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

minute, I should

express the same feelings again as yesterday-the same feelings, the

same words, the same actions. You remember my actions, Alexey

Fyodorovitch; you checked me in one of them”… (as she said that, she

flushed and her eyes shone). “I must tell you that I can’t get over

it. Listen, Alexey Fyodorovitch. I don’t even know whether I still

love him. I feel pity for him, and that is a poor sign of love. If I

loved him, if I still loved him, perhaps I shouldn’t be sorry for

him now, but should hate him”

 

.Her voice quivered and tears glittered on her eyelashes.

Alyosha shuddered inwardly. “That girl is truthful and sincere,” he

thought, “and she does not love Dmitri any more.”

 

“That’s true, that’s true,” cried Madame Hohlakov.

 

“Wait, dear. I haven’t told you the chief, the final decision I

came to during the night. I feel that perhaps my decision is a

terrible one-for me, but I foresee that nothing will induce me to

change it-nothing. It will be so all my life. My dear, kind,

ever-faithful and generous adviser, the one friend I have in the

world, Ivan Fyodorovitch, with his deep insight into the heart,

approves and commends my decision. He knows it.”

 

“Yes, I approve of it,” Ivan assented, in a subdued but firm

voice.

 

“But I should like Alyosha, too (Ah! Alexey Fyodorovitch,

forgive my calling you simply Alyosha), I should like Alexey

Fyodorovitch, too, to tell me before my two friends whether I am

right. I feel instinctively that you, Alyosha, my dear brother (for

are a dear brother to me),” she said again ecstatically, taking his

cold hand in her hot one, “I foresee that your decision, your

approval, will bring me peace, in spite of all my sufferings, for,

after your words, I shall be calm and submit-I feel that.”

 

“I don’t know what you are asking me,” said Alyosha, flushing.

“I only know that I love you and at this moment wish for your

happiness more than my own!… But I know nothing about such affairs,”

something impelled him to add hurriedly.

 

“In such affairs, Alexey Fyodorovitch, in such affairs, the

chief thing is honour and duty and something higher-I don’t know what

but higher perhaps even than duty. I am conscious of this irresistible

feeling in my heart, and it compels me irresistibly. But it may all be

put in two words. I’ve already decided, even if he marries that-creature,” she began solemnly, “whom I never, never can forgive,

even then I will not abandon him. Henceforward I will never, never

abandon him!” she cried, breaking into a sort of pale, hysterical

ecstasy. “Not that I would run after him continually, get in his way

and worry him. Oh, no! I will go away to another town-where you like-but I will watch over him all my life-I will watch over him all my

life unceasingly. When he becomes unhappy with that woman, and that is

bound to happen quite soon, let him come to me and he will find a

friend, a sister… Only a sister, of course, and so for ever; but

he will learn at least that that sister is really his sister, who

loves him and has sacrificed all her life to him. I will gain my

point. I will insist on his knowing me confiding entirely in me,

without reserve,” she cried, in a sort of frenzy. “I will be a god

to whom he can pray-and that, at least, he owes me for his

treachery and for what I suffered yesterday through him. And let him

see that all my life I will be true to him and the promise I gave him,

in spite of his being untrue and betraying me. I will-I will become

nothing but a means for his happiness, or-how shall I say?- an

instrument, a machine for his happiness, and that for my whole life,

my whole life, and that he may see that all his life! That’s my

decision. Ivan Fyodorovitch fully approves me.”

 

She was breathless. She had perhaps intended to express her idea

with more dignity, art and naturalness, but her speech was too hurried

and crude. It was full of youthful impulsiveness, it betrayed that she

was still smarting from yesterday’s insult, and that her pride

craved satisfaction. She felt this herself. Her face suddenly

darkened, an unpleasant look came into her eyes. Alyosha at once saw

it and felt a pang of sympathy. His brother Ivan made it worse by

adding:

 

“I’ve only expressed my own view,” he said. “From anyone else,

this would have been affected and over-strained, but from you-no. Any

other woman would have been wrong, but you are right. I don’t know how

to explain it, but I see that you are absolutely genuine and,

therefore, you are right.”

 

“But that’s only for the moment. And what does this moment stand

for? Nothing but yesterday’s insult.” Madame Hohlakov obviously had

not intended to interfere, but she could not refrain from this very

just comment.

 

“Quite so, quite so,” cried Ivan, with peculiar eagerness,

obviously annoyed at being interrupted, “in anyone else this moment

would be only due to yesterday’s impression and would be only a

moment. But with Katerina Ivanovna’s character, that moment will

last all her life. What for anyone else would be only a promise is for

her an everlasting burdensome, grim perhaps, but unflagging duty.

And she will be sustained by the feeling of this duty being fulfilled.

Your life, Katerina Ivanovna, will henceforth be spent in painful

brooding over your own feelings, your own heroism, and your own

suffering; but in the end that suffering will be softened and will

pass into sweet contemplation of the fulfilment of a bold and proud

design. Yes, proud it certainly is, and desperate in any case, but a

triumph for you. And the consciousness of it will at last be a

source of complete satisfaction and will make you resigned to

everything else.”

 

This was unmistakably said with some malice and obviously with

intention; even perhaps with no desire to conceal that he spoke

ironically and with intention.

 

“Oh, dear, how mistaken it all is!” Madame Hohlakov cried again.

 

“Alexey Fyodorovitch, you speak. I want dreadfully to know what

you will say!” cried Katerina Ivanovna, and burst into tears.

Alyosha got up from the sofa.

 

“It’s nothing, nothing!” she went on through her tears. “I’m

upset, I didn’t sleep last night. But by the side of two such

friends as you and your brother I still feel strong-for I know you

two will never desert me.”

 

“Unluckily I am obliged to return to Moscow-perhaps to-morrow-and to leave you for a long time-and, unluckily, it’s unavoidable,”

Ivan said suddenly.

 

“To-morrow- to Moscow!” her face was suddenly contorted; “but-but, dear me, how fortunate!” she cried in a voice suddenly changed.

In one instant there was no trace left of her tears. She underwent

an instantaneous transformation, which amazed Alyosha. Instead of a

poor, insulted girl, weeping in a sort of “laceration,” he saw a woman

completely self-possessed and even exceedingly pleased, as though

something agreeable had just happened.

 

“Oh, not fortunate that I am losing you, of course not,” she

collected herself suddenly, with a charming society smile. “Such a

friend as you are could not suppose that. I am only too unhappy at

losing you.” She rushed impulsively at Ivan, and seizing both his

hands, pressed them warmly. “But what is fortunate is that you will be

able in Moscow to see auntie and Agafya and to tell them all the

horror of my present position. You can speak with complete openness to

Agafya, but spare dear auntie. You will know how to do that. You can’t

think how wretched I was yesterday and this morning, wondering how I

could write them that dreadful letter-for one can never tell such

things in a letter… Now it will be easy for me to write, for you

will see them and explain everything. Oh, how glad I am! But I am only

glad of that, believe me. Of course, no one can take your place….

I will run at once to write the letter,” she finished suddenly, and

took a step as though to go out of the room.

 

“And what about Alyosha and his opinion, which you were so

desperately anxious to hear?” cried Madame Hohlakov. There was a

sarcastic, angry note in her voice.

 

“I had not forgotten that,” cried Katerina Ivanovna, coming to a

sudden standstill, “and why are you so antagonistic at such a moment?”

she added, with warm and bitter reproachfulness. “What I said, I

repeat. I must have his opinion. More than that, I must have his

decision! As he says, so it shall be. You see how anxious I am for

your words, Alexey Fyodorovitch… But what’s the matter?”

 

“I couldn’t have believed it. I can’t understand it!” Alyosha

cried suddenly in distress.

 

“He is going to Moscow, and you cry out that you are glad. You

said that on purpose! And you begin explaining that you are not glad

of that but sorry to be-losing a friend. But that was acting, too-you were playing a part as in a theatre!”

 

“In a theatre? What? What do you mean?” exclaimed Katerina

Ivanovna, profoundly astonished, flushing crimson, and frowning.

 

“Though you assure him you are sorry to lose a friend in him,

you persist in telling him to his face that it’s fortunate he is

going,” said Alyosha breathlessly. He was standing at the table and

did not sit down.

 

“What are you talking about? I don’t understand.”

 

“I don’t understand myself…. I seemed to see in a flash… I

know I am not saying it properly, but I’ll say it all the same,”

Alyosha went on in the same shaking and broken voice. “What I see is

that perhaps you don’t love Dmitri at all… and never have, from

the beginning…. And Dmitri, too, has never loved you… and only

esteems you…. I really don’t know how I dare to say all this, but

somebody must tell the truth… for nobody here will tell the truth.”

 

“What truth?” cried Katerina Ivanovna,and there was an

hysterical ring in her voice.

 

“I’ll tell you,” Alyosha went on with desperate haste, as though

he were jumping from the top of a house. “Call Dmitri; I will fetch

him and let him come here and take your hand and take Ivan’s and

join your hands. For you’re torturing Ivan, simply because you love

him-and torturing him, because you love Dmitri through

‘self-laceration’-with an unreal love-because you’ve persuaded

yourself.”

 

Alyosha broke off and was silent.

 

“You… you… you are a little religious idiot-that’s what you

are!” Katerina Ivanovna snapped. Her face was white and her lips

were moving with anger.

 

Ivan suddenly laughed and got up. His hat was in his hand.

 

“You are mistaken, my good Alyosha,” he said, with an expression

Alyosha had never seen in his face before-an expression of youthful

sincerity and strong, irresistibly frank feeling. “Katerina Ivanovna

has never cared for me! She has known all the time that I cared for

her-though I never said a word of my love to her-she knew, but she

didn’t care for me. I have never been her friend either, not for one

moment; she is too proud to need my friendship. She kept me at her

side as a means of revenge. She revenged with me and on me all the

insults which she has been continually receiving from Dmitri ever

since their first meeting. For even that first meeting has rankled

in her heart as an insult-that’s what her heart is like! She has

talked to me of nothing but her