The Brothers Karamazov

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 pans asked 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 pans met 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 pans had 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 purpose now, 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 Rumors just 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 Rumors was 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.

“Well, who else is it but me?” she started prattling again. “It’s me, I offered him gold mines almost an hour before, and suddenly those ‘forty-year-old charms’! But it wasn’t that! He says it on purpose! May the eternal judge forgive him those forty-year-old charms, as I forgive him, but this ... do you know who it is? It’s your friend Rakitin.”

“Perhaps,” said Alyosha, “though I’ve heard nothing about it.”

“It’s him, him, and no ‘perhaps’! Because I turned him out ... Do you know that whole story?”

“I know you suggested that he not visit you in the future, but precisely why, I haven’t heard ... at least, not from you.”

“Ah, so you heard it from him! And what, does he abuse me, does he abuse me very much?”

“Yes, he abuses you, but he abuses everybody. But why you closed your door to him—that he didn’t tell me. And in fact I see him very seldom. We are not friends.”

“Well, then I’ll reveal it all to you and—since there’s no help for it—I’ll confess, because there’s a point here that may be my own fault. Just a tiny, little point, the tiniest, so tiny it may not even exist. You see, my dear,” Madame Khokhlakov suddenly acquired a sort of playful look, and a lovely, though mysterious, little smile flashed on her lips, “you see, I suspect ... you’ll forgive me, Alyosha, I’m speaking to you as a mother ... oh, no, no, on the contrary, I’m speaking to you now as my father ... because mother doesn’t fit here at all ... Well, just as to Father Zosima in confession, that’s the most accurate, that fits very well: I did just call you a monk—well, so that poor young man, your friend Rakitin (oh, God, I simply cannot be angry with him! I’m angry and cross, but not very much), in short, that frivolous young man, just imagine, suddenly seems to have decided to fall in love with me. I only noticed it later, suddenly, but at first, that is, about a month ago, he started visiting me more often, almost every day, though we were acquainted before then. I didn’t suspect a thing ... and then suddenly it dawned on me, as it were, and I began noticing, to my surprise. You know, two months ago I began to receive that modest, nice, and worthy young man Pyotr Ilyich Perkhotin, who is in service here. You’ve met him so many times yourself. A worthy, serious man, isn’t it so? He comes once every three days, not every day (though why not every day?), and is always so well dressed, and generally I like young people, Alyosha, talented, modest, like you, and he has almost the mind of a statesman, he speaks so nicely, I shall certainly, certainly put in a word for him. He is a future diplomat. He all but saved me from death on that horrible day, when he came to me at night. Well, and then your friend Rakitin always comes in such boots, and drags them on the carpet ... in short, he even began dropping some hints, and suddenly once, as he was leaving, he squeezed my hand terribly. As soon as he squeezed my hand, my foot suddenly started to hurt. He had met Pyotr Ilyich in my house before, and would you believe it, he was constantly nagging him, nagging him, just grumbling at him for some reason. I used to look at the two of them, when they got together, and laugh to myself. Then suddenly, as I was sitting alone, that is, no, I was already lying down then, suddenly, as I was lying alone, Mikhail Ivanovich came and, imagine, brought me a poem of his, a very short one, on my ailing foot, that is, he described my ailing foot in the poem. Wait, how did it go?

This little foot, this little foot, Is hurting now a little bit ... or something like that—I can never remember poetry—I have it here—but I’ll show it to you later, it’s charming, charming, and, you know, it’s not just about my foot, it’s edifying, too, with a charming idea, only I’ve forgotten it, in short, it’s just right for an album. Well, naturally I thanked him, and he was obviously flattered. I had only just thanked him when Pyotr Ilyich also came in, and Mikhail Ivanovich suddenly looked black as night. I could see that Pyotr Ilyich had hampered him in something, because Mikhail Ivanovich certainly wanted to say something right after the poem, I already anticipated it, and then Pyotr Ilyich walked in. I suddenly showed Pyotr Ilyich the poem, and didn’t tell him who wrote it. But I’m sure, I’m sure he guessed at once, though he still hasn’t admitted it and says he didn’t guess; but he says it on purpose. Pyotr Ilyich immediately laughed and started criticizing: worthless doggerel, he said, some seminarian must have written it—and you know, he said it with such passion, such passion! Here your friend, instead of laughing, suddenly got completely furious ... Lord, I thought, they’re going to start fighting. ‘I wrote it,’ he said. ‘I wrote it as a joke,’ he said, ‘because I consider it base to write poetry ... Only my poem is good. They want to setup a monument to your Pushkin for women’s little feet,^[288] but my poem has a tendency, and you,’ he said, ‘are a serf-owner; you have no humaneness at all,’ he said, ‘you don’t feel any of today’s enlightened feelings, progress hasn’t touched you; you are an official,’ he said, ‘and you take bribes!’ At that point I began shouting and pleading with them. And Pyotr Ilyich, you know, is not timid at all, and he suddenly assumed the most noble tone: he looked at him mockingly, listened, and apologized: I did not know,’ he said. ‘If I had known, I should not have said it, I should have praised it,’ he said ... ‘Poets,’ he said, ‘are all so irritable . . In short, it was that sort of taunting in the guise of the most noble tone. He himself explained to me later that he was just taunting him, and I thought he was in earnest. Only suddenly I was lying there, just as I am before you now, and I thought: would it be noble, or would it not, if I suddenly turned Mikhail Ivanovich out for shouting so rudely at a guest in my house? And, would you believe it, I lay there, I closed my eyes and thought: would it or would it not be noble, and I couldn’t decide, and I was tormented, tormented, and my heart was pounding: should I shout, or shouldn’t I? One voice said: shout, and the other said: no, don’t shout! And no sooner had that other voice spoken than I suddenly shouted and suddenly fainted. Well, naturally there was a commotion. I suddenly stood up and said to Mikhail Ivanovich: ‘It grieves me to say this to you, but I no longer wish to receive you in my house.’ So I turned him out. Ah, Alexei Fyodorovich! I know myself that I did a bad thing, it was all a lie, I wasn’t angry with him at all, but I suddenly— the main thing is, I suddenly fancied that it would be so nice, that scene ... Only, believe me, it was quite a natural scene, because I even burst into tears, and cried for several days afterwards, and then suddenly after dinner I forgot it all. So he stopped coming, it’s been two weeks now, and I wondered: will he really not come ever again? That was just yesterday, and suddenly in the evening these Rumors came. I read it and gasped, who could have written it, he wrote it, he went home that time, sat down—and wrote it; he sent it—they printed it. Because it happened two weeks ago. Only, Alyosha, it’s terrible what I’m saying, and I’m not at all saying what I should be saying! Ah, it comes out by itself!”

“Today I need terribly to get to see my brother in time,” Alyosha attempted to murmur.

“Precisely, precisely! You’ve reminded me of everything! Listen, what is a fit of passion?”

“A fit of passion?” Alyosha said in surprise. “A legal fit of passion. A fit of passion for which they forgive everything. Whatever you do—you’re immediately forgiven.”

“But what are you talking about?”

“I’ll tell you: this Katya ... ah, she’s a dear, dear creature, only I can’t tell who she’s in love with. She was sitting here the other day, and I couldn’t get anything out of her. The more so as she’s begun talking to me so superficially now, in short, it’s all about my health and nothing more, and she even adopts such a tone, so I said to myself: well, never mind, God be with you ... Ah, yes, so about this fit of passion: the doctor has come. You do know that the doctor has come? But of course you know, the one who can recognize crazy people, you invited him yourself—that is, not you but Katya. It’s all Katya! So, look: a man sits there and he’s not crazy at all, only suddenly he has a fit of passion. He may be fully conscious and know what he’s doing, but at the same time he’s in a fit of passion. And so, apparently, Dmitri Fyodorovich also had a fit of passion. They found out about the fit of passion as soon as they opened the new law courts. It’s a blessing of the new courts. The doctor was here and questioned me about that evening, I mean about the gold mines: ‘How was he then?’ he said. Of course it was a fit of passion—he came in shouting: ‘Money, money, three thousand, give me three thousand,’ and then went and suddenly killed. ‘I don’t want to,’ he said, ‘I don’t want to kill,’ and suddenly he killed. And so, just for that he’ll be forgiven, because he tried to resist, and then killed.”

“But he did not kill,” Alyosha interrupted a bit sharply. Worry and impatience were overcoming him more and more.

“I know, it was that old man, Grigory...”

“What? Grigory?” Alyosha cried.

“Yes, yes, it was Grigory. After Dmitri Fyodorovich hit him, he lay there for a while, then got up, saw the door open, went in, and killed Fyodor Pavlovich.”

“But why, why?”

“He had a fit of passion. After Dmitri Fyodorovich hit him on the head, he came to, had a fit of passion, and went and killed him. And if he says he didn’t kill him, then maybe he just doesn’t remember. Only, you see: it would be better, so much better, if it were Dmitri Fyodorovich who killed him. And that’s how it was, though I say it was Grigory, it was certainly Dmitri Fyodorovich, and that’s much, much better! Oh, not better because a son killed his father, I’m not praising that; on the contrary, children should honor their parents; but still it’s better if it was he, because then there’s nothing to weep about, because he was beside himself when he did it, or, rather, he was within himself, but didn’t know what was happening to him. No, let them forgive him; it’s so humane, and everyone will see this blessing of the new courts, and I didn’t even know about it, but they say it has existed for a long time, and when I found out yesterday, I was so struck that I wanted to send for you at once; and afterwards, if they forgive him, then right after the trial he’ll come here for dinner, and I’ll invite acquaintances, and we shall drink to the new courts. I don’t think he’s dangerous; besides, I’ll invite a lot of guests, so it will always be possible to remove him if he does anything; and later he can become a justice of the peace somewhere in another town, or something like that, because those who have suffered some misfortune themselves are the best judges of all. And moreover, who isn’t in a fit of passion these days—you, me, we’re all in a fit of passion, there are so many examples: a man sits singing some old song, and suddenly something annoys him, he takes out a gun and shoots whoever happens to be there, and then they all forgive him. I read it recently, and all the doctors confirmed it. The doctors confirm nowadays, they confirm everything. Good heavens, my Lise is in a fit of passion, I wept just yesterday on her account, and the day before yesterday, and today I realized that she’s simply in a fit of passion. Oh, Lise upsets me so! I think she’s gone quite mad. Why did she send for you? Did she send for you, or did you come by yourself?”

“Yes, she sent for me, and I shall go to her now,” Alyosha made a resolute attempt to stand up.

“Ah, dear, dear Alexei Fyodorovich, perhaps that is the main thing,” Madame Khokhlakov cried, and suddenly burst into tears. “God knows I sincerely trust you with Lise, and it doesn’t matter that she sent for you in secret from her mother. But, forgive me, I cannot with the same ease trust my daughter to your brother, Ivan Fyodorovich, though I continue to regard him as a most chivalrous young man. And, imagine, he suddenly visited Lise, and I knew nothing about it.”

“What? How? When?” Alyosha was terribly surprised. He did not sit down again, but listened standing.

“I shall tell you, that is perhaps why I called you here, because otherwise I don’t know why I called you here. It was like this: Ivan Fyodorovich has been to see me only twice since his return from Moscow; the first time he came as an acquaintance, to visit me; the other time, this was just recently, Katya was here, and he came over because he found out she was here. I, naturally, have never claimed he should visit often, knowing how many troubles he had without that—vous comprenez, cette affaire et la mort terrible de votre papa^[289]— only I suddenly learned that he had come again, not to me but to Lise, it was about six days ago, he came, stayed for five minutes, and left. And I learned of it a whole three days later from Glafira, so it was quite a shock to me. I summoned Lise at once, and she laughed: ‘He thought you were asleep,’ she said, ‘and came to ask me about your health.’ Of course that’s how it was. Only Lise, Lise—oh, God, how she upsets me! Imagine, one night suddenly—it was four days ago, just after you were here last time and left—suddenly that night she had hysterics, shouting, shrieking! Why is it I never have hysterics? Then hysterics the next day, and again the third day, and yesterday, and then yesterday this fit of passion. And she suddenly shouted at me: ‘I hate Ivan Fyodorovich, I demand that you not receive him, that you forbid him the house! ‘ I was astounded, it was so sudden, and I objected to her: ‘Why on earth should I not receive such a worthy young man, and such a learned one besides, and with such misfortunes, because all these stories—certainly they’re a misfortune, there’s nothing fortunate about them, is there?’ She suddenly burst out laughing at my words, and, you know, so impudently. Well, I was glad, thinking I had made her laugh and now the hysterics would go away, all the more so as I myself wanted to stop receiving Ivan Fyodorovich, because of these strange visits without my consent, and to demand an explanation. Only suddenly this morning, Liza woke up and got angry with Yulia, and, imagine, slapped her in the face. But this is monstrous, I am always formal with my maids. And suddenly an hour later she was embracing Yulia and kissing her feet. And she sent to tell me that she would not come to me at all and would never come to me thereafter, and when I dragged myself to her, she rushed to kiss me and weep, and as she was kissing me, she pushed me out without saying a word, so that I didn’t find out anything. Now, dear Alexei Fyodorovich, all my hopes are on you, and, of course, the fate of my whole life is in your hands. I simply ask you to go to Lise, find out everything from her, as only you can do, and come and tell me—me, her mother, because you understand I shall die, I shall simply die, if this all goes on, or else I shall run away. I can bear it no longer, I have patience, but I may lose it, and then. . . and then there will be horrors. Ah, my God, here is Pyotr Ilyich at last!” Madame Khokhlakov cried, brightening up all over, as she saw Pyotr Ilyich Perkhotin come in. “You’re late, late! Well, what is it, sit down, speak, decide my fate, what about this lawyer? Where are you going, Alexei Fyodorovich?”

“To Lise.”

“Ah, yes! But you won’t forget, you won’t forget what I asked you? It’s a matter of fate, of fate!”

“Of course I won’t forget, if only I can ... but I’m so late,” Alyosha muttered, hastily retreating.

“No, come for certain, for certain, and no ‘if I can,’ otherwise I’ll die!” Madame Khokhlakov called after him, but Alyosha had already left the room.

Chapter 3: A Little Demon

When he entered Liza’s room, he found her half-reclining in her former chair, in which she had been wheeled around while she was as yet unable to walk. She did not make a move to meet him, but fixed him with her alert, sharp eyes. Her eyes were somewhat feverish, her face was pale and yellow. Alyosha was amazed at how much she had changed in three days; she had even lost weight. She did not hold out her hand to him. He touched her thin, long fingers, which lay motionless on her dress, then silently sat down facing her.

“I know you’re in a hurry to get to the prison,” Liza said sharply, “and my mother has just kept you for two hours telling you about me and Yulia.”

“How did you find out?” asked Alyosha.

“I was eavesdropping. Why are you staring at me? If I want to eavesdrop, I’ll eavesdrop, there’s nothing wrong with it. I’m not asking forgiveness.”

“Are you upset about something?”

“On the contrary, I am very pleased. I’ve just been thinking over for the thirtieth time how good it is that I refused you and am not going to be your wife. You’re unfit to be a husband: I’d marry you, and suddenly give you a note to take to someone I’d have fallen in love with after you, and you would take it and make sure to deliver it, and even bring back the reply. And you’d be forty years old and still carrying such notes.”

She suddenly laughed.

“There is something wicked and guileless about you at the same time,” Alyosha smiled at her.

“What’s guileless is that I’m not ashamed with you. Moreover, not only am I not ashamed, but I do not want to be ashamed, precisely before you, precisely with you. Alyosha, why don’t I respect you? I love you very much, but I don’t respect you. If I respected you, I wouldn’t talk like this without being ashamed, would I?”

“That’s true.”

“And do you believe that I’m not ashamed with you?”

“No, I don’t.”

Liza again laughed nervously; she was talking rapidly, quickly.

“I sent some candy to your brother, Dmitri Fyodorovich, in prison. Alyosha, you know, you are so nice! I will love you terribly for allowing me not to love you so soon.”

“Why did you send for me today, Lise?”

“I wanted to tell you a wish of mine. I want someone to torment me, to marry me and then torment me, deceive me, leave me and go away. I don’t want to be happy!”

“You’ve come to love disorder?”

“Ah, I want disorder. I keep wanting to set fire to the house. I imagine how I’ll sneak up and set fire to it on the sly, it must be on the sly. They’ll try to put it out, but it will go on burning. And I’ll know and say nothing. Ah, what foolishness! And so boring!”

She waved her hand in disgust.

“It’s your rich life,” Alyosha said softly.

“Why, is it better to be poor?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Your deceased monk filled you with all that. It’s not true. Let me be rich and everyone else poor, I’ll eat candy and drink cream, and I won’t give any to any of them. Ah, don’t speak, don’t say anything,” she waved her hand, though Alyosha had not even opened his mouth, “you’ve told me all that before, I know it all by heart. Boring. If I’m ever poor, I’ll kill somebody—and maybe I’ll kill somebody even if I’m rich—why just sit there? But, you know, what I want is to reap, to reap the rye. I’ll marry you, and you’ll become a peasant, a real peasant, we’ll keep a colt, would you like that? Do you know Kalganov?”

“Yes.”

“He walks about and dreams. He says: why live in reality, it’s better to dream. One can dream up the gayest things, but to live is boring. And yet he’s going to marry soon, he’s even made me a declaration of love. Do you know how to spin a top?”

“Yes.”

“Well, he’s like a top: spin him and set him down and then whip, whip, whip: I’ll marry him and keep him spinning all his life. Are you ashamed to sit with me?”

“No.”

“You’re terribly angry that I don’t talk about holy things. I don’t want to be holy. What will they do in that world for the greatest sin? You must know exactly.”

“God will judge,” Alyosha was studying her intently.

“That’s just how I want it to be. I’ll come, and they will judge me, and suddenly I’ll laugh them all in the face. I want terribly to set fire to the house, Alyosha, to our house—you still don’t believe me?”

“Why shouldn’t I? There are even children, about twelve years old, who want very much to set fire to something, and they do set fire to things. It’s a sort of illness.”

“That’s wrong, wrong; maybe there are children, but that’s not what I’m talking about.”

“You take evil for good, it’s a momentary crisis, perhaps it comes from your former illness.”

“So, after all, you do despise me! I just don’t want to do good, I want to do evil, and illness has nothing to do with it.”

“Why do evil?”

“So that there will be nothing left anywhere. Ah, how good it would be if there were nothing left! You know, Alyosha, I sometimes think about doing an awful lot of evil, all sorts of nasty things, and I’d be doing them on the sly for a long time, and suddenly everyone would find out. They would all surround me and point their fingers at me, and I would look at them all. That would be very pleasant. Why would it be so pleasant, Alyosha?”

“Who knows? The need to smash something good, or, as you said, to set fire to something. That also happens.”

“But I’m not just saying it, I’ll do it, too.”

“I believe you.”

“Ah, how I love you for saying you believe me. And you’re not lying at all, not at all. But maybe you think I’m saying all this on purpose, just to tease you?”

“No, I don’t think that. . . though maybe there’s a little of that need, too.”

“There is a little. I can never lie to you,” she said, her eyes flashing with some sort of fire.

Alyosha was struck most of all by her seriousness: not a shadow of laughter or playfulness was left on her face, though before gaiety and playfulness had not abandoned her even in her most “serious” moments.

“There are moments when people love crime,” Alyosha said pensively.

“Yes, yes! You’ve spoken my own thought, they love it, they all love it, and love it always, not just at ‘moments.’ You know, it’s as if at some point they all agreed to lie about it, and have been lying about it ever since. They all say they hate what’s bad, but secretly they all love it.”

“And are you still reading bad books?”

“Yes. Mama reads them and hides them under her pillow, and I steal them.”

“Aren’t you ashamed to be ruining yourself?”

“I want to ruin myself. There’s a boy here, and he lay down under the rails while a train rode over him. Lucky boy! Listen, your brother is on trial now for killing his father, and they all love it that he killed his father.”

“They love it that he killed his father?”

“They love it, they all love it! Everyone says it’s terrible, but secretly they all love it terribly. I’m the first to love it.”

“There’s some truth in what you say about everyone,” Alyosha said softly.

“Ah, what thoughts you have!” Liza shrieked with delight, “and you a monk! You wouldn’t believe how I respect you, Alyosha, for never lying. Ah, I’ll tell you a funny dream of mine: sometimes I have a dream about devils, it seems to be night, I’m in my room with a candle, and suddenly there are devils everywhere, in all the corners, and under the tables, and they open the door, and outside the door there’s a crowd of them, and they want to come in and grab me. And they’re coming close, they’re about to grab me. But I suddenly cross myself and they all draw back, afraid, only they don’t quite go away, they stand by the door and in the corners, waiting. And suddenly I have a terrible desire to start abusing God out loud, and so I start abusing him, and they suddenly rush at me again in a crowd, they’re so glad, and they’re grabbing me again, and I suddenly cross myself again—and they all draw back. It’s such terrible fun; it takes my breath away.”

“I’ve sometimes had the same dream,” Alyosha said suddenly.

“Really?” Liza cried out in surprise. “Listen, Alyosha, don’t laugh, this is terribly important: is it possible for two different people to have one and the same dream?”

“It must be.”

“Alyosha, I’m telling you, this is terribly important,” Liza went on in some sort of extreme amazement. “It’s not the dream that’s important, but that you could have the same dream I had. You never lie, so don’t lie now either: is it true? You’re not joking?”

“It’s true.”

Liza was terribly struck by something and sat silently for half a minute.

“Alyosha, do come to see me, come to see me more often,” she spoke suddenly in a pleading voice.

“I’ll always come to see you, all my life,” Alyosha answered firmly.

“I tell this to you alone,” Liza began again. “Only to myself, and also to you. You alone in the whole world. And rather to you than to myself. And I’m not at all ashamed with you. Alyosha, why am I not at all ashamed with you, not at all? Alyosha, is it true that Jews steal children on Passover and kill them?”

“I don’t know.”

“I have a book here, I read in it about some trial somewhere, and that a Jew first cut off all the fingers of a four-year-old boy, and then crucified him on the wall, nailed him with nails and crucified him, and then said at his trial that the boy died quickly, in four hours. Quickly! He said the boy was moaning, that he kept moaning, and he stood and admired it. That’s good!”

“Good?”

“Good. Sometimes I imagine that it was I who crucified him. He hangs there moaning, and I sit down facing him, eating pineapple compote. I like pineapple compote very much. Do you?”

Alyosha was silent and looked at her. Her pale yellow face suddenly became distorted, her eyes lit up.

“You know, after I read about that Jew, I shook with tears the whole night. I kept imagining how the child cried and moaned (four-year-old boys already understand), and I couldn’t get the thought of the compote out of my mind. In the morning I sent a letter to a certain man, telling him that he must come and see me. He came and I suddenly told him about the boy, and the compote, I told him everything, everything, and said it was ‘good.’ He suddenly laughed and said it was indeed good. Then he got up and left. He stayed only five minutes. Did he despise me, did he? Speak, speak, Alyosha, did he despise me or not?” she sat up straight on the couch, flashing her eyes.

“Tell me,” Alyosha said with agitation, “did you yourself send for him, for this man?”

“Yes, I did.”

“You sent him a letter?”

“Yes.” “To ask him just about that, about the child?”

“No, not about that at all, not at all. But as soon as he came, I immediately asked him about that. He answered, laughed, got up and left.”

“The man treated you honorably,” Alyosha said softly. “And despised me? Laughed at me?”

“No, because he may believe in the pineapple compote himself. He’s also very sick now, Lise.”

“Yes, he does believe in it!” Liza flashed her eyes.

“He doesn’t despise anyone,” Alyosha went on, “he simply doesn’t believe anyone. And since he doesn’t believe them, he also, of course, despises them.” “That means me, too? Me?”

“You, too.”

“That’s good,” Liza somehow rasped. “When he walked out laughing, I felt it was good to be despised. The boy with his fingers cut off is good, and to be despised is good...”

And she laughed in Alyosha’s face, somehow wickedly and feverishly.

“You know, Alyosha, you know, I’d like to. . . Alyosha, save me!” she suddenly jumped up from the couch, rushed to him, and held him tightly in her arms. “Save me,” she almost groaned. “Would I tell anyone in the world what I told you? But I told you the truth, the truth, the truth! I’ll kill myself, because everything is so loathsome to me! I don’t want to live, because everything is so loathsome to me. Everything is so loathsome, so loathsome! Alyosha, why, why don’t you love me at all!” she finished in a frenzy.

“No, I do love you!” Alyosha answered ardently.

“And will you weep for me? Will you?”

“I will.”

“Not because I didn’t want to be your wife, but just weep for me, just so?”

“I will.”

“Thank you! I need only your tears. And as for all the rest, let them punish me and trample me with their feet, all, all of them, without any exception! Because I don’t love anyone. Do you hear, not a-ny-one! On the contrary, I hate them! Go, Alyosha, it’s time you went to your brother!” she suddenly tore herself away from him.

“But how can I leave you like this?” Alyosha said, almost afraid.

“Go to your brother, they’ll shut the prison, go, here’s your hat! Kiss Mitya for me, go, go!”

And she pushed Alyosha out the door almost by force. He looked at her with rueful perplexity, when suddenly he felt a letter in his right hand, a small letter, tightly folded and sealed. He looked and at once read the address: “To Ivan Fyodorovich Karamazov.” He glanced quickly at Liza. Her face became almost menacing,

“Give it to him, be sure to give it to him!” she ordered frenziedly, shaking all over, “today, at once! Otherwise I will poison myself! That’s why I sent for you!”

And she quickly slammed the door. The lock clicked. Alyosha put the letter in his pocket and went straight to the stairs without stopping to see Madame Khokhlakov, having even forgotten about her. And Liza, as soon as Alyosha was gone, unlocked the door at once, opened it a little, put her finger into the chink, and, slamming the door, crushed it with all her might. Ten seconds later, having released her hand, she went quietly and slowly to her chair, sat straight up in it, and began looking intently at her blackened finger and the blood oozing from under the nail. Her lips trembled, and she whispered very quickly to herself:

“Mean, mean, mean, mean!”

Chapter 4: A Hymn and a Secret

It was already quite late (and how long is a November day?) when Alyosha rang at the prison gate. It was even beginning to get dark. But Alyosha knew he would be allowed to see Mitya without hindrance. Such things are the same in our town as everywhere else. At first, of course, after the conclusion of the whole preliminary investigation, access to Mitya on the part of his relations and certain other persons was hedged by certain necessary formalities, but after a while, though these formalities were not exactly relaxed, certain exceptions somehow established themselves, at least for some of Mitya’s visitors. So much so that sometimes their meetings with the prisoner in the specially designated room even took place almost one-to-one. However, there were very few such visitors: only Grushenka, Alyosha, and Rakitin. But Grushenka was very much in favor with the police commissioner, Mikhail Makarovich. His shouting at her in Mokroye weighed on the old man’s heart. Afterwards, having learned the essentials, he completely changed his thinking about her. And, strangely, though he was firmly convinced of Mitya’s crime, since the moment of his imprisonment he had come to look on him more and more leniently: “He was probably a man of good soul, and then came to grief like a Swede at Poltava,^[290]from drinking and disorder!” His initial horror gave place in his heart to some sort of pity. As for Alyosha, the commissioner loved him very much and had already known him for a long time, and Rakitin, who later took to visiting the prisoner very often, was one of the closest acquaintances of “the commissioner’s misses,” as he called them, and was daily to be found hanging about their house. And he gave lessons in the home of the prison warden, a good-natured old man, though a seasoned veteran. Alyosha, again, was also a special and old acquaintance of the warden’s, who loved to talk with him generally about “wisdom.”^[291] Ivan Fyodorovich, for example, was not really respected by the warden, but was actually even feared, above all for his opinions, though the warden himself was a great philosopher, “having gotten there by his own reason,” of course. But he felt some sort of irresistible sympathy for Alyosha. During the past year the old man had set himself to reading the Apocryphal Gospels,^[292] and reported his impressions every other moment to his young friend. Earlier he had even gone to visit him in the monastery and had spent long hours talking with him and with the hieromonks. In short, even if Alyosha was late coming to the prison, he had only to go to the warden and the matter was always settled. Besides, everyone in the prison, down to the last guard, was used to Alyosha. And the sentries, of course, would not interfere as long as the authorities had given their permission. Mitya, when he was summoned, would always come down from his little cell to the place designated for visits. Just as he entered the room, Alyosha ran into Rakitin, who was taking leave of Mitya. Both were talking loudly. Mitya, seeing him out, was laughing heartily at something, and Rakitin seemed to be grumbling. Rakitin, especially of late, did not like meeting Alyosha, hardly spoke to him, and even greeted him with difficulty. Now, seeing Alyosha come in, he frowned more than usual and looked the other way, as if totally absorbed in buttoning his big, warm coat with its fur collar. Then he immediately began looking for his umbrella.

“Mustn’t forget my things,” he muttered, just to say something.

“Don’t forget anyone else’s things either!” Mitya joked, and promptly guffawed at his own joke. Rakitin instantly flared up.

“Tell that to your Karamazovs, your serf-owning spawn, not to Rakitin!” he cried suddenly, beginning to shake with anger.

“What’s the matter? I was joking!” cried Mitya. “Pah, the devil! They’re all like that,” he turned to Alyosha, nodding towards the quickly departing Rakitin. “He was sitting here laughing, feeling fine, and now suddenly he boils over! He didn’t even nod to you, have you really quarreled or something? And why so late? I wasn’t only expecting you, I’ve been thirsting for you all morning. But never mind! We’ll make up for it!”

“Why has he taken to coming so often? Are you friends with him now, or what?” Alyosha asked, also nodding towards the door through which Rakitin had cleared out.

“Me, friends with Mikhail? No, not really. Why would I be, the swine! He considers me ... a scoundrel. And he doesn’t understand jokes—that’s the main trouble with them. They never understand jokes. Their souls are dry, flat and dry, like the prison walls when I was looking at them as I drove up that day. But he’s an intelligent man, intelligent. Well, Alexei, my head will roll now!”

He sat down on the bench and sat Alyosha down next to him.

“Yes, tomorrow is the trial. You mean you really have no hope at all, brother?” Alyosha said with a timid feeling.

“What are you talking about?” Mitya looked at him somehow indefinitely. “Ah, yes, the trial! Devil take it! Up to now we’ve been talking about trifles, about this trial and all, and I haven’t said a word to you about the most important thing. Yes, tomorrow is the trial, but I didn’t say my head would roll because of the trial. It’s not my head that will roll, but what was in my head. Why are you looking at me with such criticism on your face?”

“What are you talking about, Mitya?”

“Ideas, ideas, that’s what! Ethics. What is ethics?”

“Ethics?” Alyosha said in surprise.

“Yes, what is it, some sort of science?”

“Yes, there is such a science ... only ... I must confess I can’t explain to you what sort of science it is.”

“Rakitin knows. Rakitin knows a lot, devil take him! He won’t become a monk. He’s going to go to Petersburg. There, he says, he’ll get into the department of criticism, but with a noble tendency. Why not? He can be useful and make a career. Oof, how good they are at making careers! Devil take ethics! But I am lost, Alexei, I’m lost, you man of God! I love you more than anyone. My heart trembles at you, that’s what. Who is this Carl Bernard?”

“Carl Bernard?” Again Alyosha was surprised.

“No, not Carl, wait, I’ve got it wrong: Claude Bernard.^[293] What is it? Chemistry or something?”

“He must be a scientist,” Alyosha replied, “only I confess I’m not able to say much about him either. I’ve just heard he’s a scientist, but what kind I don’t know.”

“Well, devil take him, I don’t know either,” Mitya swore. “Some scoundrel, most likely. They’re all scoundrels. But Rakitin will squeeze himself in, he’ll squeeze himself through some crack—another Bernard. Oof, these Bernards! How they breed!”

“But what’s the matter with you?” Alyosha asked insistently.

“He wants to write an article about me, about my case, and begin his role in literature that way, that’s why he keeps coming, he explained it to me himself. He wants something with a tendency: ‘It was impossible for him not to kill, he was a victim of his environment,’ and so on, he explained it to me. It will have a tinge of socialism, he says. So, devil take him, let it have a tinge, it’s all the same to me. He doesn’t like brother Ivan, he hates him, you’re not in favor with him either. Well, and I don’t throw him out because he’s an intelligent man. He puts on airs too much, however. I was telling him just now: ‘The Karamazovs are not scoundrels, but philosophers, because all real Russians are philosophers, and you, even though you’ve studied, are not a philosopher, you’re a stinking churl.’ He laughed, maliciously. And I said to him: de thoughtibus non est disputandum^[294]—a good joke? At least I, too, have joined classicism,” Mitya suddenly guffawed.

“But why are you lost? What were you just saying?” Alyosha interrupted.

“Why am I lost? Hm! The fact is ... on the whole ... I’m sorry for God, that’s why!” “What do you mean, sorry for God?”

“Imagine: it’s all there in the nerves, in the head, there are these nerves in the brain (devil take them!) ... there are little sorts of tails, these nerves have little tails, well, and when they start trembling there ... that is, you see, I look at something with my eyes, like this, and they start trembling, these little tails ... and when they tremble, an image appears, not at once, but in a moment, it takes a second, and then a certain moment appears, as it were, that is, not a moment—devil take the moment—but an image, that is, an object or an event, well, devil take it—and that’s why I contemplate, and then think ... because of the little tails, and not at all because I have a soul or am some sort of image and likeness,^[295] that’s all foolishness. Mikhail explained it to me, brother, just yesterday, and it was as if I got burnt. It’s magnificent, Alyosha, this science! The new man will come, I quite understand that ... And yet, I’m sorry for God!”

“Well, that’s good enough,” said Alyosha.

“That I’m sorry for God? Chemistry, brother, chemistry! Move over a little, Your Reverence, there’s no help for it, chemistry’s coming! And Rakitin doesn’t like God, oof, how he doesn’t! That’s the sore spot in all of them! But they conceal it. They lie. They pretend. ‘What, are you going to push for that in the department of criticism?’ I asked. ‘Well, they won’t let me do it openly,’ he said, and laughed. ‘But,’ I asked, ‘how will man be after that? Without God and the future life? It means everything is permitted now, one can do anything?’ ‘Didn’t you know?’ he said. And he laughed. ‘Everything is permitted to the intelligent man,’ he said. ‘The intelligent man knows how to catch crayfish, but you killed and fouled it up,’ he said, ‘and now you’re rotting in prison!’ He said that to me. A natural-born swine! I once used to throw the likes of him out—well, and now I listen to them. He does talk a lot of sense, after all. He writes intelligently, too. About a week ago he started reading me an article, I wrote down three lines of it on purpose; wait, here it is.”

Mitya hurriedly pulled a piece of paper from his waistcoat pocket and read:

“‘In order to resolve this question it is necessary, first of all, to put one’s person in conflict with one’s actuality.’ Do you understand that?”

“No, I don’t,” said Alyosha.

He was watching Mitya and listened to him with curiosity.

“I don’t understand it either. Obscure and vague, but intelligent. ‘Everybody writes like that now,’he says,’because it’s that sort of environment . . .’ They’re afraid of the environment. He also writes verses, the scoundrel, he celebrated Khokhlakov’s little foot, ha, ha, ha!”

“So I’ve heard,” said Alyosha.

“You have? And have you heard the jingle itself?”

“No.” “I have it; here, I’ll read it to you. You don’t know, I never told you, but there’s a whole story here. The swindler! Three weeks ago he decided to tease me: ‘You fouled it up, like a fool,’ he said, ‘for the sake of three thousand, but I’ll grab a hundred and fifty thousand, marry a certain widow, and buy a stone house in Petersburg.’ And he told me he was offering his attentions to Khokhlakov, and that she, who wasn’t very smart to begin with, had lost her mind altogether by the age of forty. ‘But she’s very sentimental,’ he said, ‘so that’s how I’ll bring it off with her. I’ll marry her, take her to Petersburg, and start a newspaper there. ‘ And he had such nasty, sensual drool on his lips—drooling not over Khokhlakov, but over the hundred and fifty thousand. And he convinced me, he convinced me; he kept coming to see me every day; she’s weakening, he said. He was beaming with joy. And then suddenly he was turned out: Perkhotin, Pyotr Ilyich, got the upper hand, good fellow! I mean, I really could kiss the foolish woman for turning him out! So it was while he was coming to see me that he also wrote this jingle. ‘For the first time in my life,’ he said, ‘I’ve dirtied my hands writing poetry, for the sake of seduction—that is, for the sake of a useful cause. If I get the capital away from the foolish woman, then I can be of civic use.’ Because they have a civic excuse for every abomination! ‘And anyway,’ he said, ‘I’ve done a better job of writing than your Pushkin, because I managed to stick civic woes even into a foolish jingle.’ What he says about Pushkin I quite understand. After all, maybe he really was a capable man, but all he wrote about was little feet! And how proud he was of his little jingles! Such vanity they have, such vanity! ‘For the Recovery of My Object’s Ailing Little Foot’—that’s the title he came up with—a nimble fellow!

Ah, what a charming little foot,

But what a swelling has come to ‘t!

Tho’ doctors visit, bringing balm,

They only seem to do it harm.^[296]

I do not long for little feet—Let Pushkin sing them if he please: My longing’s for a head that’s sweet But does not comprehend ideas.

It used to comprehend a bit;

The little foot’s distracted it! Oh, little foot, if you’d but mend, The little head might comprehend.’

“A swine, a pure swine, but he’s written it playfully, the scoundrel! And he really did stick in his ‘civic’ idea. And how mad he was when he got turned out. He was gnashing!” “He’s already had his revenge,” said Alyosha. “He wrote an article about Madame Khokhlakov.”

And Alyosha told him hastily about the article in the newspaper Rumors.

“That’s him, him!” Mitya confirmed, frowning. “It’s him! These articles ... how well I know ... I mean, so many base things have already been written, about Grusha, for instance . . .! And about the other one, about Katya .. . Hm!”

He walked worriedly around the room.

“Brother, I can’t stay with you long,” Alyosha said, after a pause. “Tomorrow will be a terrible, great day for you: divine judgment will be passed on you ... and so it surprises me that you’re walking around, talking about God knows what instead of anything that matters ...”

“No, don’t be surprised,” Mitya hotly interrupted. “What should I talk about—that stinking dog, or what? About the murderer? We’ve talked enough about that, you and I. No more talk about the stinking son of Stinking Lizaveta! God will kill him, you’ll see. Keep still!”

Excited, he went up to Alyosha and suddenly kissed him. His eyes lit up.

“Rakitin wouldn’t understand this,” he began, all in a sort of rapture, as it were, “but you, you will understand everything. That’s why I’ve been thirsting for you. You see, for a long time I’ve been wanting to say many things to you here, within these peeling walls, but I’ve kept silent about the most important thing: the time didn’t seem to have come yet. I’ve been waiting till this last time to pour out my soul to you. Brother, in these past two months I’ve sensed a new man in me, a new man has arisen in me! He was shut up inside me, but if it weren’t for this thunderbolt, he never would have appeared. Frightening! What do I care if I spend twenty years pounding out iron ore in the mines, I’m not afraid of that at all, but I’m afraid of something else now: that this risen man not depart from me! Even there, in the mines, underground, you can find a human heart in the convict and murderer standing next to you, and you can be close to him, because there, too, it’s possible to live, and love, and suffer! You can revive and resurrect the frozen heart in this convict, you can look after him for years, and finally bring up from the cave into the light a soul that is lofty now, a suffering consciousness, you can revive an angel, resurrect a hero! And there are many of them, there are hundreds, and we’re all guilty for them! Why did I have a dream about a ‘wee one’ at such a moment? ‘Why is the wee one poor?’ It was a prophecy to me at that moment! It’s for the ‘wee one’ that I will go. Because everyone is guilty for everyone else. For all the ‘wee ones,’ because there are little children and big children. All people are ‘wee ones.’ And I’ll go for all of them, because there must be someone who will go for all of them. I didn’t kill father, but I must go. I accept! All of this came to me here ... within these peeling walls. And there are many, there are hundreds of them, underground, with hammers in their hands. Oh, yes, we’ll be in chains, and there will be no freedom, but then, in our great grief, we will arise once more into joy, without which it’s not possible for man to live, or for God to be, for God gives joy, it’s his prerogative, a great one ... Lord, let man dissolve in prayer! How would I be there underground without God? Rakitin’s lying: if God is driven from the earth, we’ll meet him underground! It’s impossible for a convict to be without God, even more impossible than for a non-convict! And then from the depths of the earth, we, the men underground, will start singing a tragic hymn to God, in whom there is joy! Hail to God and his joy! I love him!”

Mitya was almost breathless uttering his wild speech. He grew pale, his lips trembled, tears poured from his eyes.

“No, life is full, there is life underground, too!” he began again. “You wouldn’t believe, Alexei, how I want to live now, what thirst to exist and be conscious has been born in me precisely within these peeling walls! Rakitin doesn’t understand it, all he wants is to build his house and rent out rooms, but I was waiting for you. And besides, what is suffering? I’m not afraid of it, even if it’s numberless. I’m not afraid of it now; I was before. You know, maybe I won’t even give any answers in court ... And it seems to me there’s so much strength in me now that I can overcome everything, all sufferings, only in order to say and tell myself every moment: I am! In a thousand torments—I am; writhing under torture—but I am. Locked up in a tower, but still I exist, I see the sun, and if I don’t see the sun, still I know it is. And the whole of life is there—in knowing that the sun is. Alyosha, my cherub, all these philosophies are killing me, devil take them! Brother Ivan ...”

“What about brother Ivan?” Alyosha tried to interrupt, but Mitya did not hear.

“You see, before I didn’t have any of these doubts, but they were all hiding in me. Maybe I was drinking and fighting and raging, just because unknown ideas were storming inside me. I was fighting to quell them within me, to tame them, to subdue them. Brother Ivan is not Rakitin, he hides his idea. Brother Ivan is a sphinx; he’s silent, silent all the time. And I’m tormented by God. Tormented only by that. What if he doesn’t exist? What if Rakitin is right, that it’s an artificial idea of mankind? So then, if he doesn’t exist, man is chief of the earth, of the universe. Splendid! Only how is he going to be virtuous without God? A good question! I keep thinking about it. Because whom will he love then—man, I mean? To whom will he be thankful, to whom will he sing the hymn? Rakitin laughs. Rakitin says it’s possible to love mankind even without God. Well, only a snotty little shrimp can affirm such a thing, but I can’t understand it. Life is simple for Rakitin: ‘You’d do better to worry about extending man’s civil rights,’ he told me today, ‘or at least about not letting the price of beef go up; you’d render your love for mankind more simply and directly that way than with any philosophies.’ But I came back at him: ‘And without God,’ I said, ‘you’ll hike up the price of beef yourself, if the chance comes your way, and make a rouble on every kopeck.’ He got angry. Because what is virtue?—answer me that, Alexei. I have one virtue and a Chinese has another—so it’s a relative thing. Or not? Not relative? Insidious question! You mustn’t laugh if I tell you that I didn’t sleep for two nights because of it. I just keep wondering now how people can live and think nothing about these things. Vanity! Ivan does not have God. He has his idea. Not on my scale. But he’s silent. I think he’s a freemason. I asked him—he’s silent. I hoped to drink from the waters of his source—he’s silent. Only once did he say something. “

“What did he say?” Alyosha picked up hastily.

“I said to him: ‘Then everything is permitted, in that case?’ He frowned: ‘Fyodor Pavlovich, our papa, was a little pig,’ he said, ‘but his thinking was right.’ That’s what he came back with. That’s all he ever said. It’s even neater than Rakitin.”

“Yes,” Alyosha bitterly confirmed. “When was he here?”

“That can wait, there’s something else now. I’ve said almost nothing to you about Ivan so far. I’ve been putting it off till last. When this thing is over with me here, and they give me my sentence, then I’ll tell you certain things, I’ll tell you everything. There’s one terrible matter here ... And you’ll be my judge in this matter. But for now don’t even get into it, for now—hush. You were talking about tomorrow, about the trial, but, would you believe it, I don’t know a thing.”

“Have you talked with that lawyer?”

“Forget the lawyer! I talked with him about everything. He’s a smooth Petersburg swindler. A Bernard! He just doesn’t believe a pennyworth of what I say. He thinks I killed him, can you imagine? I see it. I asked him, ‘In that case, why have you come to defend me?’ To hell with them. They’ve called in a doctor, too, they want to prove I’m crazy. I won’t have it! Katerina Ivanovna wants to do ‘her duty’ to the end. What an effort!” Mitya smiled bitterly. “A cat! A cruel heart! And she knows what I said about her in Mokroye then, that she’s a woman of ‘great wrath’! They told her. Yes, the evidence has multiplied like the sands of the sea! Grigory stands by his; Grigory is honest, but he’s a fool. Many people are honest simply because they’re fools. That’s Rakitin’s notion. Grigory is my enemy. Certain people it’s better to have as enemies than as friends. I’m referring to Katerina Ivanovna. I’m afraid, oh, I’m afraid she’ll tell in court about that bow to the ground after the forty-five hundred! She’ll pay me back to the uttermost farthing^[297]I don’t want her sacrifice! They’ll put me to shame in court! I’ll endure it somehow. Go to her, Alyosha, ask her not to say it in court. Or is it impossible? Ah, the devil, it makes no difference, I’ll endure! And I’m not sorry for her. She’s asking for it. Let the thief get his beating. I’ll have my say, Alexei,” again he smiled bitterly. “Only ... only Grusha, Grusha ... Lord! Why should she take such suffering on herself?” he suddenly exclaimed, in tears. “Grusha is killing me, the thought of her is killing me, killing me! She was here today...”

“She told me. She was very upset by you today.”

“I know. Devil take me and my character. I got jealous! I repented as I was letting her go, I kissed her. I didn’t ask her forgiveness.”

“Why didn’t you?” exclaimed Alyosha.

Mitya suddenly laughed almost gaily.

“God save you, dear boy, from ever asking forgiveness for your guilt from a woman you love! Especially from a woman you love, no matter how guilty you are before her! Because a woman—devil knows what a woman is, brother, I’m a good judge of that at least! Try going and confessing your guilt to her; say, ‘I’m guilty, forgive me, pardon me,’ and right then and there you’ll be showered with reproaches! She’ll never forgive you directly and simply, she’ll humble you in the dust, she’ll take away things that weren’t even there, she’ll take everything, she’ll forget nothing, she’ll add things of her own, and only then will she forgive you. And that’s the best of them, the best! She’ll scrape up the last scraps and heap them on your head—such bloodthirstiness just sits in them, I tell you, in all of them, to the last one, those angels without whom it’s even impossible for us to live! You see, my dear, I’ll tell you frankly and simply: every decent man ought to be under the heel of some woman at least. That’s my conviction; not a conviction, but a feeling. A man ought to be magnanimous, and that’s no stain on a man. It’s no stain even on a hero, even on Caesar! Well, but still don’t go asking forgiveness, not ever, not for anything. Remember that rule: it was taught you by your brother Mitya, who perished because of women. No, I’d better restore myself in Grusha’s eyes some other way, without forgiveness. I revere her, Alexei, revere her! Only she doesn’t see it, no, it’s still not enough love for her. And she frets me, she frets me with her love. Before was nothing! Before it was just her infernal curves that fretted me, but now I’ve taken her whole soul into my soul, and through her I’ve become a man! Will they let us be married? Without that I’ll die of jealousy. I keep imagining something every day ... What did she say to you about me?”

Alyosha repeated everything Grushenka had told him earlier. Mitya listened closely, asked about many things, and was left feeling pleased.

“So she’s not angry that I’m jealous,” he exclaimed. “A real woman! ‘I have a cruel heart myself.’ Oof, I love such cruel women, though I can’t stand it when anyone’s jealous over me, I can’t stand it! We will fight. But love—oh, I will love her infinitely. Will they let us be married? Do they let convicts marry? A good question. And I can’t live without her...”

Mitya walked glumly around the room. The room was getting almost dark. Suddenly he became terribly worried.

“A secret, so she says there’s a secret? She says the three of us are conspiring against her, and she says ‘Katka’ is mixed up in it? No, Grushenka old girl, that’s not it. You’ve missed your mark this time, you’ve missed your silly female mark! Alyosha, darling—ah, well, why not? I’ll reveal our secret to you!”

He looked around, quickly went up to Alyosha, who was standing before him, and whispered to him with a mysterious air, though in fact no one could hear them: the old guard was nodding on his bench in the corner, and not a word could reach the sentries.

“I’ll reveal our whole secret to you!” Mitya began whispering hastily. “I was going to reveal it later, because how could I decide to do anything without you? You are everything to me. Though I say that Ivan is the highest of us, you are my cherub. Only your decision will decide it. Maybe it’s you who are the highest man, and not Ivan. You see, here it’s a matter of conscience, a matter of the highest conscience—a secret that is so important that I cannot deal with it myself and have put everything off for you. And it’s still too early to decide, because the sentence must come first: the sentence will be given, and then you will decide my fate. Don’t decide now: I’ll tell you now, you will listen, but don’t decide. Stand and be silent. I won’t reveal everything to you. I’ll tell you only the idea, without details, and you be silent. Not a question, not a movement, agreed? But anyway, Lord, what am I going to do about your eyes? I’m afraid your eyes will tell me your decision even if you are silent. Oof, I’m afraid! Alyosha, listen: brother Ivan suggests that I escape. I’m not telling you the details: everything has been foreseen, everything can be arranged. Be silent, don’t decide. To America with Grusha. I really can’t live without Grusha! What if they won’t let her join me there? Do they let convicts marry? Brother Ivan says they don’t. And without Grusha what will I do under the ground with my sledgehammer? I’ll take the sledgehammer and smash my own head with it! On the other hand, what about my conscience? I’ll be running away from suffering! I was shown a path—and I rejected the path; there was a way of purification—I did an about-face. Ivan says that a man ‘with good inclinations’ can be of more use in America than under the ground. Well, and where will our underground hymn take place? Forget America, America means vanity again! And there’s a lot of swindling in America, too, I think. To run away from crucifixion! I’m talking to you, Alexei, because you alone can understand this, and no one else, for the others it’s foolishness, raving—all that I was telling you about the hymn. They’ll say, he’s lost his mind, or else he’s a fool. But I haven’t lost my mind, and I’m not a fool either. Ivan, too, understands about the hymn, oof, he understands—only he doesn’t respond to it, he’s silent. He doesn’t believe in the hymn. Don’t speak, don’t speak: I see your look: you’ve already decided! Don’t decide, spare me, I can’t live without Grusha, wait for the trial!”

Mitya ended as if in a frenzy. He held Alyosha by the shoulders with both hands, and simply fixed his eyes with his yearning, feverish look.

“Do they let convicts marry?” he repeated for the third time, in a pleading voice.

Alyosha listened with extreme surprise and was deeply shaken.

“Tell me one thing,” he said, “does Ivan insist on it very much, and who was the first to come up with it?”

“He, he came up with it, he insists on it! For a while he wouldn’t come to see me, and then he suddenly came a week ago and began straight off with it. He’s terribly insistent. He doesn’t ask, he orders. He has no doubt I’ll obey, though I turned my heart inside out for him, as I did for you, and talked about the hymn. He told me how he would arrange it, he’s gathered all the information, but of that later. He wants it to the point of hysterics. The main thing is the money: ten thousand for the escape, he says, and twenty thousand for America, and with ten thousand, he says, we’ll arrange a splendid escape.”

“And he asked you by no means to tell me?” Alyosha asked again.

“By no means to tell anyone, and you above all: not to tell you for anything! He’s surely afraid that you’ll stand before me as my conscience. Don’t tell him I told you. Oof, don’t tell him!”

“You’re right,” Alyosha decided, “it’s impossible to decide before the sentence. After the trial you will decide yourself; you’ll find a new man in yourself then, and he will decide.”

“A new man, or a Bernard, and he will decide Bernard-wise! Because I think I’m a contemptible Bernard myself!” Mitya grinned bitterly.

“But can it be, brother, can it be that you have no hope of acquittal?”

Mitya shrugged convulsively and shook his head.

“Alyosha, darling, it’s time for you to go!” he suddenly hurried. “The warden’s shouting in the yard, he’ll be here soon. It’s late for us, it’s not in order. Embrace me quickly, kiss me, cross me, darling, cross me for tomorrow’s cross ...”

They embraced and kissed each other. “And Ivan,” Mitya spoke suddenly, “suggests I escape, but then he believes I killed father!”

A sad smile forced itself to his lips.

“Did you ask him if he believes it?” Alyosha asked.

“No, I didn’t ask him. I wanted to ask him, but I couldn’t, I lacked the strength. But anyway I can see it in his eyes. Well, good-bye!”

They hastily kissed each other again, and Alyosha was already going out when Mitya suddenly called him back.

“Stand in front of me, like this.”

And again he firmly grasped Alyosha by the shoulders with both hands. His face suddenly became quite pale, so that it was terribly noticeable in the near-darkness. His lips twisted, his eyes were fixed on Alyosha.

“Alyosha, tell me the complete truth, as before the Lord God: do you believe I killed father or not? You, you yourself, do you believe it or not? The complete truth, don’t lie!” he cried to him frenziedly.

Alyosha reeled, as it were, and his heart—he could feel it—seemed pierced by some sharp thing.

“No, don’t, what are you ... ,” he murmured, as if at a loss.

“The whole truth, the whole, don’t lie!” Mitya repeated.

“Never for a single moment have I believed that you are the murderer,” the trembling voice suddenly burst from Alyosha’s breast, and he raised his right hand as if calling on God to witness his words. Mitya’s whole face instantly lit up with bliss.

“Thank you!” he uttered slowly, as if sighing after a swoon. “Now you’ve revived me ... Would you believe it, up to now I was afraid to ask you, even you, you! Well, go, go! You’ve strengthened me for tomorrow, God bless you! Well, go, love Ivan!” was the last word that burst from Mitya.

Alyosha walked out all in tears. Such a degree of insecurity in Mitya, such a degree of mistrust even of him, of Alyosha—all of this suddenly opened up before Alyosha such an abyss of ineluctable grief and despair in the soul of his unfortunate brother as he had not suspected before. Deep, infinite compassion suddenly took hold of him and at once tormented him. His pierced heart ached terribly. “Love Ivan!”—he suddenly recalled Mitya’s parting words. And he was on his way to Ivan. Since morning he had needed terribly to see Ivan. Ivan tormented him no less than Mitya, and now, after his meeting with his brother, more than ever.