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

into his face, smiling, “tell me, do I love

that man or not? The man who wronged me, do I love him or not?

Before you came, I lay here in the dark, asking my heart whether I

loved him. Decide for me, Alyosha, the time has come, it shall be as

you say. Am I to forgive him or not?”

 

“But you have forgiven him already,” said Alyosha, smiling.

 

“Yes, I really have forgiven him,” Grushenka murmured

thoughtfully. “What an abject heart! To my abject heart!” She snatched

up a glass from the table, emptied it at a gulp, lifted it in the

air and flung it on the floor. The glass broke with a crash. A

little cruel line came into her smile.

 

“Perhaps I haven’t forgiven him, though,” she said, with a sort of

menace in her voice, and she dropped her eyes to the ground as

though she were talking to herself. “Perhaps my heart is only

getting ready to forgive. I shall struggle with my heart. You see,

Alyosha, I’ve grown to love my tears in these five years…. Perhaps I

only love my resentment, not him…”

 

“Well, I shouldn’t care to be in his shoes,” hissed Rakitin.

 

“Well, you won’t be, Rakitin, you’ll never be in his shoes. You

shall black my shoes, Rakitin, that’s the place you are fit for.

You’ll never get a woman like me… and he won’t either, perhaps…”

 

“Won’t he? Then why are you dressed up like that?” said Rakitin,

with a venomous sneer.

 

“Don’t taunt me with dressing up, Rakitin, you don’t know all that

is in my heart! If I choose to tear off my finery, I’ll tear it off at

once, this minute,” she cried in a resonant voice. “You don’t know

what that finery is for, Rakitin! Perhaps I shall see him and say:

‘Have you ever seen me look like this before?’ He left me a thin,

consumptive cry-baby of seventeen. I’ll sit by him, fascinate him

and work him up. ‘Do you see what I am like now?’ I’ll say to him;

‘well, and that’s enough for you, my dear sir, there’s many a slip

twixt the cup and the lip! That may be what the finery is for,

Rakitin.” Grushenka finished with a malicious laugh. “I’m violent

and resentful, Alyosha, I’ll tear off my finery, I’ll destroy my

beauty, I’ll scorch my face, slash it with a knife, and turn beggar.

If I choose, I won’t go anywhere now to see anyone. If I choose,

I’ll send Kuzma back all he has ever given me, to-morrow, and all

his money and I’ll go out charing for the rest of my life. You think I

wouldn’t do it, Rakitin, that I would not dare to do it? I would, I

would, I could do it directly, only don’t exasperate me… and I’ll

send him about his business, I’ll snap my fingers in his face, he

shall never see me again!”

 

She uttered the last words in an hysterical scream, but broke down

again, hid her face in her hands, buried it in the pillow and shook

with sobs.

 

Rakitin got up.

 

“It’s time we were off,” he said, “it’s late, we shall be shut out

of the monastery.”

 

Grushenka leapt up from her place.

 

“Surely you don’t want to go, Alyosha!” she cried, in mournful

surprise. “What are you doing to me? You’ve stirred up my feeling,

tortured me, and now you’ll leave me to face this night alone!”

 

“He can hardly spend the night with you! Though if he wants to,

let him! I’ll go alone,” Rakitin scoffed jeeringly.

 

“Hush, evil tongue!” Grushenka cried angrily at him; “you never

said such words to me as he has come to say.”

 

“What has he said to you so special?” asked Rakitin irritably.

 

“I can’t say, I don’t know. I don’t know what he said to me, it

went straight to my heart; he has wrung my heart…. He is the

first, the only one who has pitied me, that’s what it is. Why did

you not come before, you angel?” She fell on her knees before him as

though in a sudden frenzy. “I’ve been waiting all my life for

someone like you, I knew that someone like you would come and

forgive me. I believed that, nasty as I am, someone would really

love me, not only with a shameful love!”

 

“What have I done to you?” answered Alyosha, bending over her with

a tender smile, and gently taking her by the hands; “I only gave you

an onion, nothing but a tiny little onion, that was all!”

 

He was moved to tears himself as he said it. At that moment

there was a sudden noise in the passage, someone came into the hall.

Grushenka jumped up, seeming greatly alarmed. Fenya ran noisily into

the room, crying out:

 

“Mistress, mistress darling, a messenger has galloped up,” she

cried, breathless and joyful. “A carriage from Mokroe for you, Timofey

the driver, with three horses, they are just putting in fresh

horses…. A letter, here’s the letter, mistress.”

 

A letter was in her hand and she waved it in the air all the while

she talked. Grushenka snatched the letter from her and carried it to

the candle. It was only a note, a few lines. She read it in one

instant.

 

“He has sent for me,” she cried, her face white and distorted,

with a wan smile; “he whistles! Crawl back, little dog!”

 

But only for one instant she stood as though hesitating;

suddenly the blood rushed to her head and sent a glow to her cheeks.

 

“I will go,” she cried; “five years of my life! Goodbye!

Goodbye, Alyosha, my fate is sealed. Go, go, leave me all of you,

don’t let me see you again! Grushenka is flying to a new life….

Don’t you remember evil against me either, Rakitin. I may be going

to my death! Ugh! I feel as though I were drunk!”

 

She suddenly left them and ran into her bedroom.

 

“Well, she has no thoughts for us now!” grumbled Rakitin. “Let’s

go, or we may hear that feminine shriek again. I am sick of all

these tears and cries.”

 

Alyosha mechanically let himself be led out. In the yard stood a

covered cart. Horses were being taken out of the shafts, men were

running to and fro with a lantern. Three fresh horses were being led

in at the open gate. But when Alyosha and Rakitin reached the bottom

of the steps, Grushenka’s bedroom window was suddenly opened and she

called in a ringing voice after Alyosha:

 

“Alyosha, give my greetings to your brother Mitya and tell him not

to remember evil against me, though I have brought him misery. And

tell him, too, in my words: ‘Grushenka has fallen to a scoundrel,

and not to you, noble heart.’ And add, too, that Grushenka loved him

only one hour, only one short hour she loved him-so let him

remember that hour all his life-say, ‘Grushenka tells you to!’

 

She ended in a voice full of sobs. The window was shut with a

slam.

 

“H’m, h’m!” growled Rakitin, laughing, “she murders your brother

Mitya and then tells him to remember it all his life! What ferocity!”

 

Alyosha made no reply, he seemed not to have heard. He walked fast

beside Rakitin as though in a terrible hurry. He was lost in thought

and moved mechanically. Rakitin felt a sudden twinge as though he

had been touched on an open wound. He had expected something quite

different by bringing Grushenka and Alyosha together. Something very

different from what he had hoped for had happened.

 

“He is a Pole, that officer of hers,” he began again,

restraining himself; “and indeed he is not an officer at all now. He

served in the customs in Siberia, somewhere on the Chinese frontier,

some puny little beggar of a Pole, I expect. Lost his job, they say.

He’s heard now that Grushenka’s saved a little money, so he’s turned

up again-that’s the explanation of the mystery.”

 

Again Alyosha seemed not to hear. Rakitin could not control

himself.

 

“Well, so you’ve saved the sinner?” he laughed spitefully. “Have

you turned the Magdalene into the true path? Driven out the seven

devils, eh? So you see the miracles you were looking out for just

now have come to pass!”

 

“Hush, Rakitin,” Alyosha, answered with an aching heart.

 

“So you despise me now for those twenty-five roubles? I’ve sold my

friend, you think. But you are not Christ, you know, and I am not

Judas.”

 

“Oh, Rakitin, I assure you I’d forgotten about it,” cried Alyosha,

“you remind me of it yourself…”

 

But this was the last straw for Rakitin.

 

“Damnation take you all and each of you” he cried suddenly, “why

the devil did I take you up? I don’t want to know you from this time

forward. Go alone, there’s your road!” And he turned abruptly into

another street, leaving Alyosha alone in the dark. Alyosha came out of

the town and walked across the fields to the monastery.