THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV. Федор Достоевский

They’re contemptuous. . . . You’ve come here with some design. Alyosha, here, looks at me and his eyes shine. Alyosha doesn’t despise me. Alexey, you mustn’t love Ivan.”

      “Don’t be ill-tempered with my brother. Leave off attacking him,” Alyosha said emphatically.

      “Oh, all right. Ugh, my head aches. Take away the brandy, Ivan. It’s the third time I’ve told you.”

      He mused, and suddenly a slow, cunning grin spread over his face.

      “Don’t be angry with a feeble old man, Ivan. I know you don’t love me, but don’t be angry all the same. You’ve nothing to love me for. You go to Tchermashnya. I’ll come to you myself and bring you a present. I’ll show you a little wench there. I’ve had my eye on her a long time. She’s still running about bare-foot. Don’t be afraid of bare-footed wenches — don’t despise them — they’re pearls!”

      And he kissed his hand with a smack.

      “To my thinking,” he revived at once, seeming to grow sober the instant he touched on his favourite topic. “To my thinking . . . Ah, you boys! You children, little sucking-pigs, to my thinking . . . I never thought a woman ugly in my life — that’s been my rule! Can you understand that? How could you understand it? You’ve milk in your veins, not blood. You’re not out of your shells yet. My rule has been that you can always find something devilishly interesting in every woman that you wouldn’t find in any other. Only, one must know how to find it, that’s the point! That’s a talent! To my mind there are no ugly women. The very fact that she is a woman is half the battle . . . but how could you understand that? Even in vieilles filles, even in them you may discover something that makes you simply wonder that men have been such fools as to let them grow old without noticing them. Bare-footed girls or unattractive ones, you must take by surprise. Didn’t you know that? You must astound them till they’re fascinated, upset, ashamed that such a gentleman should fall in love with such a little slut. It’s a jolly good thing that there always are and will be masters and slaves in the world, so there always will be a little maid-of-all-work and her master, and you know, that’s all that’s needed for happiness. Stay . . . listen, Alyosha, I always used to surprise your mother, but in a different way. I paid no attention to her at all, but all at once, when the minute came, I’d be all devotion to her, crawl on my knees, kiss her feet, and I always, always — I remember it as though it were to-day — reduced her to that tinkling, quiet, nervous, queer little laugh. It was peculiar to her. I knew her attacks always used to begin like that. The next day she would begin shrieking hysterically, and this little laugh was not a sign of delight, though it made a very good counterfeit. That’s the great thing, to know how to take everyone. Once Belyavsky — he was a handsome fellow, and rich — used to like to come here and hang about her — suddenly gave me a slap in the face in her presence. And she — such a mild sheep — why, I thought she would have knocked me down for that blow. How she set on me! ‘You’re beaten, beaten now,’ she said, ‘You’ve taken a blow from him. You have been trying to sell me to him,’ she said . . . ‘And how dared he strike you in my presence! Don’t dare come near me again, never, never! Run at once, challenge him to a duel!’ . . . I took her to the monastery then to bring her to her senses. The holy Fathers prayed her back to reason. But I swear, by God, Alyosha, I never insulted the poor crazy girl! Only once, perhaps, in the first year; then she was very fond of praying. She used to keep the feasts of Our Lady particularly and used to turn me out of her room then. I’ll knock that mysticism out of her, thought I! ‘Here,’ said I, ‘you see your holy image. Here it is. Here I take it down. You believe it’s miraculous, but here, I’ll spit on it directly and nothing will happen to me for it!’ . . . When she saw it, good Lord! I thought she would kill me. But she only jumped up, wrung her hands, then suddenly hid her face in them, began trembling all over and fell on the floor . . . fell all of a heap. Alyosha, Alyosha, what’s the matter?”

      The old man jumped up in alarm. From the time he had begun speaking about his mother, a change had gradually come over Alyosha’s face. He flushed crimson, his eyes glowed, his lips quivered. The old sot had gone spluttering on, noticing nothing, till the moment when something very strange happened to Alyosha. Precisely what he was describing in the crazy woman was suddenly repeated with Alyosha. He jumped up from his seat exactly as his mother was said to have done, wrung his hands, hid his face in them, and fell back in his chair, shaking all over in an hysterical paroxysm of sudden violent, silent weeping. His extraordinary resemblance to his mother particularly impressed the old man.

      “Ivan, Ivan! Water, quickly! It’s like her, exactly as she used to be then, his mother. Spurt some water on him from your mouth, that’s what I used to do to her. He’s upset about his mother, his mother,” he muttered to Ivan.

      “But she was my mother, too, I believe, his mother. Was she not?” said Ivan, with uncontrolled anger and contempt. The old man shrank before his flashing eyes. But something very strange had happened, though only for a second; it seemed really to have escaped the old man’s mind that Alyosha’s mother actually was the mother of Ivan too.

      “Your mother?” he muttered, not understanding. “What do you mean? What mother are you talking about? Was she? . . . Why, damn it! of course she was yours too! Damn it! My mind has never been so darkened before. Excuse me, why, I was thinking Ivan . . . He he he!” He stopped. A broad, drunken, half senseless grin overspread his face.

      At that moment a fearful noise, and clamour was heard in the hall, there were violent shouts, the door was flung open, and Dmitri burst into the room. The old man rushed to Ivan in terror.

      “He’ll kill me! He’ll kill me! Don’t let him get at me!” he screamed, clinging to the skirt of Ivan’s coat.

      Chapter 9

      The Sensualists

      Table of Contents

      GRIGORY and Smerdyakov ran into the room after Dmitri. They had been struggling with him in the passage, refusing to admit him, acting on instructions given them by Fyodor Pavlovitch some days before. Taking advantage of the fact that Dmitri stopped a moment on entering the room to look about him, Grigory ran round the table, closed the double doors on the opposite side of the room leading to the inner apartments, and stood before the closed doors, stretching wide his arms, prepared to defend the entrance, so to speak, with the last drop of his blood. Seeing this, Dmitri uttered a scream rather than a shout and rushed at Grigory.

      “Then she’s there! She’s hidden there! Out of the way, scoundrel!”

      He tried to pull Grigory away, but the old servant pushed him back. Beside himself with fury, Dmitri struck out, and hit Grigory with all his might. The old man fell like a log, and Dmitri, leaping over him, broke in the door. Smerdyakov remained pale and trembling at the other end of the room, huddling close to Fyodor Pavlovitch.

      “She’s here!” shouted Dmitri. “I saw her turn towards the house just now, but I couldn’t catch her. Where is she? Where is she?”

      That shout, “She’s here!” produced an indescribable effect on Fyodor Pavlovitch. All his terror left him.

      “Hold him! Hold him!” he cried, and dashed after Dmitri. Meanwhile Grigory had got up from the floor, but still seemed stunned. Ivan and Alyosha ran after their father. In the third room something was heard to fall on the floor with a ringing crash: it was a large glass vase — not an expensive one — on a marble pedestal which Dmitri had upset as he ran past it.

      “At him!” shouted the old man. “Help!”

      Ivan and Alyosha caught the old man and were forcibly bringing him back.

      “Why do you run after him? He’ll murder you outright,” Ivan cried wrathfully at his father.

      “Ivan! Alyosha! She must be here. Grushenka’s here. He said he saw her himself, running.”

      He was choking. He was not expecting Grushenka at the time, and the sudden news that she was here