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

When I get hold of the silly woman’s fortune, I can be

of great social utility.’ They have this social justification for

every nasty thing they do! ‘Anyway it’s better than your Pushkin’s

poetry,’ he said, ‘for I’ve managed to advocate enlightenment even

in that.’ I understand what he means about Pushkin, I quite see

that, if he really was a man of talent and only wrote about women’s

feet. But wasn’t Rakitin stuck up about his doggerel! The vanity of

these fellows! ‘On the convalescence of the swollen foot of the object

of my affections’- he thought of that for a title. He’s a waggish

fellow.

 

A captivating little foot,

 

Though swollen and red and tender!

 

The doctors come and plasters put,

 

But still they cannot mend her.

 

Yet, ‘tis not for her foot I dread-

 

A theme for Pushkin’s muse more fit-

 

It’s not her foot, it is her head:

 

I tremble for her loss of wit!

 

For as her foot swells, strange to say,

 

Her intellect is on the wane-

 

Oh, for some remedy I pray

 

That may restore both foot and brain!

 

He is a pig, a regular pig, but he’s very arch, the rascal! And he

really has put in a progressive idea. And wasn’t he angry when she

kicked him out! He was gnashing his teeth!”

 

“He’s taken his revenge already,” said Alyosha. “He’s written a

paragraph about Madame Hohlakov.”

 

And Alyosha told him briefly about the paragraph in Gossip.

 

“That’s his doing, that’s his doing!” Mitya assented, frowning.

“That’s him! These paragraphs… I know… the insulting things that

have been written about Grushenka, for instance…. And about Katya,

too…. H’m!

 

He walked across the room with a harassed air.

 

“Brother, I cannot stay long,” Alyosha said, after a pause.

“To-morrow will be a great and awful day for you, the judgment of

God will be accomplished… I am amazed at you, you walk about here,

talking of I don’t know what…”

 

“No, don’t be amazed at me,” Mitya broke in warmly. “Am I to

talk of that stinking dog? Of the murderer? We’ve talked enough of

him. I don’t want to say more of the stinking son of Stinking

Lizaveta! God will kill him, you will see. Hush!”

 

He went up to Alyosha excitedly and kissed him. His eyes glowed.

 

“Rakitin wouldn’t understand it,” he began in a sort of

exaltation; “but you, you’ll understand it all. That’s why I was

thirsting for you. You see, there’s so much I’ve been wanting to

tell you for ever so long, here, within these peeling walls, but I

haven’t said a word about what matters most; the moment never seems to

have come. Now I can wait no longer. I must pour out my heart to

you. Brother, these last two months I’ve found in myself a new man.

A new man has risen up in me. He was hidden in me, but would never

have come to the surface, if it hadn’t been for this blow from heaven.

I am afraid! And what do I care if I spend twenty years in the

mines, breaking ore with a hammer? I am not a bit afraid of that-it’s

something else I am afraid of now: that that new man may leave me.

Even there, in the mines, underground, I may find a human heart in

another convict and murderer by my side, and I may make friends with

him, for even there one may live and love and suffer. One may thaw and

revive a frozen heart in that convict, one may wait upon him for

years, and at last bring up from the dark depths a lofty soul, a

feeling, suffering creature; one may bring forth an angel, create a

hero! There are so many of them, hundreds of them, and we are all to

blame for them. Why was it I dreamed of that ‘babe’ at such a

moment? ‘Why is the babe so poor?’ That was a sign to me at that

moment. It’s for the babe I’m going. Because we are all responsible

for all. For all the ‘babes,’ for there are big children as well as

little children All are ‘babes.’ I go for all, because someone must go

for all. I didn’t kill father, but I’ve got to go. I accept it. It’s

all come to me here, here, within these peeling walls. There are

numbers of them there, hundreds of them underground, with hammers in

their hands. Oh, yes, we shall be in chains and there will be no

freedom, but then, in our great sorrow, we shall rise again to joy,

without which man cannot live nor God exist, for God gives joy: it’s

His privilege-a grand one. Ah, man should be dissolved in prayer!

What should I be underground there without God? Rakitin’s laughing! If

they drive God from the earth, we shall shelter Him underground. One

cannot exist in prison without God; it’s even more impossible than out

of prison. And then we men underground will sing from the bowels of

the earth a glorious hymn to God, with Whom is joy. Hail to God and

His joy! I love Him!”

 

Mitya was almost gasping for breath as he uttered his wild speech.

He turned pale, his lips quivered, and tears rolled down his cheeks.

 

“Yes, life is full, there is life even underground,” he began

again. “You wouldn’t believe, Alexey, how I want to live now, what a

thirst for existence and consciousness has sprung up in me within

these peeling walls. Rakitin doesn’t understand that; all he cares

about is building a house and letting flats. But I’ve been longing for

you. And what is suffering? I am not afraid of it, even if it were

beyond reckoning. I am not afraid of it now. I was afraid of it

before. Do you know, perhaps I won’t answer at the trial at all….

And I seem to have such strength in me now, that I think I could stand

anything, any suffering, only to be able to say and to repeat to

myself every moment, ‘I exist.’ In thousands of agonies-I exist.

I’m tormented on the rack-but I exist! Though I sit alone on a

pillar-I exist! I see the sun, and if I don’t see the sun, I know

it’s there. And there’s a whole life in that, in knowing that the

sun is there. Alyosha, my angel, all these philosophies are the

death of me. Damn them! Brother Ivan-”

 

“What of brother Ivan?” interrupted Alyosha, but Mitya did not

hear.

 

“You see, I never had any of these doubts before, but it was all

hidden away in me. It was perhaps just because ideas I did not

understand were surging up in me, that I used to drink and fight and

rage. It was to stifle them in myself, to still them, to smother them.

Ivan is not Rakitin, there is an idea in him. Ivan is a sphinx and

is silent; he is always silent. It’s God that’s worrying me. That’s

the only thing that’s worrying me. What if He doesn’t exist? What if

Rakitin’s right-that it’s an idea made up by men? Then if He

doesn’t exist, man is the chief of the earth, of the universe.

Magnificent! Only how is he going to be good without God? That’s the

question. I always come back to that. For whom is man going to love

then? To whom will he be thankful? To whom will he sing the hymn?

Rakitin laughs. Rakitin says that one can love humanity without God.

Well, only a snivelling idiot can maintain that. I can’t understand

it. Life’s easy for Rakitin. ‘You’d better think about the extension

of civic rights, or even of keeping down the price of meat. You will

show your love for humanity more simply and directly by that, than

by philosophy.’ I answered him, ‘Well, but you, without a God, are

more likely to raise the price of meat, if it suits you, and make a

rouble on every copeck.’ He lost his temper. But after all, what is

goodness? Answer me that, Alexey. Goodness is one thing with me and

another with a Chinaman, so it’s a relative thing. Or isn’t it? Is

it not relative? A treacherous question! You won’t laugh if I tell you

it’s kept me awake two nights. I only wonder now how people can live

and think nothing about it. Vanity! Ivan has no God. He has an idea.

It’s beyond me. But he is silent. I believe he is a Freemason. I asked

him, but he is silent. I wanted to drink from the springs of his soul-he was silent. But once he did drop a word.”

 

“What did he say?” Alyosha took it up quickly.

 

“I said to him, ‘Then everything is lawful, if it is so?’ He

frowned. ‘Fyodor Pavlovitch, our papa,’ he said, ‘was a pig, but his

ideas were right enough.’ That was what he dropped. That was all he

said. That was going one better than Rakitin.”

 

“Yes,” Alyosha assented bitterly. “When was he with you?”

 

“Of that later; now I must speak of something else. I have said

nothing about Ivan to you before. I put it off to the last. When my

business here is over and the verdict has been given, then I’ll tell

you something. I’ll tell you everything. We’ve something tremendous on

hand…. And you shall be my judge in it. But don’t begin about that

now; be silent. You talk of to-morrow, of the trial; but, would you

believe it, I know nothing about it.”

 

“Have you talked to the counsel?”

 

“What’s the use of the counsel? I told him all about it. He’s a

soft, city-bred rogue-a Bernard! But he doesn’t believe me-not a bit

of it. Only imagine, he believes I did it. I see it. ‘In that case,’ I

asked him, ‘why have you come to defend me?’ Hang them all! They’ve

got a doctor down, too, want to prove I’m mad. I won’t have that!

Katerina Ivanovna wants to do her ‘duty’ to the end, whatever the

strain!” Mitya smiled bitterly. “The cat! Hardhearted creature! She

knows that I said of her at Mokroe that she was a woman of ‘great

wrath.’ They repeated it. Yes, the facts against me have grown

numerous as the sands of the sea. Grigory sticks to his point.

Grigory’s honest, but a fool. Many people are honest because they

are fools: that’s Rakitin’s idea. Grigory’s my enemy. And there are

some people who are better as foes than friends. I mean Katerina

Ivanovna. I am afraid, oh, I am afraid she will tell how she bowed

to the ground after that four thousand. She’ll pay it back to the last

farthing. I don’t want her sacrifice; they’ll put me to shame at the

trial. I wonder how I can stand it. Go to her, Alyosha, ask her not to

speak of that in the court, can’t you? But damn it all, it doesn’t

matter! I shall get through somehow. I don’t pity her. It’s her own

doing. She deserves what she gets. I shall have my own story to

tell, Alexey.” He smiled bitterly again. “Only… only Grusha, Grusha!

Good Lord! Why should she have such suffering to bear?” he exclaimed

suddenly, with tears. “Grusha’s killing me; the thought of her’s

killing me, killing me. She was with me just now…”

 

“She told me she was very much grieved by you to-day.”

 

“I know. Confound my temper! It was jealousy. I was sorry, I

kissed her as she was going. I didn’t ask her forgiveness.”

 

“Why didn’t you?” exclaimed Alyosha.

 

Suddenly Mitya laughed almost mirthfully.

 

“God preserve