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

got home. Serve him right, the swindler! The

guard here told me yesterday; he comes from there.”

 

“Listen,” began Alyosha. “She will come, but I don’t know when.

Perhaps to-day, perhaps in a few days, that I can’t tell. But she will

come, she will, that’s certain.”

 

Mitya started, would have said something, but was silent. The news

had a tremendous effect on him. It was evident that he would have

liked terribly to know what had been said, but he was again afraid

to ask. Something cruel and contemptuous from Katya would have cut him

like a knife at that moment.

 

“This was what she said among other things; that I must be sure to

set your conscience at rest about escaping. If Ivan is not well by

then she will see to it all herself.”

 

“You’ve spoken of that already,” Mitya observed musingly.

 

“And you have repeated it to Grusha,” observed Alyosha.

 

“Yes,” Mitya admitted. “She won’t come this morning.” He looked

timidly at his brother. “She won’t come till the evening. When I

told her yesterday that Katya was taking measures, she was silent, but

she set her mouth. She only whispered, ‘Let her!’ She understood

that it was important. I did not dare to try her further. She

understands now, I think, that Katya no longer cares for me, but loves

Ivan.”

 

“Does she?” broke from Alyosha.

 

“Perhaps she does not. Only she is not coming this morning,” Mitya

hastened to explain again; “I asked her to do something for me. You

know, Ivan is superior to all of us. He ought to live, not us. He will

recover.”

 

“Would you believe it, though Katya is alarmed about him, she

scarcely doubts of his recovery,” said Alyosha.

 

“That means that she is convinced he will die. It’s because she is

frightened she’s so sure he will get well.”

 

“Ivan has a strong constitution, and I, too, believe there’s every

hope that he will get well,” Alyosha observed anxiously.

 

“Yes, he will get well. But she is convinced that he will die. She

has a great deal of sorrow to bear…” A silence followed. A grave

anxiety was fretting Mitya.

 

“Alyosha, I love Grusha terribly,” he said suddenly in a shaking

voice, full of tears.

 

“They won’t let her go out there to you,” Alyosha put in at once.

 

“And there is something else I wanted tell you,” Mitya went on,

with a sudden ring in his voice. “If they beat me on the way or out

there, I won’t submit to it. I shall kill someone, and shall be shot

for it. And this will be going on for twenty years! They speak to me

rudely as it is. I’ve been lying here all night, passing judgment on

myself. I am not ready! I am not able to resign myself. I wanted to

sing a ‘hymn’; but if a guard speaks rudely to me, I have not the

strength to bear it. For Grusha I would bear anything… anything

except blows…. But she won’t be allowed to come there.”

 

Alyosha smiled gently.

 

“Listen, brother, once for all,” he said. “This is what I think

about it. And you know that I would not tell you a lie. Listen: you

are not ready, and such a cross is not for you. What’s more, you don’t

need such a martyr’s cross when you are not ready for it. If you had

murdered our father, it would grieve me that you should reject your

punishment. But you are innocent, and such a cross is too much for

you. You wanted to make yourself another man by suffering. I say, only

remember that other man always, all your life and wherever you go; and

that will be enough for you. Your refusal of that great cross will

only serve to make you feel all your life even greater duty, and

that constant feeling will do more to make you a new man, perhaps,

than if you went there. For there you would not endure it and would

repine, and perhaps at last would say: ‘I am quits.’ The lawyer was

right about that. Such heavy burdens are not for all men. For some

they are impossible. These are my thoughts about it, if you want

them so much. If other men would have to answer for your escape,

officers or soldiers, then I would not have ‘allowed’ you,” smiled

Alyosha. “But they declare-the superintendent of that etape* told

Ivan himself-that if it’s well managed there will be no great

inquiry, and that they can get off easily. Of course, bribing is

dishonest even in such a case, but I can’t undertake to judge about

it, because if Ivan and Katya commissioned me to act for you, I know I

should go and give bribes. I must tell you the truth. And so I can’t

judge of your own action. But let me assure you that I shall never

condemn you. And it would be a strange thing if I could judge you in

this. Now I think I’ve gone into everything.”

 

* Stockade.

 

“But I do condemn myself!” cried Mitya. “I shall escape, that

was settled apart from you; could Mitya Karamazov do anything but

run away? But I shall condemn myself, and I will pray for my sin for

ever. That’s how the Jesuits talk, isn’t it? Just as we are doing?”

 

“Yes.” Alyosha smiled gently.

 

“I love you for always telling the whole truth and never hiding

anything,” cried Mitya, with a joyful laugh. “So I’ve caught my

Alyosha being Jesuitical. I must kiss you for that. Now listen to

the rest; I’ll open the other side of my heart to you. This is what

I planned and decided. If I run away, even with money and a

passport, and even to America, I should be cheered up by the thought

that I am not running away for pleasure, not for happiness, but to

another exile as bad, perhaps, as Siberia. It is as bad, Alyosha, it

is! I hate that America, damn it, already. Even though Grusha will

be with me. Just look at her; is she an American? She is Russian,

Russian to the marrow of her bones; she will be homesick for the

mother country, and I shall see every hour that she is suffering for

my sake, that she has taken up that cross for me. And what harm has

she done? And how shall I, too, put up with the rabble out there,

though they may be better than I, every one of them? I hate that

America already! And though they may be wonderful at machinery,

every one of them, damn them, they are not of my soul. I love

Russia, Alyosha, I love the Russian God, though I am a scoundrel

myself. I shall choke there!” he exclaimed, his eyes suddenly

flashing. His voice was trembling with tears. “So this is what I’ve

decided, Alyosha, listen,” he began again, mastering his emotion.

“As soon as I arrive there with Grusha, we will set to work at once on

the land, in solitude, somewhere very remote, with wild bears. There

must be some remote parts even there. I am told there are still

Redskins there, somewhere, on the edge of the horizon. So to the

country of the Last of the Mohicans, and there we’ll tackle the

grammar at once, Grusha and I. Work and grammar-that’s how we’ll

spend three years. And by that time we shall speak English like any

Englishman. And as soon as we’ve learnt it-good-bye to America! We’ll

run here to Russia as American citizens. Don’t be uneasy-we would not

come to this little town. We’d hide somewhere, a long way off, in

the north or in the south. I shall be changed by that time, and she

will, too, in America. The doctors shall make me some sort of wart

on my face-what’s the use of their being so mechanical!- or else I’ll

put out one eye, let my beard grow a yard, and I shall turn grey,

fretting for Russia. I dare say they won’t recognise us. And if they

do, let them send us to Siberia-I don’t care. It will show it’s our

fate. We’ll work on the land here, too, somewhere in the wilds, and

I’ll make up as an American all my life. But we shall die on our own

soil. That’s my plan, and it shan’t be altered. Do you approve?”

 

“Yes,” said Alyosha, not wanting to contradict him. Mitya paused

for a minute and said suddenly:

 

“And how they worked it up at the trial! Didn’t they work it up!”

 

“If they had not, you would have been convicted just the same,”

said Alyosha, with a sigh.

 

“Yes, people are sick of me here! God bless them, but it’s

hard,” Mitya moaned miserably. Again there was silence for a minute.

 

“Alyosha, put me out of my misery at once!” he exclaimed suddenly.

“Tell me, is she coming now, or not? Tell me? What did she say? How

did she say it?”

 

“She said she would come, but I don’t know whether she will come

to-day. It’s hard for her, you know,” Alyosha looked timidly at his

brother.

 

“I should think it is hard for her! Alyosha, it will drive me

out of my mind. Grusha keeps looking at me. She understands. My God,

calm my heart: what is it I want? I want Katya! Do I understand what I

want? It’s the headstrong, evil Karamazov spirit! No, I am not fit for

suffering. I am a scoundrel, that’s all one can say.”

 

“Here she is!” cried Alyosha.

 

At that instant Katya appeared in the doorway. For a moment she

stood still, gazing at Mitya with a dazed expression. He leapt

pulsively to his feet, and a scared look came into his face. He turned

pale, but a timid, pleading smile appeared on his lips at once, and

with an irresistible impulse he held out both hands to Katya. Seeing

it, she flew impetuously to him. She seized him by the hands, and

almost by force made him sit down on the bed. She sat down beside him,

and still keeping his hands pressed them violently. Several times they

both strove to speak, but stopped short and again gazed speechless

with a strange smile, their eyes fastened on one another. So passed

two minutes.

 

“Have you forgiven me?” Mitya faltered at last, and at the same

moment turning to Alyosha, his face working with joy, he cried, “Do

you hear what I am asking, do you hear?”

 

“That’s what I loved you for, that you are generous at heart!”

broke from Katya. “My forgiveness is no good to you, nor yours to

me; whether you forgive me or not, you will always be a sore place

in my heart, and I in yours-so it must be….” She stopped to take

breath. “What have I come for?” she began again with nervous haste:

“to embrace your feet, to press your hands like this, till it hurts-you remember how in Moscow I used to squeeze them-to tell you again

that you are my god, my joy, to tell you that I love you madly,” she

moaned in anguish, and suddenly pressed his hand greedily to her lips.

Tears streamed from her eyes. Alyosha stood speechless and confounded;

he had never expected what he was seeing.

 

“Love is over, Mitya!” Katya began again, “But the past is

painfully dear to me. Know that you will always be so. But now let

what might have been come true for one minute,” she faltered, with a

drawn smile, looking into his face joyfully again. “You love another

woman, and I love another man, and