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

>him a long time. You see, you must watch his beard; he has a nasty,

thin, red beard. If his beard shakes when he talks and he gets

cross, it’s all right, he is saying what he means, he wants to do

business. But if he strokes his beard with his left hand and grins-he

is trying to cheat you. Don’t watch his eyes, you won’t find out

anything from his eyes, he is a deep one, a rogue but watch his beard!

I’ll give you a note and you show it to him. He’s called Gorstkin,

though his real name is Lyagavy;* but don’t call him so, he will be

offended. If you come to an understanding with him, and see it’s all

right, write here at once. You need only write: ‘He’s not lying.’

Stand out for eleven thousand; one thousand you can knock off, but not

more. just think! there’s a difference between eight thousand and

eleven thousand. It’s as good as picking up three thousand; it’s not

so easy to find a purchaser, and I’m in desperate need of money.

Only let me know it’s serious, and I’ll run over and fix it up. I’ll

snatch the time somehow. But what’s the good of my galloping over,

if it’s all a notion of the priest’s? Come, will you go?”

 

* i.e. setter dog.

 

“Oh, I can’t spare the time. You must excuse me.”

 

“Come, you might oblige your father. I shan’t forget it. You’ve no

heart, any of you that’s what it is! What’s a day or two to you? Where

are you going now-to Venice? Your Venice will keep another two

days. I would have sent Alyosha, but what use is Alyosha in a thing

like that? I send you just because you are a clever fellow. Do you

suppose I don’t see that? You know nothing about timber, but you’ve

got an eye. All that is wanted is to see whether the man is in

earnest. I tell you, watch his beard-if his beard shakes you know

he is in earnest.”

 

“You force me to go to that damned Tchermashnya yourself, then?”

cried Ivan, with a malignant smile.

 

Fyodor Pavlovitch did not catch, or would not catch, the

malignancy, but he caught the smile.

 

“Then you’ll go, you’ll go? I’ll scribble the note for you at

once.”

 

“I don’t know whether I shall go. I don’t know. I’ll decide on the

way.”

 

“Nonsense! Decide at once. My dear fellow, decide! If you settle

the matter, write me a line; give it to the priest and he’ll send it

on to me at once. And I won’t delay you more than that. You can go

to Venice. The priest will give you horses back to Volovya station.”

 

The old man was quite delighted. He wrote the note, and sent for

the horses. A light lunch was brought in, with brandy. When Fyodor

Pavlovitch was pleased, he usually became expansive, but to-day he

seemed to restrain himself. Of Dmitri, for instance, he did not say

a word. He was quite unmoved by the parting, and seemed, in fact, at a

loss for something to say. Ivan noticed this particularly. “He must be

bored with me,” he thought. Only when accompanying his son out on to

the steps, the old man began to fuss about. He would have kissed

him, but Ivan made haste to hold out his hand, obviously avoiding

the kiss. His father saw it at once, and instantly pulled himself up.

 

“Well, good luck to you, good luck to you!” he repeated from the

steps. “You’ll come again some time or other? Mind you do come. I

shall always be glad to see you. Well, Christ be with you!”

 

Ivan got into the carriage.

 

“Goodbye, Ivan! Don’t be too hard on me!” the father called for

the last time.

 

The whole household came out to take leave-Smerdyakov, Marfa

and Grigory. Ivan gave them ten roubles each. When he had seated

himself in the carriage, Smerdyakov jumped up to arrange the rug.

 

“You see… I am going to Tchermashnya,” broke suddenly from Ivan.

Again, as the day before, the words seemed to drop of themselves,

and he laughed, too, a peculiar, nervous laugh. He remembered it

long after.

 

“It’s a true saying then, that ‘it’s always worth while speaking

to a clever man,’” answered Smerdyakov firmly, looking significantly

at Ivan.

 

The carriage rolled away. Nothing was clear in Ivan’s soul, but he

looked eagerly around him at the fields, at the hills, at the trees,

at a flock of geese flying high overhead in the bright sky. And all of

a sudden he felt very happy. He tried to talk to the driver, and he

felt intensely interested in an answer the peasant made him; but a

minute later he realised that he was not catching anything, and that

he had not really even taken in the peasant’s answer. He was silent,

and it was pleasant even so. The air was pure and cool, sky bright.

The images of Alyosha and Katerina Ivanovna floated into his mind. But

he softly smiled, blew softly on the friendly phantoms, and they

flew away. “There’s plenty of time for them,” he thought. They reached

the station quickly, changed horses, and galloped to Volovya “Why is

it worth while speaking to a clever man? What did he mean by that?”

The thought seemed suddenly to clutch at his breathing. “And why did I

tell him I was going to Tchermashnya?” They reached Volovya station.

Ivan got out of the carriage, and the drivers stood round him

bargaining over the journey of twelve versts to Tchermashnya. He

told them to harness the horses. He went into the station house,

looked round, glanced at the overseer’s wife, and suddenly went back

to the entrance.

 

“I won’t go to Tchermashnya. Am I too late to reach the railway by

seven, brothers?”

 

“We shall just do it. Shall we get the carriage out?”

 

“At once. Will any one of you be going to the town to-morrow?”

 

“To be sure. Mitri here will.”

 

“Can you do me a service, Mitri? Go to my father’s, to Fyodor

Pavlovitch Karamazov, and tell him I haven’t gone to Tchermashnya. Can

you?”

 

“Of course I can. I’ve known Fyodor Pavlovitch a long time.”

 

“And here’s something for you, for I dare say he won’t give you

anything,” said Ivan, laughing gaily.

 

“You may depend on it he won’t.” Mitri laughed too. “Thank you,

sir. I’ll be sure to do it.”

 

At seven o’clock Ivan got into the train and set off to Moscow.

“Away with the past. I’ve done with the old world for ever, and may

I have no news, no echo, from it. To a new life, new places, and no

looking back!” But instead of delight his soul was filled with such

gloom, and his heart ached with such anguish, as he had never known in

his life before. He was thinking all the night. The train flew on, and

only at daybreak, when he was approaching Moscow, he suddenly roused

himself from his meditation.

 

“I am a scoundrel,” he whispered to himself.

 

Fyodor Pavlovitch remained well satisfied at having seen his son

off. For two hours afterwards he felt almost happy, and sat drinking

brandy. But suddenly something happened which was very annoying and

unpleasant for everyone in the house, and completely upset Fyodor

Pavlovitch’s equanimity at once. Smerdyakov went to the cellar for

something and fell down from the top of the steps. Fortunately,

Marfa Ignatyevna was in the yard and heard him in time. She did not

see the fall, but heard his scream-the strange, peculiar scream, long

familiar to her-the scream of the epileptic falling in a fit. They

could not tell whether the fit had come on him at the moment he was

decending the steps, so that he must have fallen unconscious, or

whether it was the fall and the shock that had caused the fit in

Smerdyakov, who was known to be liable to them. They found him at

the bottom of the cellar steps, writhing in convulsions and foaming at

the mouth. It was thought at first that he must have broken something-an arm or a leg-and hurt himself, but “God had preserved him,” as

Marfa Ignatyevna expressed it-nothing of the kind had happened. But

it was difficult to get him out of the cellar. They asked the

neighbours to help and managed it somehow. Fyodor Pavlovitch himself

was present at the whole ceremony. He helped, evidently alarmed and

upset. The sick man did not regain consciousness; the convulsions

ceased for a time, but then began again, and everyone concluded that

the same thing would happen, as had happened a year before, when he

accidently fell from the garret. They remembered that ice been put

on his head then. There was still ice in the cellar, and Marfa

Ignatyevna had some brought up. In the evening, Fyodor Pavlovitch sent

for Doctor Herzenstube, who arrived at once. He was a most estimable

old man, and the most careful and conscientious doctor in the

province. After careful examination, he concluded that the fit was a

very violent one and might have serious consequences; that meanwhile

he, Herzenstube, did not fully understand it, but that by to-morrow

morning, if the present remedies were unavailing, he would venture

to try something else. The invalid was taken to the lodge, to a room

next to Grigory’s and Marfa Ignatyevna’s.

 

Then Fyodor Pavlovitch had one misfortune after another to put

up with that day. Marfa Ignatyevna cooked the dinner, and the soup,

compared with Smerdyakov’s, was “no better than dish-water,” and the

fowl was so dried up that it was impossible to masticate it. To her

master’s bitter, though deserved, reproaches, Marfa Ignatyevna replied

that the fowl was a very old one to begin with, and that she had never

been trained as a cook. In the evening there was another trouble in

store for Fyodor Pavlovitch; he was informed that Grigory, who had not

been well for the last three days, was completely laid up by his

lumbago. Fyodor Pavlovitch finished his tea as early as possible and

locked himself up alone in the house. He was in terrible excitement

and suspense. That evening he reckoned on Grushenka’s coming almost as

a certainty. He had received from Smerdyakov that morning an assurance

“that she had promised to come without fail.” The incorrigible old

man’s heart throbbed with excitement; he paced up and down his empty

rooms listening. He had to be on the alert. Dmitri might be on the

watch for her somewhere, and when she knocked on the window

(Smerdyakov had informed him two days before that he had told her

where and how to knock) the door must be opened at once. She must

not be a second in the passage, for fear which God forbid!- that she

should be frightened and run away. Fyodor Pavlovitch had much to think

of, but never had his heart been steeped in such voluptuous hopes.

This time he could say almost certainly that she would come!