them a little. And suddenly that day Mitya decided to become fiercely jealous.
“Like a fool I stopped at his place, too, just for a moment, on my way to see Mitya, because he, too, has gotten sick—my former pan,I mean,” Grushenka began again, fussing and hurrying, “so I laughed and told Mitya about it: imagine, I said, my Pole decided to sing me his old songs on the guitar, he thought I’d get all sentimental and marry him. And Mitya jumped up cursing ... So I’m just going to send some pirozhki to the pans!Did they send that same girl, Fenya? Here, give her three roubles and wrap up a dozen or so pirozhki in paper, and tell her to take them, and you, Alyosha, be sure to tell Mitya that I sent pirozhki to them.”
“I wouldn’t tell him for anything,” Alyosha said, smiling.
“Eh, you think he’s suffering; but he gets jealous on purpose, and in fact he doesn’t really care,” Grushenka said bitterly.
“What do you mean, on purpose?” asked Alyosha.
“You are a silly one, Alyoshenka, that’s what, you don’t understand anything about it, for all your intelligence, that’s what. What hurts me is not that he’s jealous of me, such as I am; it would hurt me if he wasn’t jealous at all. I’m like that. I wouldn’t be hurt by his jealousy, I also have a cruel heart, I can be jealous myself. No, what hurts me is that he doesn’t love me at all and is being jealous on purposenow, that’s what. I’m not blind, I can see! He suddenly started telling me about her, about Katka: she’s this and she’s that, she wrote and invited a doctor from Moscow for him, for the trial, she did it to save him, she also invited the best lawyer, the most learned one. It means he loves her, if he starts praising her right to my face, the brazen-face! He feels guilty towards me, and so he pesters me in order to make me guiltier than he is and put all the blame on me alone: ‘You were with the Pole before me,’ he means, ‘so I’m allowed to do it with Katka.’ That’s what it is! He wants to put all the blame on me alone. He pesters me on purpose, I tell you, on purpose, only I...”
Grushenka did not finish saying what she would do. She covered her eyes with her handkerchief and burst into tears. “He does not love Katerina Ivanovna,” Alyosha said firmly.
“Well, I’ll soon find out whether he loves her or not,” Grushenka said, with a menacing note in her voice, taking the handkerchief from her eyes. Her face became distorted. Alyosha was grieved to see her face, which had been meek and quietly joyful, suddenly become sullen and wicked.
“Enough of this foolishness,” she suddenly snapped, “I did not call you here for that at all. Alyosha, darling, tomorrow, what will happen tomorrow? That’s what torments me! And I’m the only one it torments! I look at everyone, and no one is thinking about it, no one wants to have anything to do with it. Do you at least think about it? They’re going to judge him tomorrow! Tell me, how are they going to judge him there? It was the lackey who killed him, the lackey! Lord! Can it be that they’ll condemn him instead of the lackey, and no one will stand up for him? They haven’t even bothered the lackey at all, have they?”
“He was closely questioned,” Alyosha observed thoughtfully, “but they all concluded that it wasn’t him. Now he’s lying in bed very sick. He’s been sick ever since that falling fit. Really sick,” Alyosha added.
“Lord, but why don’t you go to this lawyer yourself and tell him the whole business in private? They say he was invited from Petersburg for three thousand.”
“The three of us put up the three thousand—my brother Ivan and I, and Katerina Ivanovna—and the doctor was called in from Moscow for two thousand by her alone. The lawyer Fetyukovich would have charged more, but the case has become known all over Russia, they’re talking about it in all the newspapers and magazines, so Fetyukovich agreed to come more for the sake of glory, because the case has become so famous. I saw him yesterday.”
“Well, what? Did you tell him?” Grushenka asked hastily.
“He listened to me and said nothing. He said he had already formed a certain opinion. But he promised to take my words into consideration.”
“What? Into consideration? They’re swindlers! They’ll ruin him! And the doctor, why did that woman call in the doctor?”
“As an expert. They want to establish that my brother is crazy and killed in a fit of madness, not knowing what he was doing,” Alyosha smiled quietly, “only my brother won’t agree to it.”
“Ah, but it would be true, if he were the murderer!” Grushenka exclaimed. “He was crazy then, completely crazy, and it’s I who am to blame, base creature that I am! Only he didn’t kill him, he didn’t! And they all say he killed him, the whole town. Even Fenya, even she gave such evidence that it comes out as if he killed him. And in the shop, and that official, and earlier in the tavern people heard him! Everyone is against him, everyone is squawking.”
“Yes, the evidence has multiplied terribly,” Alyosha observed glumly. “And Grigory, Grigory Vasilievich, he, too, stands by his story that the door was open, that he saw it, he just sticks to it and won’t be budged, I ran over to see him, I talked with him myself! And he’s cursing on top of it.”
“Yes, that is perhaps the strongest evidence against my brother,” Alyosha said.
“And as for Mitya being crazy, that’s just what he is now, too,” Grushenka suddenly began with a particularly worried and mysterious sort of look. “You know, Alyoshenka, I’ve wanted to tell you about it for a long time: I visit him every day and simply wonder. Tell me what you think: do you know what he’s started talking about now? He talks and talks—and I can’t understand a thing, I think it must be something intelligent and I’m just stupid, I can’t understand it; but he’s suddenly started talking about a wee one—that is, about some baby. ‘Why is the wee one poor?’ he says. ‘For that wee one I’ll go to Siberia now, I’m not a murderer, but I must go to Siberia! ‘ What does he mean, what wee one? I didn’t understand a thing. I just started crying as he was speaking, because he spoke so well, and he was crying himself, and I started crying, and suddenly he kissed me and made the sign of the cross over me. What is it, Alyosha, tell me, what is this ‘wee one’?”
“It’s Rakitin, for some reason he’s taken to visiting him,” Alyosha smiled, “although ... that is not from Rakitin. I didn’t go to see him yesterday; today I shall.”
“No, it’s not Rakitka, it’s his brother Ivan Fyodorovich upsetting him, he keeps going to see him, that’s what ... ,” Grushenka said, and suddenly stopped short. Alyosha stared at her as if stunned.
“Keeps going? Has he really gone to see him? Mitya himself told me Ivan had not come once.”
“Well ... well, there I’ve done it. Blurted it out!”Grushenka exclaimed in embarrassment, turning crimson all over. “Wait, Alyosha, don’t say anything. Since I’ve blurted it out, so be it, I’ll tell you the whole truth: he went to see him twice, the first time as soon as he arrived—he came galloping here at once from Moscow, I hadn’t had time to get sick yet—and the second time a week ago. He told Mitya not to tell you about it, by any means, and not to tell anyone, because he had come in secret.”
Alyosha sat deep in thought, pondering something. The news obviously struck him.
“Brother Ivan does not speak about Mitya’s case with me,” he said slowly, “and generally over these two months he has spoken very little with me, and when I went to see him, he was always displeased that I had come, so I haven’t been to see him for three weeks now. Hmm ... If he went a week ago, then ... some sort of change has indeed come over Mitya this week ...”
“A change, a change!” Grushenka quickly joined in. “They have a secret, they have a secret! Mitya told me himself there was a secret, and, you know, it’s such a secret that Mitya can’t even calm down. He was cheerful before, and he’s cheerful now, too, only, you know, when he starts shaking his head like that, and pacing the room, and pulling the hair on his temple with his right finger, then I know something is troubling his soul ... I know it...! He used to be cheerful; well, but he was cheerful today, too!”
“Didn’t you say he was worried?”
“But he’s worried and still cheerful. He keeps getting worried for just a moment, and then he’s cheerful, and then suddenly he’s worried again. And you know, Alyosha, I keep marveling at him: there’s such a fright ahead of him, and he sometimes laughs at such trifles, as if he were a child himself.”
“And it’s true that he asked you not to tell me about Ivan? He actually said: don’t tell him?”
“He actually said: don’t tell him. It’s you he’s most afraid of—Mitya, I mean. Because there’s a secret here, he himself said there’s a secret... Alyosha, darling, go and try to worm their secret out of him, and come and tell me,” Grushenka started up and implored him suddenly, “resolve it for me, poor woman, so that I know my cursed lot! That’s why I sent for you.”
“So you think it’s something to do with you? But then he wouldn’t have mentioned the secret in front of you.”
“I don’t know. Maybe he wants to tell me but doesn’t dare. He’s warning me. There’s a secret, he says, but what secret he doesn’t say.”
“What do you think yourself?”
“What can I think? It’s the end of me, that’s what I think. The three of them have prepared an end for me, because Katka is in on it. It’s all Katka, it all comes from her. ‘She’s this and she’s that’ means that I’m not. He’s saying it beforehand, he’s warning me beforehand. He’s planning to leave me, that’s the whole secret! The three of them thought it up—Mitka, Katka, and Ivan Fyodorovich. Alyosha, I’ve been wanting to ask you for a long time: a week ago he suddenly revealed to me that Ivan is in love with Katka, because he goes to see her often. Was he telling me the truth or not? Tell me honestly, stab me in the heart!”
“I won’t lie to you. Ivan is not in love with Katerina Ivanovna, that is what I think.”
“That’s what I immediately thought! He’s lying to me, brazenly, that’s what! And he’s being jealous now so that he can blame me later. He’s a fool, he can’t cover his traces, he’s so open ... But I’ll show him, I’ll show him! ‘You believe I killed him,’ he said—he said it to me, to me, he reproached me with that! God help him! But you just wait, that Katka will get it from me at the trial! I’ll have a little something to say there ... I’ll say everything there!” And again she cried bitterly.
“This much I can tell you firmly, Grushenka,” Alyosha said, rising, “first, that he loves you, loves you more than anyone in the world, and only you, believe me when I say it. I know. I really know. The second thing I will tell you is that I am not going to try and worm the secret out of him, but if he tells me himself today, I’ll tell him straight out that I have promised to tell you. Then I’ll come to you this very day and tell you. Only ... it seems to me ... Katerina Ivanovna has nothing to do with it, and the secret is about something else. That is certainly so. It doesn’t look at all as if it has to do with Katerina Ivanovna, so it seems to me. Good-bye for now!”
Alyosha pressed her hand. Grushenka was still crying. He saw that she had very little faith in his consolations, but it was good enough even so that she had vented her grief, that she had spoken herself out. He was sorry to leave her in such a state, but he was in a rush. He still had much to do ahead of him.
Chapter 2: An Ailing Little Foot
The first thing he had to do was at Madame Khokhlakov’s house, and he hurried there to get it over with as quickly as possible and not be late for Mitya. Madame Khokhlakov had been a bit unwell for the past three weeks: her foot had become swollen for some reason, and though she did not stay in bed, she spent the day reclining on the couch in her boudoir, dressed in an attractive, but decent, deshabille. Alyosha once noted to himself with an innocent smile that, despite her illness, Madame Khokhlakov had become almost dressy– all sorts of lace caps, bows, little bed-jackets appeared—and he imagined he knew why, though he tried to chase such idle thoughts from his mind. Among other guests, Madame Khokhlakov had been visited over the past two months by the young man Perkhotin. Alyosha had not come to call for four days, and, on entering the house, hastened to go straight to Liza, as it was with her that he had to do, since Liza had sent her maid to him the day before with an urgent request that he come to her at once “about a very important circumstance,” which, for certain reasons, aroused Alyosha’s interest. But while the maid was gone to announce him to Liza, Madame Khokhlakov learned of his arrival from someone and sent at once asking him to come to her “for just a moment. “ Alyosha decided it would be better to satisfy the mother’s request first, or she would keep sending to Liza every minute while he was with her. Madame Khokhlakov was lying on her couch, dressed somehow especially festively and obviously in a state of extreme nervous excitement. She greeted Alyosha with cries of rapture.
“Ages, ages, it’s such ages since I’ve seen you! A whole week, for pity’s sake, ah, but no, you were here just four days ago, on Wednesday. You’ve come to see Lise, I’m sure you wanted to go straight to her, tiptoeing so that I wouldn’t hear. Dear, dear Alexei Fyodorovich, if you knew how I worry about her! But of that later. Of that later—though it’s the most important thing. Dear Alexei Fyodorovich, I trust you with my Liza completely. After the elder Zosima’s death—God rest his soul!” (she crossed herself) “—after him I’ve regarded you as a monk, though you do look lovely in your new suit. Where did you find such a tailor here? But no, no, that’s not the main thing—of that later. Forgive me if I sometimes call you Alyosha, I’m an old woman, all is allowed me,” she smiled coyly, “but of that later, too. The main thing is not to forget the main thing. Please remind me if I get confused; you should say: ‘And what about the main thing?’ Ah, how do I know what the main thing is now! Ever since Lise took back her promise—a child’s promise, Alexei Fyodorovich– to marry you, you’ve understood of course that it was all just the playful, childish fantasy of a sick girl, who had sat for so long in a chair—thank God she’s walking now. That new doctor Katya invited from Moscow for that unfortunate brother of yours, who tomorrow ... But why speak of tomorrow! I die just at the thought of tomorrow! Mainly of curiosity ... In short, that doctor was here yesterday and saw Lise ... I paid him fifty roubles for the visit. But that’s not it, again that’s not it ... You see, now I’m completely confused. I rush. Why do I rush? I don’t know. It’s terrible how I’ve stopped knowing these days. Everything’s got mixed up for me into some kind of lump. I’m afraid you’ll be so bored you’ll just go running out my door and leave not a trace behind. Oh, my God! Why are we sitting here and—coffee, first of all—Yulia, Glafira, coffee!”
Alyosha hastened to thank her and announced that he had just had coffee.
“With whom?”
“With Agrafena Alexandrovna.”
“With ... with that woman! Ah, it’s she who has ruined everybody, but in fact I don’t know, they say she’s become a saint, though it’s a bit late. She’d better have done it before, when it was needed, but what’s the use of it now? Hush, hush, Alexei Fyodorovich, because there’s so much I want to say that I’m afraid I won’t say anything. This terrible trial ... I must go, I am preparing myself, I’ll be carried in in a chair, and anyway I’ll be able to sit, there will be people with me, and, you know, I’m one of the witnesses. How am I going to speak, how am I going to speak? I don’t know what I shall say. I shall have to take an oath, that’s so, isn’t it?”
“That is so, but I don’t think you will be able to go.”
“I can sit; ah, you’re confusing me! This trial, this wild act, and then everyone goes to Siberia, others get married, and it all happens so quickly, so quickly, and everything is changing, and in the end there’s nothing, everyone is old and has one foot in the grave. Well, let it be, I’m tired. This Katya– cette clarmante personne,she’s shattered all my hopes: now she’ll follow your one brother to Siberia, and your other brother will follow her and live in the next town, and they’ll all torment one another. It drives me crazy, and above all, the publicity: they’ve written about it a million times in all the Petersburg and Moscow newspapers. Ah, yes, imagine, they also wrote about me, that I was your brother’s ‘dear friend,’ I don’t want to say a naughty word, but imagine, just imagine!”
“It can’t be! Where and how did they write it?”
“I’ll show you right now. I received it yesterday and read it yesterday. Here, in the newspaper Rumors,from Petersburg. These Rumorsjust started coming out this year, I’m terribly fond of rumors, so I subscribed, and now I’ve been paid back for it, this is the sort of rumors they turned out to be. Here, this passage, read it.”
And she handed Alyosha a page from a newspaper that had been under her pillow.
She was not really upset, but somehow all in pieces, and it was perhaps possible that everything had indeed become mixed into a lump in her head. The newspaper item was a typical one and, of course, must have had a rather ticklish effect on her, but, fortunately, at that moment she was perhaps unable to concentrate on any one point, and could therefore even forget about the newspaper in a moment and jump on to something quite different. Alyosha had known for some time that the rumor of a terrible trial had spread everywhere throughout Russia, and, God, what wild reports and articles he had read in the course of those two months, along with other, accurate items, about his brother, about the Karamazovs in general, and even about himself. In one newspaper it was even stated that he had become a monk from fear, following his brother’s crime, and gone into seclusion; this was denied in another, where it was written that, on the contrary, he and his elder Zosima had robbed the monastery cash box and “skipped from the monastery.” Today’s item in the newspaper Rumorswas entitled “From Skotoprigonyevsk” [287](alas, that is the name of our town; I have been concealing it all this time) “Concerning the Trial of Karamazov.” It was brief, and there was no direct mention of Madame Khokhlakov, and generally all the names were concealed. It was simply reported that the criminal whose forthcoming trial was causing so much noise was a retired army officer, of an insolent sort, an idler and serf-owner, who devoted all his time to amorous affairs, and had a particular influence with certain “bored and solitary ladies.” And that one such lady, “a bored widow,” rather girlish, though she already had a grown-up daughter, took such a fancy to him that only two hours before the crime she had offered him three thousand roubles if he would run away with her at once to the gold mines. But the villain still preferred better to kill his father and rob him precisely of three thousand, counting on doing it with impunity, rather than drag himself off to Siberia with the forty-year-old charms of his bored lady. This playful communication ended, quite properly, with noble indignation at the immorality of parricide and the former serfdom. Having read it with curiosity, Alyosha folded the page and handed it back to Madame Khokhlakov.
