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

or perhaps a

day or two. Once it went on for three days. I fell from the garret

that time. The struggling ceased and then began again, and for three

days I couldn’t come back to my senses. Fyodor Pavlovitch sent for

Herzenstube, the doctor here, and he put ice on my head and tried

another remedy, too…. I might have died.”

 

“But they say one can’t tell with epilepsy when a fit is coming.

What makes you say you will have one to-morrow?” Ivan inquired, with a

peculiar, irritable curiosity.

 

“That’s just so. You can’t tell beforehand.”

 

“Besides, you fell from the garret then.”

 

“I climb up to the garret every day. I might fall from the

garret again to-morrow. And, if not, I might fall down the cellar

steps. I have to go into the cellar every day, too.”

 

Ivan took a long look at him.

 

“You are talking nonsense, I see, and I don’t quite understand

you,” he said softly, but with a sort of menace. “Do you mean to

pretend to be ill to-morrow for three days, eh?”

 

Smerdyakov, who was looking at the ground again, and playing

with the toe of his right foot, set the foot down, moved the left

one forward, and, grinning, articulated:

 

“If I were able to play such a trick, that is, pretend to have a

fit-and it would not be difficult for a man accustomed to them-I

should have a perfect right to use such a means to save myself from

death. For even if Agrafena Alexandrovna comes to see his father while

I am ill, his honour can’t blame a sick man for not telling him.

He’d be ashamed to.”

 

“Hang it all!” Ivan cried, his face working with anger, “Why are

you always in such a funk for your life? All my brother Dmitri’s

threats are only hasty words and mean nothing. He won’t kill you; it’s

not you he’ll kill!”

 

“He’d kill me first of all, like a fly. But even more than that, I

am afraid I shall be taken for an accomplice of his when he does

something crazy to his father.”

 

“Why should you be taken for an accomplice?”

 

“They’ll think I am an accomplice, because I let him know the

signals as a great secret.”

 

“What signals? Whom did you tell? Confound you, speak more

plainly.”

 

“I’m bound to admit the fact,” Smerdyakov drawled with pedantic

composure, “that I have a secret with Fyodor Pavlovitch in this

business. As you know yourself (if only you do know it) he has for

several days past locked himself in as soon as night or even evening

comes on. Of late you’ve been going upstairs to your room early

every evening, and yesterday you did not come down at all, and so

perhaps you don’t know how carefully he has begun to lock himself in

at night, and even if Grigory Vassilyevitch comes to the door he won’t

open to him till he hears his voice. But Grigory Vassilyevitch does

not come, because I wait upon him alone in his room now. That’s the

arrangement he made himself ever since this to-do with Agrafena

Alexandrovna began. But at night, by his orders, I go away to the

lodge so that I don’t get to sleep till midnight, but am on the watch,

getting up and walking about the yard, waiting for Agrafena

Alexandrovna to come. For the last few days he’s been perfectly

frantic expecting her. What he argues is, she is afraid of him, Dmitri

Fyodorovitch (Mitya, as he calls him), ‘and so,’ says he, ‘she’ll come

the backway, late at night, to me. You look out for her,’ says he,

‘till midnight and later; and if she does come, you run up and knock

at my door or at the window from the garden. Knock at first twice,

rather gently, and then three times more quickly, then,’ says he, ‘I

shall understand at once that she has come, and will open the door

to you quietly.’ Another signal he gave me in case anything unexpected

happens. At first, two knocks, and then, after an interval, another

much louder. Then he will understand that something has happened

suddenly and that I must see him, and he will open to me so that I can

go and speak to him. That’s all in case Agrafena Alexandrovna can’t

come herself, but sends a message. Besides, Dmitri Fyodorovitch

might come, too, so I must let him know he is near. His honour is

awfully afraid of Dmitri Fyodorovitch, so that even if Agrafena

Alexandrovna had come and were locked in with him, and Dmitri

Fyodorovitch were to turn up anywhere near at the time, I should be

bound to let him know at once, knocking three times. So that the first

signal of five knocks means Agrafena Alexandrovna has come, while

the second signal of three knocks means ‘something important to tell

you.’ His honour has shown me them several times and explained them.

And as in the whole universe no one knows of these signals but

myself and his honour, so he’d open the door without the slightest

hesitation and without calling out (he is awfully afraid of calling

out aloud). Well, those signals are known to Dmitri Fyodorovitch

too, now.”

 

“How are they known? Did you tell him? How dared you tell him?”

 

“It was through fright I did it. How could I dare to keep it

back from him? Dmitri Fyodorovitch kept persisting every day, ‘You are

deceiving me, you are hiding something from me! I’ll break both your

legs for you.’ So I told him those secret signals that he might see my

slavish devotion, and might be satisfied that I was not deceiving him,

but was telling him all I could.”

 

“If you think that he’ll make use of those signals and try to

get in, don’t let him in.”

 

“But if I should be laid up with a fit, how can I prevent him

coming in then, even if I dared prevent him, knowing how desperate

he is?”

 

“Hang it! How can you be so sure you are going to have a fit,

confound you? Are you laughing at me?”

 

“How could I dare laugh at you? I am in no laughing humour with

this fear on me. I feel I am going to have a fit. I have a

presentiment. Fright alone will bring it on.”

 

“Confound it! If you are laid up, Grigory will be on the watch.

Let Grigory know beforehand; he will be sure not to let him in.”

 

“I should never dare to tell Grigory Vassilyevitch about the

signals without orders from my master. And as for Grigory

Vassilyevitch hearing him and not admitting him, he has been ill

ever since yesterday, and Marfa Ignatyevna intends to give him

medicine to-morrow. They’ve just arranged it. It’s a very strange

remedy of hers. Marfa Ignatyevna knows of a preparation and always

keeps it. It’s a strong thing made from some herb. She has the

secret of it, and she always gives it to Grigory Vassilyevitch three

times a year when his lumbago’s so bad he is almost paralysed by it.

Then she takes a towel, wets it with the stuff, and rubs his whole

back for half an hour till it’s quite red and swollen, and what’s left

in the bottle she gives him to drink with a special prayer; but not

quite all, for on such occasions she leaves some for herself, and

drinks it herself. And as they never take strong drink, I assure you

they both drop asleep at once and sleep sound a very long time. And

when Grigory Vassilyevitch wakes up he is perfectly well after it, but

Marfa Ignatyevna always has a headache from it. So, if Marfa

Ignatyevna carries out her intention to-morrow, they won’t hear

anything and hinder Dmitri Fyodorovitch. They’ll be asleep.”

 

“What a rigmarole! And it all seems to happen at once, as though

it were planned. You’ll have a fit and they’ll both be unconscious,”

cried Ivan. “But aren’t you trying to arrange it so?” broke from him

suddenly, and he frowned threateningly.

 

“How could I?… And why should I, when it all depends on Dmitri

Fyodorovitch and his plans?… If he means to do anything, he’ll do

it; but if not, I shan’t be thrusting him upon his father.”

 

“And why should he go to father, especially on the sly, if, as you

say yourself, Agrafena Alexandrovna won’t come at all?” Ivan went

on, turning white with anger. “You say that yourself, and all the

while I’ve been here, I’ve felt sure it was all the old man’s fancy,

and the creature won’t come to him. Why should Dmitri break in on

him if she doesn’t come? Speak, I want to know what you are thinking!”

 

“You know yourself why he’ll come. What’s the use of what I think?

His honour will come simply because he is in a rage or suspicious on

account of my illness perhaps, and he’ll dash in, as he did

yesterday through impatience to search the rooms, to see whether she

hasn’t escaped him on the sly. He is perfectly well aware, too, that

Fyodor Pavlovitch has a big envelope with three thousand roubles in

it, tied up with ribbon and sealed with three seals. On it is

written in his own hand ‘To my angel Grushenka, if she will come,’

to which he added three days later, ‘for my little chicken.’ There’s

no knowing what that might do.”

 

“Nonsense!” cried Ivan, almost beside himself. “Dmitri won’t

come to steal money and kill my father to do it. He might have

killed him yesterday on account of Grushenka, like the frantic, savage

fool he is, but he won’t steal.”

 

“He is in very great need of money now-the greatest need, Ivan

Fyodorovitch. You don’t know in what need he is,” Smerdyakov

explained, with perfect composure and remarkable distinctness. “He

looks on that three thousand as his own, too. He said so to me

himself. ‘My father still owes me just three thousand,’ he said. And

besides that, consider, Ivan Fyodorovitch, there is something else

perfectly true. It’s as good as certain, so to say, that Agrafena

Alexandrovna will force him, if only she cares to, to marry her-the

master himself, I mean, Fyodor Pavlovitch-if only she cares to, and

of course she may care to. All I’ve said is that she won’t come, but

maybe she’s looking for more than that-I mean to be mistress here.

I know myself that Samsonov, her merchant, was laughing with her about

it, telling her quite openly that it would not be at all a stupid

thing to do. And she’s got plenty of sense. She wouldn’t marry a

beggar like Dmitri Fyodorovitch. So, taking that into consideration,

Ivan Fyodorovitch, reflect that then neither Dmitri Fyodorovitch nor

yourself and your brother, Alexey Fyodorovitch, would have anything

after the master’s death, not a rouble, for Agrafena Alexandrovna

would marry him simply to get hold of the whole, all the money there

is. But if your father were to die now, there’d be some forty thousand

for sure, even for Dmitri Fyodorovitch whom he hates so, for he’s made

no will…. Dmitri Fyodorovitch knows all that very well.”

 

A sort of shudder passed over Ivan’s face. He suddenly flushed.

 

“Then why on earth,” he suddenly interrupted Smerdyakov, “do you

advise me to go to Tchermashnya? What did you mean by that? If I go

away, you see what will happen here.” Ivan drew his breath with

difficulty.

 

“Precisely so,” said Smerdyakov, softly and reasonably, watching

Ivan intently, however.

 

“What do you mean by ‘precisely so’?” Ivan questioned him, with

a menacing light in his