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

Chapter 7

“It’s Always Worth While Speaking to a Clever Man”

 

AND in the same nervous frenzy, too, he spoke. Meeting Fyodor

Pavlovitch in the drawing-room directly he went in, he shouted to him,

waving his hands, “I am going upstairs to my room, not in to you.

Goodbye!” and passed by, trying not even to look at his father.

Very possibly the old man was too hateful to him at that moment; but

such an unceremonious display of hostility was a surprise even to

Fyodor Pavlovitch. And the old man evidently wanted to tell him

something at once and had come to meet him in the drawing-room on

purpose. Receiving this amiable greeting, he stood still in silence

and with an ironical air watched his son going upstairs, till he

passed out of sight.

 

“What’s the matter with him?” he promptly asked Smerdyakov, who

had followed Ivan.

 

“Angry about something. Who can tell?” the valet muttered

evasively.

 

“Confound him! Let him be angry then. Bring in the samovar, and

get along with you. Look sharp! No news?”

 

Then followed a series of questions such as Smerdyakov had just

complained of to Ivan, all relating to his expected visitor, and these

questions we will omit. Half an hour later the house was locked, and

the crazy old man was wandering along through the rooms in excited

expectation of hearing every minute the five knocks agreed upon. Now

and then he peered out into the darkness, seeing nothing.

 

It was very late, but Ivan was still awake and reflecting. He

sat up late that night, till two o’clock. But we will not give an

account of his thoughts, and this is not the place to look into that

soul-its turn will come. And even if one tried, it would be very hard

to give an account of them, for there were no thoughts in his brain,

but something very vague, and, above all, intense excitement. He

felt himself that he had lost his bearings. He was fretted, too, by

all sorts of strange and almost surprising desires; for instance,

after midnight he suddenly had an intense irresistible inclination

to go down, open the door, go to the lodge and beat Smerdyakov. But if

he had been asked why, he could not have given any exact reason,

except perhaps that he loathed the valet as one who had insulted him

more gravely than anyone in the world. On the other hand, he was

more than once that night overcome by a sort of inexplicable

humiliating terror, which he felt positively paralysed his physical

powers. His head ached and he was giddy. A feeling of hatred was

rankling in his heart, as though he meant to avenge himself on

someone. He even hated Alyosha, recalling the conversation he had just

had with him. At moments he hated himself intensely. Of Katerina

Ivanovna he almost forgot to think, and wondered greatly at this

afterwards, especially as he remembered perfectly that when he had

protested so valiantly to Katerina Ivanovna that he would go away next

day to Moscow, something had whispered in his heart, “That’s nonsense,

you are not going, and it won’t be so easy to tear yourself away as

you are boasting now.”

 

Remembering that night long afterwards, Ivan recalled with

peculiar repulsion how he had suddenly got up from the sofa and had

stealthily, as though he were afraid of being watched, opened the

door, gone out on the staircase and listened to Fyodor Pavlovitch

stirring down below, had listened a long while-some five minutes-with a sort of strange curiosity, holding his breath while his heart

throbbed. And why he had done all this, why he was listening, he could

not have said. That “action” all his life afterwards he called

“infamous,” and at the bottom of his heart, he thought of it as the

basest action of his life. For Fyodor Pavlovitch himself he felt no

hatred at that moment, but was simply intensely curious to know how he

was walking down there below and what he must be doing now. He

wondered and imagined how he must be peeping out of the dark windows

and stopping in the middle of the room, listening, listening-for

someone to knock. Ivan went out on the stairs twice to listen like

this.

 

About two o’clock when everything was quiet, and even Fyodor

Pavlovitch had gone to bed, Ivan had got into bed, firmly resolved

to fall asleep at once, as he felt fearfully exhausted. And he did

fall asleep at once, and slept soundly without dreams, but waked

early, at seven o’clock, when it was broad daylight. Opening his eyes,

he was surprised to feel himself extraordinarily vigorous. He jumped

up at once and dressed quickly; then dragged out his trunk and began

packing immediately. His linen had come back from the laundress the

previous morning. Ivan positively smiled at the thought that

everything was helping his sudden departure. And his departure

certainly was sudden. Though Ivan had said the day before (to Katerina

Ivanovna, Alyosha, and Smerdyakov) that he was leaving next day, yet

he remembered that he had no thought of departure when he went to bed,

or, at least, had not dreamed that his first act in the morning

would be to pack his trunk. At last his trunk and bag were ready. It

was about nine o’clock when Marfa Ignatyevna came in with her usual

inquiry, “Where will your honour take your tea, in your own room or

downstairs?” He looked almost cheerful, but there was about him, about

his words and gestures, something hurried and scattered. Greeting

his father affably, and even inquiring specially after his health,

though he did not wait to hear his answer to the end, he announced

that he was starting off in an hour to return to Moscow for good,

and begged him to send for the horses. His father heard this

announcement with no sign of surprise, and forgot in an unmannerly way

to show regret at losing him. Instead of doing so, he flew into a

great flutter at the recollection of some important business of his

own.

 

“What a fellow you are! Not to tell me yesterday! Never mind;

we’ll manage it all the same. Do me a great service, my dear boy. Go

to Tchermashnya on the way. It’s only to turn to the left from the

station at Volovya, only another twelve versts and you come to

Tchermashnya.”

 

“I’m sorry, I can’t. It’s eighty versts to the railway and the

train starts for Moscow at seven o’clock to-night. I can only just

catch it.”

 

“You’ll catch it to-morrow or the day after, but to-day turn off

to Tchermashnya. It won’t put you out much to humour your father! If I

hadn’t had something to keep me here, I would have run over myself

long ago, for I’ve some business there in a hurry. But here I…

it’s not the time for me to go now…. You see, I’ve two pieces of

copse land there. The Maslovs, an old merchant and his son, will

give eight thousand for the timber. But last year I just missed a

purchaser who would have given twelve. There’s no getting anyone about

here to buy it. The Maslovs have it all their own way. One has to take

what they’ll give, for no one here dare bid against them. The priest

at Ilyinskoe wrote to me last Thursday that a merchant called

Gorstkin, a man I know, had turned up. What makes him valuable is that

he is not from these parts, so he is not afraid of the Maslovs. He

says he will give me eleven thousand for the copse. Do you hear? But

he’ll only be here, the priest writes, for a week altogether, so you

must go at once and make a bargain with him.”

 

“Well, you write to the priest; he’ll make the bargain.”

 

“He can’t do it. He has no eye for business. He is a perfect

treasure, I’d give him twenty thousand to take care of for me

without a receipt; but he has no eye for business, he is a perfect

child, a crow could deceive him. And yet he is a learned man, would

you believe it? This Gorstkin looks like a peasant, he wears a blue

kaftan, but he is a regular rogue. That’s the common complaint. He

is a liar. Sometimes he tells such lies that you wonder why he is

doing it. He told me the year before last that his wife was dead and

that he had married another, and would you believe it, there was not a

word of truth in it? His wife has never died at all, she is alive to

this day and gives him a beating twice a week. So what you have to

find out is whether he is lying or speaking the truth when he says

he wants to buy it and would give eleven thousand.”

 

“I shall be no use in such a business. I have no eye either.”

 

“Stay, wait a bit! You will be of use, for I will tell you the

signs by which you can judge about Gorstkin. I’ve done business with