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

was very well satisfied with this piece of

evidence. Further examination elicited that Grushenka knew, too, where

that money had come from, and that Dmitri Fyodorovitch had got it from

Katerina Ivanovna.

 

“And did you never, once, hear that the money spent a month ago

was not three thousand, but less, and that Dmitri Fyodorovitch had

saved half that sum for his own use?”

 

“No, I never heard that,” answered Grushenka.

 

It was explained further that Mitya had, on the contrary, often

told her that he hadn’t a farthing.

 

“He was always expecting to get some from his father,” said

Grushenka in conclusion.

 

“Did he never say before you… casually, or in a moment of

irritation,” Nikolay Parfenovitch put in suddenly, “that he intended

to make an attempt on his father’s life?”

 

“Ach, he did say so,” sighed Grushenka.

 

“Once or several times?”

 

“He mentioned it several times, always in anger.”

 

“And did you believe he would do it?”

 

“No, I never believed it,” she answered firmly. “I had faith in

his noble heart.”

 

“Gentlemen, allow me,” cried Mitya suddenly, “allow me to say

one word to Agrafena Alexandrovna, in your presence.”

 

“You can speak,” Nikolay Parfenovitch assented.

 

“Agrafena Alexandrovna!” Mitya got up from his chair, “have

faith in God and in me. I am not guilty of my father’s murder!”

 

Having uttered these words Mitya sat down again on his chair.

Grushenka stood up and crossed herself devoutly before the ikon.

 

“Thanks be to Thee, O Lord,” she said, in a voice thrilled with

emotion, and still standing, she turned to Nikolay Parfenovitch and

added:

 

“As he has spoken now, believe it! I know him. He’ll say

anything as a joke or from obstinacy, but he’ll never deceive you

against his conscience. He’s telling the whole truth, you may

believe it.”

 

“Thanks, Agrafena Alexandrovna, you’ve given me fresh courage,”

Mitya responded in a quivering voice.

 

As to the money spent the previous day, she declared that she

did not know what sum it was, but had heard him tell several people

that he had three thousand with him. And to the question where he

got the money, she said that he had told her that he had “stolen” it

from Katerina Ivanovna, and that she had replied to that that he

hadn’t stolen it, and that he must pay the money back next day. On the

prosecutor’s asking her emphatically whether the money he said he

had stolen from Katerina Ivanovna was what he had spent yesterday,

or what he had squandered here a month ago, she declared that he meant

the money spent a month ago, and that that was how she understood him.

 

Grushenka was at last released, and Nikolay Parfenovitch

informed her impulsively that she might at once return to the town and

that if he could be of any assistance to her, with horses for example,

or if she would care for an escort, he… would be-

 

“I thank you sincerely,” said Grushenka, bowing to him, “I’m going

with this old gentleman; I am driving him back to town with me, and

meanwhile, if you’ll allow me, I’ll wait below to hear what you decide

about Dmitri Fyodorovitch.”

 

She went out. Mitya was calm, and even looked more cheerful, but

only for a moment. He felt more and more oppressed by a strange

physical weakness. His eyes were closing with fatigue. The examination

of the witnesses was, at last, over. They procceded to a revision of

the protocol. Mitya got up, moved from his chair to the corner by

the curtain, lay down on a large chest covered with a rug, and

instantly fell asleep.

 

He had a strange dream, utterly out of keeping with the place

and the time.

 

He was driving somewhere in the steppes, where he had been

stationed long ago, and a peasant was driving him in a cart with a

pair of horses, through snow and sleet. He was cold, it was early in

November, and the snow was falling in big wet flakes, melting as

soon as it touched the earth. And the peasant drove him smartly, he

had a fair, long beard. He was not an old man, somewhere about

fifty, and he had on a grey peasant’s smock. Not far off was a

village, he could see the black huts, and half the huts were burnt

down, there were only the charred beams sticking up. And as they drove

in, there were peasant women drawn up along the road, a lot of

women, a whole row, all thin and wan, with their faces a sort of

brownish colour, especially one at the edge, a tall, bony woman, who

looked forty, but might have been only twenty, with a long thin

face. And in her arms was a little baby crying. And her breasts seemed

so dried up that there was not a drop of milk in them. And the child

cried and cried, and held out its little bare arms, with its little

fists blue from cold.

 

“Why are they crying? Why are they crying?” Mitya asked, as they

dashed gaily by.

 

“It’s the babe,” answered the driver, “the babe weeping.”

 

And Mitya was struck by his saying, in his peasant way, “the

babe,” and he liked the peasant’s calling it a “babe.” There seemed

more pity in it.

 

“But why is it weeping?” Mitya persisted stupidly, “why are its

little arms bare? Why don’t they wrap it up?”

 

“The babe’s cold, its little clothes are frozen and don’t warm

it.”

 

“But why is it? Why?” foolish Mitya still persisted.

 

“Why, they’re poor people, burnt out. They’ve no bread. They’re

begging because they’ve been burnt out.”

 

“No, no,” Mitya, as it were, still did not understand. “Tell me

why it is those poor mothers stand there? Why are people poor? Why

is the babe poor? Why is the steppe barren? Why don’t they hug each

other and kiss? Why don’t they sing songs of joy? Why are they so dark

from black misery? Why don’t they feed the babe?”

 

And he felt that, though his questions were unreasonable and

senseless, yet he wanted to ask just that, and he had to ask it just

in that way. And he felt that a passion of pity, such as he had

never known before, was rising in his heart, that he wanted to cry,

that he wanted to do something for them all, so that the babe should

weep no more, so that the dark-faced, dried-up mother should not weep,

that no one should shed tears again from that moment, and he wanted to

do it at once, at once, regardless of all obstacles, with all the

recklessness of the Karamazovs.

 

“And I’m coming with you. I won’t leave you now for the rest of my

life, I’m coming with you”, he heard close beside him Grushenka’s

tender voice, thrilling with emotion. And his heart glowed, and he

struggled forward towards the light, and he longed to live, to live,

to go on and on, towards the new, beckoning light, and to hasten,

hasten, now, at once! “What! Where?” he exclaimed opening his eyes,

and sitting up on the chest, as though he had revived from a swoon,

smiling brightly. Nikolay Parfenovitch was standing over him,

suggesting that he should hear the protocol read aloud and sign it.

Mitya guessed that he had been asleep an hour or more, but he did

not hear Nikolay Parfenovitch. He was suddenly struck by the fact that

there was a pillow under his head, which hadn’t been there when he had

leant back, exhausted, on the chest.

 

“Who put that pillow under my head? Who was so kind?” he cried,

with a sort of ecstatic gratitude, and tears in his voice, as though

some great kindness had been shown him.

 

He never found out who this kind man was; perhaps one of the

peasant witnesses, or Nikolay Parfenovitch’s little secretary, had

compassionately thought to put a pillow under his head; but his

whole soul was quivering with tears. He went to the table and said

that he would sign whatever they liked.

 

“I’ve had a good dream, gentlemen,” he said in a strange voice,

with a new light, as of joy, in his face.