The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky [children's books read aloud TXT] 📗

Chapter 1

The Beginning of Perhotin’s Official Career

 

PYOTR ILYITCH PERHOTIN, whom we left knocking at the strong locked

gates of the widow Morozov’s house, ended, of course, by making

himself heard. Fenya, who was still excited by the fright she had

had two hours before, and too much “upset” to go to bed, was almost

frightened into hysterics on hearing the furious knocking at the gate.

Though she had herself seen him drive away, she fancied that it must

be Dmitri Fyodorovitch knocking again, no one else could knock so

savagely. She ran to the houseporter, who had already waked up and

gone out to the gate, and began imploring him not to open it. But

having questioned Pyotr Ilyitch, and learned that he wanted to see

Fenya on very “important business,” the man made up his mind at last

to open. Pyotr Ilyitch was admitted into Fenya’s kitchen, but the girl

begged him to allow the houseporter to be present, “because of her

misgivings.” He began questioning her and at once learnt the most

vital fact, that is, that when Dmitri Fyodorovitch had run out to look

for Grushenka, he had snatched up a pestle from the mortar, and that

when he returned, the pestle was not with him and his hands were

smeared with blood.

 

“And the blood was simply flowing, dripping from him, dripping!”

Fenya kept exclaiming. This horrible detail was simply the product

of her disordered imagination. But although not “dripping,” Pyotr

Ilyitch had himself seen those hands stained with blood, and had

helped to wash them. Moreover, the question he had to decide was,

not how soon the blood had dried, but where Dmitri Fyodorovitch had

run with the pestle, or rather, whether it really was to Fyodor

Pavlovitch’s, and how he could satisfactorily ascertain. Pyotr Ilyitch

persisted in returning to this point, and though he found out

nothing conclusive, yet he carried away a conviction that Dmitri

Fyodorovitch could have gone nowhere but to his father’s house, and

that, therefore, something must have happened there.

 

“And when he came back,” Fenya added with excitement. “I told

him the whole story, and then I began asking him, ‘Why have you got

blood on your hands, Dmitri Fyodorovitch?’ and he answered that that

was human blood, and that he had just killed someone. He confessed

it all to me, and suddenly ran off like a madman. I sat down and began

thinking, where’s he run off to now like a madman? He’ll go to Mokroe,

I thought, and kill my mistress there. I ran out to beg him not to

kill her. I was running to his lodgings, but I looked at Plotnikov’s

shop, and saw him just setting off, and there was no blood on his

hands then.” (Fenya had noticed this and remembered it.) Fenya’s old

grandmother confirmed her evidence as far as she was capable. After

asking some further questions, Pyotr Ilyitch left the house, even more

upset and uneasy than he had been when he entered it.

 

The most direct and the easiest thing for him to do would have

been to go straight to Fyodor Pavlovitch’s, to find out whether

anything had happened there, and if so, what; and only to go to the

police captain, as Pyotr Ilyitch firmly intended doing, when he had

satisfied himself of the fact. But the night was dark, Fyodor

Pavlovitch’s gates were strong, and he would have to knock again.

His acquaintance with Fyodor Pavlovitch was of the slightest, and what

if, after he had been knocking, they opened to him, and nothing had

happened? Fyodor Pavlovitch in his jeering way would go telling the

story all over the town, how a stranger, called Perhotin, had broken

in upon him at midnight to ask if anyone had killed him. It would make

a scandal. And scandal was what Pyotr Ilyitch dreaded more than

anything in the world.

 

Yet the feeling that possessed him was so strong, that though he

stamped his foot angrily and swore at himself, he set off again, not

to Fyodor Pavlovitch’s but to Madame Hohlakov’s. He decided that if

she denied having just given Dmitri Fyodorovitch three thousand

roubles, he would go straight to the police captain, but if she

admitted having given him the money, he would go home and let the

matter rest till next morning.

 

It is, of course, perfectly evident that there was even more

likelihood of causing scandal by going at eleven o’clock at night to a

fashionable lady, a complete stranger, and perhaps rousing her from

her bed to ask her an amazing question, than by going to Fyodor

Pavlovitch. But that is just how it is, sometimes, especially in cases

like the present one, with the decisions of the most precise and

phlegmatic people. Pyotr Ilyitch was by no means phlegmatic at that

moment. He remembered all his life how a haunting uneasiness gradually

gained possession of him, growing more and more painful and driving

him on, against his will. Yet he kept cursing himself, of course,

all the way for going to this lady, but “I will get to the bottom of

it, I will!” he repeated for the tenth time, grinding his teeth, and

he carried out his intention.

 

It was exactly eleven o’clock when he entered Madame Hohlakov’s

house. He was admitted into the yard pretty quickly, but, in

response to his inquiry whether the lady was still up, the porter

could give no answer, except that she was usually in bed by that time.

 

“Ask at the top of the stairs. If the lady wants to receive you,

she’ll receive you. If she won’t, she won’t.”

 

Pyotr Ilyitch went up, but did not find things so easy here. The

footman was unwilling to take in his name, but finally called a

maid. Pyotr Ilyitch politely but insistently begged her to inform

her lady that an official, living in the town, called Perhotin, had

called on particular business, and that if it were not of the greatest

importance he would not have ventured to come. “Tell her in those

words, in those words exactly,” he asked the girl.

 

She went away. He remained waiting in the entry. Madame Hohlakov

herself was already in her bedroom, though not yet asleep. She had

felt upset ever since Mitya’s visit, and had a presentiment that she

would not get through the night without the sick headache which

always, with her, followed such excitement. She was surprised on

hearing the announcement from the maid. She irritably declined to

see him, however, though the unexpected visit at such an hour, of an

“official living in the town,” who was a total stranger, roused her

feminine curiosity intensely. But this time Pyotr Ilyitch was as

obstinate as a mule. He begged the maid most earnestly to take another

message in these very words:

 

“That he had come on business of the greatest importance, and that

Madame Hohlakov might have cause to regret it later, if she refused to

see him now.”

 

“I plunged headlong,” he described it afterwards.

 

The maid, gazing at him in amazement, went to take his message

again. Madame Hohlakov was impressed. She thought a little, asked what

he looked like, and learned that he was very well dressed, young,

and so polite.” We may note, parenthetically, that Pyotr Ilyitch was a

rather good-looking young man, and well aware of the fact. Madame

Hohlakov made up her mind to see him. She was in her dressing-gown and

slippers, but she flung a black shawl over her shoulders. “The

official” was asked to walk into the drawing-room, the very room in

which Mitya had been received shortly before. The lady came to meet

her visitor, with a sternly inquiring countenance, and, without asking

him to sit down, began at once with the question:

 

“What do you want?”

 

“I have ventured to disturb you, madam, on a matter concerning our

common acquaintance, Dmitri Fyodorovitch Karamazov,” Perhotin began.

 

But he had hardly uttered the name, when the lady’s face showed

signs of acute irritation. She almost shrieked, and interrupted him in

a fury:

 

“How much longer am I to be worried by that awful man?” she

cried hysterically. “How dare you, sir, how could you venture to

disturb a lady who is a stranger to you, in her own house at such an

hour!… And to force yourself upon her to talk of a man who