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

dressed up in fine clothes, though her old mother

and she had sunk into such poverty that they went every day to

Fyodor Pavlovitch’s kitchen for soup and bread, which Marfa gave

readily. Yet, though the young woman came up for soup, she had never

sold any of her dresses, and one of these even had a long train-a

fact which Alyosha had learned from Rakitin, who always knew

everything that was going on in the town. He had forgotten it as

soon as he heard it, but now, on reaching the garden, he remembered

the dress with the train, raised his head, which had been bowed in

thought, and came upon something quite unexpected.

 

Over the hurdle in the garden, Dmitri, mounted on something, was

leaning forward, gesticulating violently, beckoning to him,

obviously afraid to utter a word for fear of being overheard.

Alyosha ran up to the hurdle.

 

“It’s a good thing you looked up. I was nearly shouting to you,”

Mitya said in a joyful, hurried whisper. “Climb in here quickly! How

splendid that you’ve come! I was just thinking of you”

 

Alyosha was delighted too, but he did not know how to get over the

hurdle. Mitya put his powerful hand under his elbow to help him

jump. Tucking up his cassock, Alyosha leapt over the hurdle with the

agility of a bare-legged street urchin.

 

“Well done! Now come along,” said Mitya in an enthusiastic

whisper.

 

“Where?” whispered Alyosha, looking about him and finding

himself in a deserted garden with no one near but themselves. The

garden was small, but the house was at least fifty paces away.

 

“There’s no one here. Why do you whisper?” asked Alyosha.

 

“Why do I whisper? Deuce take it” cried Dmitri at the top of his

voice. “You see what silly tricks nature plays one. I am here in

secret, and on the watch. I’ll explain later on, but, knowing it’s a

secret, I began whispering like a fool, when there’s no need. Let us

go. Over there. Till then be quiet. I want to kiss you.

 

Glory to God in the world,

 

Glory to God in me…

 

I was just repeating that, sitting here, before you came.”

 

The garden was about three acres in extent, and planted with trees

only along the fence at the four sides. There were apple-trees,

maples, limes and birch-trees. The middle of the garden was an empty

grass space, from which several hundredweight of hay was carried in

the summer. The garden was let out for a few roubles for the summer.

There were also plantations of raspberries and currants and

gooseberries laid out along the sides; a kitchen garden had been

planted lately near the house.

 

Dmitri led his brother to the most secluded corner of the

garden. There, in a thicket of lime-trees and old bushes of black

currant, elder, snowball-tree, and lilac, there stood a tumbledown

green summer-house; blackened with age. Its walls were of

lattice-work, but there was still a roof which could give shelter. God

knows when this summer-house was built. There was a tradition that

it had been put up some fifty years before by a retired colonel called

von Schmidt, who owned the house at that time. It was all in decay,

the floor was rotting, the planks were loose, the woodwork smelled

musty. In the summer-house there was a green wooden table fixed in the

ground, and round it were some green benches upon which it was still

possible to sit. Alyosha had at once observed his brother’s

exhilarated condition, and on entering the arbour he saw half a bottle

of brandy and a wineglass on the table.

 

“That’s brandy,” Mitya laughed. “I see your look: ‘He’s drinking

again” Distrust the apparition.

 

Distrust the worthless, lying crowd,

 

And lay aside thy doubts.

 

I’m not drinking, I’m only ‘indulging,’ as that pig, your Rakitin,

says. He’ll be a civil councillor one day, but he’ll always talk about

‘indulging.’ Sit down. I could take you in my arms, Alyosha, and press

you to my bosom till I crush you, for in the whole world-in

reality-in real-i-ty- (can you take it in?) I love no one but you!

 

He uttered the last words in a sort of exaltation.

 

“No one but you and one ‘jade’ I have fallen in love with, to my

ruin. But being in love doesn’t mean loving. You may be in love with a

woman and yet hate her. Remember that! I can talk about it gaily

still. Sit down here by the table and I’ll sit beside you and look

at you, and go on talking. You shall keep quiet and I’ll go on

talking, for the time has come. But on reflection, you know, I’d

better speak quietly, for here-here- you can never tell what ears are

listening. I will explain everything; as they say, ‘the story will

be continued.’ Why have I been longing for you? Why have I been

thirsting for you all these days, and just now? (It’s five days

since I’ve cast anchor here.) Because it’s only to you I can tell

everything; because I must, because I need you, because to-morrow I

shall fly from the clouds, because to-morrow life is ending and

beginning. Have you ever felt, have you ever dreamt of falling down

a precipice into a pit? That’s just how I’m falling, but not in a

dream. And I’m not afraid, and don’t you be afraid. At least, I am

afraid, but I enjoy it. It’s not enjoyment though, but ecstasy. Damn

it all, whatever it is! A strong spirit, a weak spirit, a womanish

spirit-what, ever it is! Let us praise nature: you see what sunshine,

how clear the sky is, the leaves are all green, it’s still summer;

four o’clock in the afternoon and the stillness! Where were you

going?”

 

“I was going to father’s, but I meant to go to Katerina Ivanovna’s

first.”

 

“To her, and to father! Oo! what a coincidence! Why was I

waiting for you? Hungering and thirsting for you in every cranny of my

soul and even in my ribs? Why, to send you to father and to her,

Katerina Ivanovna, so as to have done with her and with father. To

send an angel. I might have sent anyone, but I wanted to send an

angel. And here you are on your way to see father and her.”

 

“Did you really mean to send me?” cried Alyosha with a

distressed expression.

 

“Stay! You knew it And I see you understand it all at once. But be

quiet, be quiet for a time. Don’t be sorry, and don’t cry.”

 

Dmitri stood up, thought a moment, and put his finger to his

forehead.

 

“She’s asked you, written to you a letter or something, that’s why

you’re going to her? You wouldn’t be going except for that?”

 

“Here is her note.” Alyosha took it out of his pocket. Mitya

looked through it quickly.

 

“And you were going the backway! Oh, gods, I thank you for sending

him by the backway, and he came to me like the golden fish to the

silly old fishermen in the fable! Listen, Alyosha, listen, brother!

Now I mean to tell you everything, for I must tell someone. An angel

in heaven I’ve told already; but I want to tell an angel on earth. You

are an angel on earth. You will hear and judge and forgive. And that’s

what I need, that someone above me should forgive. Listen! If two

people break away from everything on earth and fly off into the

unknown, or at least one of them, and before flying off or going to

ruin he comes to someone else and says, ‘Do this for me’- some

favour never asked before that could only be asked on one’s

deathbed-would that other refuse, if he were a friend or a brother?”

 

“I will do it, but tell me what it is, and make haste,” said

Alyosha.

 

“Make haste! H’m!… Don’t be in a hurry, Alyosha, you hurry and

worry yourself. There’s no need to hurry now. Now the world has

taken a new turning. Ah, Alyosha, what a pity you can’t understand

ecstasy. But what am I saying to him? As though you didn’t

understand it. What an ass I am! What am I saying? ‘Be noble, O man!’-

who says that?”

 

Alyosha made up his mind to wait. He felt that, perhaps, indeed,

his work lay here. Mitya sank into thought for a moment, with his

elbow on the table and his head in his hand. Both were silent.

 

“Alyosha,” said Mitya, “you’re the only one who won’t laugh. I

should like to begin-my confession-with Schiller’s Hymn to Joy, An

die Freude! I don’t know German, I only know it’s called that. Don’t

think I’m talking nonsense because I’m drunk. I’m not a bit drunk.

Brandy’s all very well, but I need two bottles to make me drunk:

 

Silenus with his rosy phiz

 

Upon his stumbling ass.

 

But I’ve not drunk a quarter of a bottle, and I’m not Silenus. I’m

not Silenus, though I am strong,* for I’ve made a decision once for

all. Forgive me the pun; you’ll have to forgive me a lot more than

puns to-day. Don’t be uneasy. I’m not spinning it out. I’m talking

sense, and I’ll come to the point in a minute. I won’t keep you in

suspense. Stay, how does it go?”

 

* In Russian, silen.

 

He raised his head, thought a minute, and began with enthusiasm:

 

Wild and fearful in his cavern

 

Hid the naked troglodyte,

 

And the homeless nomad wandered

 

Laying waste the fertile plain.

 

Menacing with spear and arrow

 

In the woods the hunter strayed….

 

Woe to all poor wretches stranded

 

On those cruel and hostile shores!

 

From the peak of high Olympus

 

Came the mother Ceres down,

 

Seeking in those savage regions

 

Her lost daughter Proserpine.

 

But the Goddess found no refuge,

 

Found no kindly welcome there,

 

And no temple bearing witness

 

To the worship of the gods.

 

From the fields and from the vineyards

 

Came no fruits to deck the feasts,

 

Only flesh of bloodstained victims

 

Smouldered on the altar-fires,

 

And where’er the grieving goddess

 

Turns her melancholy gaze,

 

Sunk in vilest degradation

 

Man his loathsomeness displays

 

Mitya broke into sobs and seized Alyosha’s hand.

 

“My dear, my dear, in degradation, in degradation now, too.

There’s a terrible amount of suffering for man on earth, a terrible

lot of trouble. Don’t think I’m only a brute in an officer’s

uniform, wallowing in dirt and drink. I hardly think of anything but

of that degraded man-if only I’m not lying. I pray God I’m not

lying and showing off. I think about that man because I am that man

myself.

 

Would he purge his soul from vileness

 

And attain to light and worth,

 

He must turn and cling for ever

 

To his ancient Mother Earth.

 

But the difficulty is how am I to cling for ever to Mother

Earth. I don’t kiss her. I don’t cleave to her bosom. Am I to become a

peasant or a shepherd? I go on and I don’t know whether I’m going to

shame or to light and joy. That’s the trouble, for everything in the

world is a riddle! And whenever I’ve happened to sink into the

vilest degradation (and it’s always been happening) I always read that

poem about Ceres and man. Has it reformed me? Never! For I’m a

Karamazov. For when I do leap into the pit, I go headlong with my

heels