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

three o’clock. Alyosha’s whole

soul turned to the monastery, to his dying saint, but the necessity of

seeing Dmitri outweighed everything. The conviction that a great

inevitable catastrophe was about to happen grew stronger in

Alyosha’s mind with every hour. What that catastrophe was, and what he

would say at that moment to his brother, he could perhaps not have

said definitely. “Even if my benefactor must die without me, anyway

I won’t have to reproach myself all my life with the thought that I

might have saved something and did not, but passed by and hastened

home. If I do as I intend, I shall be following his great precept.”

 

His plan was to catch his brother Dmitri unawares, to climb over

the fence, as he had the day before, get into the garden and sit in

the summer-house. If Dmitri were not there, thought Alyosha, he

would not announce himself to Foma or the women of the house, but

would remain hidden in the summer-house, even if he had to wait

there till evening. If, as before, Dmitri were lying in wait for

Grushenka to come, he would be very likely to come to the

summer-house. Alyosha did not, however, give much thought to the

details of his plan, but resolved to act upon it, even if it meant not

getting back to the monastery that day.

 

Everything happened without hindrance, he climbed over the

hurdle almost in the same spot as the day before, and stole into the

summer-house unseen. He did not want to be noticed. The woman of the

house and Foma too, if he were here, might be loyal to his brother and

obey his instructions, and so refuse to let Alyosha come into the

garden, or might warn Dmitri that he was being sought and inquired

for.

 

There was no one in the summer-house. Alyosha sat down and began

to wait. He looked round the summer-house, which somehow struck him as

a great deal more ancient than before. Though the day was just as fine

as yesterday, it seemed a wretched little place this time. There was a

circle on the table, left no doubt from the glass of brandy having

been spilt the day before. Foolish and irrelevant ideas strayed

about his mind, as they always do in a time of tedious waiting. He

wondered, for instance, why he had sat down precisely in the same

place as before, why not in the other seat. At last he felt very

depressed-depressed by suspense and uncertainty. But he had not sat

there more than a quarter of an hour, when he suddenly heard the thrum

of a guitar somewhere quite close. People were sitting, or had only

just sat down, somewhere in the bushes not more than twenty paces

away. Alyosha suddenly recollected that on coming out of the

summer-house the day before, he had caught a glimpse of an old green

low garden-seat among the bushes on the left, by the fence. The people

must be sitting on it now. Who were they?

 

A man’s voice suddenly began singing in a sugary falsetto,

accompanying himself on the guitar:

 

With invincible force

 

I am bound to my dear.

 

O Lord, have mercy

 

On her and on me!

 

On her and on me!

 

On her and on me!

 

The voice ceased. It was a lackey’s tenor and a lackey’s song.

Another voice, a woman’s, suddenly asked insinuatingly and

bashfully, though with mincing affectation:

 

“Why haven’t you been to see us for so long, Pavel Fyodorovitch?

Why do you always look down upon us?”

 

“Not at all answered a man’s voice politely, but with emphatic

dignity. It was clear that the man had the best of the position, and

that the woman was making advances. “I believe the man must be

Smerdyakov,” thought Alyosha, “from his voice. And the lady must be

the daughter of the house here, who has come from Moscow, the one

who wears the dress with a tail and goes to Marfa for soup.”

 

“I am awfully fond of verses of all kinds, if they rhyme,” the

woman’s voice continued. “Why don’t you go on?”

 

The man sang again:

 

What do I care for royal wealth

 

If but my dear one be in health?

 

Lord have mercy

 

On her and on me!

 

On her and on me!

 

On her and on me!

 

“It was even better last time,” observed the woman’s voice. “You

sang ‘If my darling be in health’; it sounded more tender. I suppose

you’ve forgotten to-day.”

 

“Poetry is rubbish!” said Smerdyakov curtly.

 

“Oh, no! I am very fond of poetry.”

 

“So far as it’s poetry, it’s essential rubbish. Consider yourself,

who ever talks in rhyme? And if we were all to talk in rhyme, even

though it were decreed by government, we shouldn’t say much, should

we? Poetry is no good, Marya Kondratyevna.”

 

“How clever you are! How is it you’ve gone so deep into

everything?” The woman’s voice was more and more insinuating.

 

“I could have done better than that. I could have known more

than that, if it had not been for my destiny from my childhood up. I

would have shot a man in a duel if he called me names because I am

descended from a filthy beggar and have no father. And they used to

throw it in my teeth in Moscow. It had reached them from here,

thanks to Grigory Vassilyevitch. Grigory Vassilyevitch blames me for

rebelling against my birth, but I would have sanctioned their

killing me before I was born that I might not have come into the world

at all. They used to say in the market, and your mamma too, with great

lack of delicacy, set off telling me that her hair was like a mat on

her head, and that she was short of five foot by a wee bit. Why talk

of a wee bit while she might have said ‘a little bit,’ like everyone

else? She wanted to make it touching, a regular peasant’s feeling. Can

a Russian peasant be said to feel, in comparison with an educated man?

He can’t be said to have feeling at all, in his ignorance. From my

childhood up when I hear ‘a wee bit,’ I am ready to burst with rage. I

hate all Russia, Marya Kondratyevna.”

 

“If you’d been a cadet in the army, or a young hussar, you

wouldn’t have talked like that, but would have drawn your sabre to

defend all Russia.”

 

“I don’t want to be a hussar, Marya Kondratyevna, and, what’s

more, I should like to abolish all soldiers.”

 

“And when an enemy comes, who is going to defend us?”

 

“There’s no need of defence. In 1812 there was a great invasion of

Russia by Napoleon, first Emperor of the French, father of the present

one, and it would have been a good thing if they had conquered us. A

clever nation would have conquered a very stupid one and annexed it.

We should have had quite different institutions.”

 

“Are they so much better in their own country than we are? I

wouldn’t change a dandy I know of for three young englishmen,”

observed Marya Kondratyevna tenderly, doubtless accompanying her words

with a most languishing glance.

 

“That’s as one prefers.”

 

“But you are just like a foreigner-just like a most gentlemanly

foreigner. I tell you that, though it makes me bashful.”

 

“If you care to know, the folks there and ours here are just alike

in their vice. They are swindlers, only there the scoundrel wears

polished boots and here he grovels in filth and sees no harm in it.

The Russian people want thrashing, as Fyodor Pavlovitch said very

truly yesterday, though he is mad, and all his children.”

 

“You said yourself you had such a respect for Ivan Fyodorovitch.”

 

“But he said I was a stinking lackey. He thinks that I might be

unruly. He is mistaken there. If I had a certain sum in my pocket, I

would have left here long ago. Dmitri Fyodorovitch is lower than any

lackey in his behaviour, in his mind, and in his poverty. He doesn’t

know how to do anything, and yet he is respected by everyone. I may be

only a soup-maker, but with luck I could open a cafe restaurant in

Petrovka, in Moscow, for my cookery is something special, and

there’s no one in Moscow, except the foreigners, whose cookery is

anything special. Dmitri Fyodorovitch is a beggar, but if he were to

challenge the son of the first count in the country, he’d fight him.

Though in what way is he better than I am? For he is ever so much

stupider than I am. Look at the money he has wasted without any need!”

 

“It must be lovely, a duel,” Marya Kondratyevna observed suddenly.

 

“How so?”

 

“It must be so dreadful and so brave, especially when young

officers with pistols in their hands pop at one another for the sake

of some lady. A perfect picture! Ah, if only girls were allowed to

look on, I’d give anything to see one!”

 

“It’s all very well when you are firing at someone, but when he is

firing straight in your mug, you must feel pretty silly. You’d be glad

to run away, Marya Kondratyevna.”

 

“You don’t mean you would run away?” But Smerdyakov did not

deign to reply. After a moment’s silence the guitar tinkled again, and

he sang again in the same falsetto:

 

Whatever you may say,

 

I shall go far away.

 

Life will be bright and gay

 

In the city far away.

 

I shall not grieve,

 

I shall not grieve at all,

 

I don’t intend to grieve at all.

 

Then something unexpected happened. Alyosha suddenly sneezed. They

were silent. Alyosha got up and walked towards them. He found

Smerdyakov dressed up and wearing polished boots, his hair pomaded,

and perhaps curled. The guitar lay on the garden-seat. His companion

was the daughter of the house, wearing a light-blue dress with a train

two yards long. She was young and would not have been bad-looking, but

that her face was so round and terribly freckled.

 

“Will my brother Dmitri soon be back? asked Alyosha with as much

composure as he could.

 

Smerdyakov got up slowly; Marya Kondratyevna rose too.

 

“How am I to know about Dmitri Fyodorovitch? It’s not as if I were

his keeper,” answered Smerdyakov quietly, distinctly, and

superciliously.

 

“But I simply asked whether you do know?” Alyosha explained.

 

“I know nothing of his whereabouts and don’t want to.”

 

“But my brother told me that you let him know all that goes on

in the house, and promised to let him know when Agrafena

Alexandrovna comes.”

 

Smerdyakov turned a deliberate, unmoved glance upon him.

 

“And how did you get in this time, since the gate was bolted an

hour ago?” he asked, looking at Alyosha.

 

“I came in from the back-alley, over the fence, and went

straight to the summer-house. I hope you’ll forgive me, he added

addressing Marya Kondratyevna. “I was in a hurry to find my brother.”

 

“Ach, as though we could take it amiss in you!” drawled Marya

Kondratyevna, flattered by Alyosha’s apology. “For Dmitri Fyodorovitch

often goes to the summer-house in that way. We don’t know he is here

and he is sitting in the summer-house.”

 

“I am very anxious to find him, or to learn from you where he is

now. Believe me, it’s on business of great importance to him.”

 

“He never tells us,” lisped Marya Kondratyevna.

 

“Though I used to come here as a friend,” Smerdyakov