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

an awful fool on many occasions at that time, and I was

conscious of it myself. What made it worse was that I felt that

‘Katenka’ was not an innocent boarding-school miss, but a person of

character, proud and really high-principled; above all, she had

education and intellect, and I had neither. You think I meant to

make her an offer? No, I simply wanted to revenge myself, because I

was such a hero and she didn’t seem to feel it.

 

“Meanwhile, I spent my time in drink and riot, till the

lieutenant-colonel put me under arrest for three days. Just at that

time father sent me six thousand roubles in return for my sending

him a deed giving up all claims upon him-settling our accounts, so to

speak, and saying that I wouldn’t expect anything more. I didn’t

understand a word of it at the time. Until I came here, Alyosha,

till the last few days, indeed, perhaps even now, I haven’t been

able to make head or tail of my money affairs with father. But never

mind that, we’ll talk of it later.

 

“Just as I received the money, I got a letter from a friend

telling me something that interested me immensely. The authorities,

I learnt, were dissatisfied with our lieutenant-colonel. He was

suspected of irregularities; in fact, his enemies were preparing a

surprise for him. And then the commander of the division arrived,

and kicked up the devil of a shindy. Shortly afterwards he was ordered

to retire. I won’t tell you how it all happened. He had enemies

certainly. Suddenly there was a marked coolness in the town towards

him and all his family. His friends all turned their backs on him.

Then I took my first step. I met Agafya Ivanovna, with whom I’d always

kept up a friendship, and said, ‘Do you know there’s a deficit of 4500

roubles of government money in your father’s accounts?’

 

“‘What do you mean? What makes you say so? The general was here

not long ago, and everything was all right.’

 

“‘Then it was, but now it isn’t.’

 

“She was terribly scared.

 

“‘Don’t frighten me!’ she said. ‘Who told you so?’

 

“‘Don’t be uneasy,’ I said, ‘I won’t tell anyone. You know I’m

as silent as the tomb. I only wanted, in view of “possibilities,” to

add, that when they demand that 4500 roubles from your father, and

he can’t produce it, he’ll be tried, and made to serve as a common

soldier in his old age, unless you like to send me your young lady

secretly. I’ve just had money paid me. I’ll give her four thousand, if

you like, and keep the secret religiously.’

 

“‘Ah, you scoundrel!’- that’s what she said. ‘You wicked

scoundrel! How dare you!’

 

“She went away furiously indignant, while I shouted after her once

more that the secret should be kept sacred. Those two simple

creatures, Agafya and her aunt, I may as well say at once, behaved

like perfect angels all through this business. They genuinely adored

their ‘Katya,’ thought her far above them, and waited on her, hand and

foot. But Agafya told her of our conversation. I found that out

afterwards. She didn’t keep it back, and of course that was all I

wanted.

 

“Suddenly the new major arrived to take command of the

battalion. The old lieutenant-colonel was taken ill at once,

couldn’t leave his room for two days, and didn’t hand over the

government money. Dr. Kravchenko declared that he really was ill.

But I knew for a fact, and had known for a long time, that for the

last four years the money had never been in his hands except when

the Commander made his visits of inspection. He used to lend it to a

trustworthy person, a merchant of our town called Trifonov, an old

widower, with a big beard and gold-rimmed spectacles. He used to go to

the fair, do a profitable business with the money, and return the

whole sum to the colonel, bringing with it a present from the fair, as

well as interest on the loan. But this time (I heard all about it

quite by chance from Trifonov’s son and heir, a drivelling youth and

one of the most vicious in the world)- this time, I say, Trifonov

brought nothing back from the fair. The lieutenant-colonel flew to

him. ‘I’ve never received any money from you, and couldn’t possibly

have received any.’ That was all the answer he got. So now our

lieutenant-colonel is confined to the house, with a towel round his

head, while they’re all three busy putting ice on it. All at once an

orderly arrives on the scene with the book and the order to ‘hand over

the battalion money immediately, within two hours.’ He signed the book

(I saw the signature in the book afterwards), stood up, saying he

would put on his uniform, ran to his bedroom, loaded his

double-barrelled gun with a service bullet, took the boot off his

right foot, fixed the gun against his chest, and began feeling for the

trigger with his foot. But Agafya, remembering what I had told her,

had her suspicions. She stole up and peeped into the room just in

time. She rushed in, flung herself upon him from behind, threw her

arms round him, and the gun went off, hit the ceiling, but hurt no

one. The others ran in, took away the gun, and held him by the arms. I

heard all about this afterwards. I was at home, it was getting dusk,

and I was just preparing to go out. I had dressed, brushed my hair,

scented my handkerchief, and taken up my cap, when suddenly the door

opened, and facing me in the room stood Katerina Ivanovna.

 

“It’s strange how things happen sometimes. No one had seen her

in the street, so that no one knew of it in the town. I lodged with

two decrepit old ladies, who looked after me. They were most

obliging old things, ready to do anything for me, and at my request

were as silent afterwards as two cast-iron posts. Of course I

grasped the position at once. She walked in and looked straight at me,

her dark eyes determined, even defiant, but on her lips and round

mouth I saw uncertainty.

 

“‘My sister told me,’ she began, ‘that you would give me 4500

roubles if I came to you for it-myself. I have come… give me the

money!’

 

“She couldn’t keep it up. She was breathless, frightened, her

voice failed her, and the corners of her mouth and the lines round

it quivered. Alyosha, are you listening, or are you asleep?”

 

“Mitya, I know you will tell the whole truth, said Alyosha in

agitation.

 

“I am telling it. If I tell the whole truth just as it happened

I shan’t spare myself. My first idea was a-Karamazov one. Once I

was bitten by a centipede, brother, and laid up a fortnight with fever

from it. Well, I felt a centipede biting at my heart then-a noxious

insect, you understand? I looked her up and down. You’ve seen her?

She’s a beauty. But she was beautiful in another way then. At that

moment she was beautiful because she was noble, and I was a scoundrel;

she in all the grandeur of her generosity and sacrifice for her

father, and I-a bug! And, scoundrel as I was, she was altogether at

my mercy, body and soul. She was hemmed in. I tell you frankly, that

thought, that venomous thought, so possessed my heart that it almost

swooned with suspense. It seemed as if there could be no resisting it;

as though I should act like a bug, like a venomous spider, without a

spark of pity. I could scarcely breathe. Understand, I should have

gone next day to ask for her hand, so that it might end honourably, so

to speak, and that nobody would or could know. For though I’m a man of

base desires, I’m honest. And at that very second some voice seemed to

whisper in my ear, ‘But when you come to-morrow to make your proposal,

that girl won’t even see you; she’ll order her coachman to kick you

out of the yard. “Publish it through all the town,” she would say,

“I’m not afraid of you.” ‘I looked at the young lady, my voice had not

deceived me. That is how it would be, not a doubt of it. I could see

from her face now that I should be turned out of the house. My spite

was roused. I longed to play her the nastiest swinish cad’s trick:

to look at her with a sneer, and on the spot where she stood before me

to stun her with a tone of voice that only a shopman could use.

 

“‘Four thousand! What do you mean? I was joking. You’ve been

counting your chickens too easily, madam. Two hundred, if you like,

with all my heart. But four thousand is not a sum to throw away on

such frivolity. You’ve put yourself out to no purpose.’

 

“I should have lost the game, of course. She’d have run away.

But it would have been an infernal revenge. It would have been worth

it all. I’d have howled with regret all the rest of my life, only to

have played that trick. Would you believe it, it has never happened to

me with any other woman, not one, to look at her at such a moment with

hatred. But, on my oath, I looked at her for three seconds, or five

perhaps, with fearful hatred-that hate which is only a hair’s-breadth

from love, from the maddest love!

 

“I went to the window, put my forehead against the frozen pane,

and I remember the ice burnt my forehead like fire. I did not keep her

long, don’t be afraid. I turned round, went up to the table, opened

the drawer and took out a banknote for five thousand roubles (it was

lying in a French dictionary). Then I showed it her in silence, folded

it, handed it to her, opened the door into the passage, and,

stepping back, made her a deep bow. a most respectful, a most

impressive bow, believe me! She shuddered all over, gazed at me for

a second, turned horribly pale-white as a sheet, in fact-and all at

once, not impetuously but softly, gently, bowed down to my feet-not a

boarding-school curtsey, but a Russian bow, with her forehead to the

floor. She jumped up and ran away. I was wearing my sword. I drew it

and nearly stabbed myself with it on the spot; why, I don’t know. It

would have been frightfully stupid, of course. I suppose it was from

delight. Can you understand that one might kill oneself from

delight? But I didn’t stab myself. I only kissed my sword and put it

back in the scabbard-which there was no need to have told you, by the

way. And I fancy that in telling you about my inner conflict I have

laid it on rather thick to glorify myself. But let it pass, and to

hell with all who pry into the human heart! Well, so much for that

‘adventure’ with Katerina Ivanovna. So now Ivan knows of it, and

you-no one else.”

 

Dmitri got up, took a step or two in his excitement, pulled out

his handkerchief and mopped his forehead, then sat down again, not

in the same place as before, but on the opposite side, so that Alyosha

had to turn quite round to face him.