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

Chapter 4

In the Dark

 

WHERE was he running? “Where could she be except at Fyodor

Pavlovitch’s? She must have run straight to him from Samsonov’s,

that was clear now. The whole intrigue, the whole deceit was

evident.”… It all rushed whirling through his mind. He did not run

to Marya Kondratyevna’s. “There was no need to go there… not the

slightest need… he must raise no alarm… they would run and tell

directly…. Marya Kondratyevna was clearly in the plot, Smerdyakov

too, he too, all had been bought over!”

 

He formed another plan of action: he ran a long way round Fyodor

Pavlovitch’s house, crossing the lane, running down Dmitrovsky Street,

then over the little bridge, and so came straight to the deserted

alley at the back, which was empty and uninhabited, with, on one

side the hurdle fence of a neighbour’s kitchen-garden, on the other

the strong high fence that ran all round Fyodor Pavlovitch’s garden.

Here he chose a spot, apparently the very place, where according to

the tradition, he knew Lizaveta had once climbed over it: “If she

could climb over it,” the thought, God knows why, occurred to him,

“surely I can.” He did in fact jump up, and instantly contrived to

catch hold of the top of the fence. Then he vigorously pulled

himself up and sat astride on it. Close by, in the garden stood the

bathhouse, but from the fence he could see the lighted windows of

the house too.

 

“Yes, the old man’s bedroom is lighted up. She’s there! and he

leapt from the fence into the garden. Though he knew Grigory was ill

and very likely Smerdyakov, too, and that there was no one to hear

him, he instinctively hid himself, stood still, and began to listen.

But there was dead silence on all sides and, as though of design,

complete stillness, not the slightest breath of wind.

 

“And naught but the whispering silence,” the line for some

reason rose to his mind. “If only no one heard me jump over the fence!

I think not.” Standing still for a minute, he walked softly over the

grass in the garden, avoiding the trees and shrubs. He walked

slowly, creeping stealthily at every step, listening to his own

footsteps. It took him five minutes to reach the lighted window. He

remembered that just under the window there were several thick and

high bushes of elder and whitebeam. The door from the house into the

garden on the left-hand side was shut; he had carefully looked on

purpose to see, in passing. At last he reached the bushes and hid

behind them. He held his breath. “I must wait now,” he thought, “to

reassure them, in case they heard my footsteps and are listening… if

only I don’t cough or sneeze.”

 

He waited two minutes. His heart was beating violently, and, at

moments, he could scarcely breathe. “No, this throbbing at my heart

won’t stop,” he thought. “I can’t wait any longer.” He was standing

behind a bush in the shadow. The light of the window fell on the front

part of the bush.

 

“How red the whitebeam berries are!” he murmured, not knowing why.

Softly and noiselessly, step by step, he approached the window, and

raised himself on tiptoe. All Fyodor Pavlovitch’s bedroom lay open

before him. It was not a large room, and was divided in two parts by a

red screen, “Chinese,” as Fyodor Pavlovitch used to call it. The

word “Chinese” flashed into Mitya’s mind, “and behind the screen, is

Grushenka,” thought Mitya. He began watching Fyodor Pavlovitch who was

wearing his new striped-silk dressing-gown, which Mitya had never

seen, and a silk cord with tassels round the waist. A clean, dandified

shirt of fine linen with gold studs peeped out under the collar of the

dressing-gown. On his head Fyodor Pavlovitch had the same red

bandage which Alyosha had seen.

 

“He has got himself up,” thought Mitya.

 

His father was standing near the window, apparently lost in

thought. Suddenly he jerked up his head, listened a moment, and

hearing nothing went up to the table, poured out half a glass of

brandy from a decanter and drank it off. Then he uttered a deep

sigh, again stood still a moment, walked carelessly up to the

looking-glass on the wall, with his right hand raised the red

bandage on his forehead a little, and began examining his bruises

and scars, which had not yet disappeared.

 

“He’s alone,” thought Mitya, “in all probability he’s alone.”

 

Fyodor Pavlovitch moved away from the looking-glass, turned

suddenly to the window and looked out. Mitya instantly slipped away

into the shadow.

 

“She may be there behind the screen. Perhaps she’s asleep by now,”

he thought, with a pang at his heart. Fyodor Pavlovitch moved away

from the window. “He’s looking for her out of the window, so she’s not

there. Why should he stare out into the dark? He’s wild with

impatience.”… Mitya slipped back at once, and fell to gazing in at

the window again. The old man was sitting down at the table,

apparently disappointed. At last he put his elbow on the table, and

laid his right cheek against his hand. Mitya watched him eagerly.

 

“He’s alone, he’s alone!” he repeated again. “If she were here,

his face would be different.”

 

Strange to say, a queer, irrational vexation rose up in his

heart that she was not here. “It’s not that she’s not here,” he

explained to himself, immediately, “but that I can’t tell for

certain whether she is or not.” Mitya remembered afterwards that his

mind was at that moment exceptionally clear, that he took in

everything to the slightest detail, and missed no point. But a feeling

of misery, the misery of uncertainty and indecision, was growing in

his heart with every instant. “Is she here or not?” The angry doubt

filled his heart, and suddenly, making up his mind, he put out his

hand and softly knocked on the window frame. He knocked the signal the

old man had agreed upon with Smerdyakov, twice slowly and then three

times more quickly, the signal that meant “Grushenka is here!”

 

The old man started, jerked up his head, and, jumping up

quickly, ran to the window. Mitya slipped away into the shadow. Fyodor

Pavlovitch opened the window and thrust his whole head out.

 

“Grushenka, is it you? Is it you?” he said, in a sort of trembling

half-whisper. “Where are you, my angel, where are you?” He was

fearfully agitated and breathless.

 

“He’s alone,” Mitya decided.

 

“Where are you?” cried the old man again; and he thrust his head

out farther, thrust it out to the shoulders, gazing in all directions,

right and left. “Come here, I’ve a little present for you. Come,

I’ll show you…”

 

“He means the three thousand,” thought Mitya.

 

“But where are you? Are you at the door? I’ll open it directly.”

 

And the old man almost climbed out of the window, peering out to

the right, where there was a door into the garden, trying to see

into the darkness. In another second he would certainly have run out

to open the door without waiting for Grushenka’s answer.

 

Mitya looked at him from the side without stirring. The old

man’s profile that he loathed so, his pendent Adam’s apple, his hooked

nose, his lips that smiled in greedy expectation, were all brightly

lighted up by the slanting lamplight falling on the left from the

room. A horrible fury of hatred suddenly surged up in Mitya’s heart:

“There he was, his rival, the man who had tormented him, had ruined

his life!” It was a rush of that sudden, furious, revengeful anger

of which he had spoken, as though foreseeing it, to Alyosha, four days

ago in the arbour, when, in answer to Alyosha’s question, “How can you

say you’ll kill our father?” “I don’t know, I don’t know,” he had said

then. “Perhaps I shall not kill him, perhaps I shall. I’m afraid he’ll

suddenly be so loathsome to me at that moment. I hate his double chin,

his nose, his eyes, his shameless grin. I feel a personal repulsion.

That’s what I’m afraid of, that’s what may be too much for me.”…

This personal repulsion was growing unendurable. Mitya was beside

himself, he suddenly pulled the brass pestle out of his pocket.

 

“God was watching over me then,” Mitya himself said afterwards. At

that very moment Grigory waked up on his bed of sickness. Earlier in

the evening he had undergone the treatment which Smerdyakov had

described to Ivan. He had rubbed himself all over with vodka mixed

with a secret, very strong decoction, had drunk what was left of the

mixture while his wife repeated a “certain prayer” over him, after

which he had gone to bed. Marfa Ignatyevna had tasted the stuff,

too, and, being unused to strong drink, slept like the dead beside her

husband.

 

But Grigory waked up in the night, quite suddenly, and, after a

moment’s reflection, though he immediately felt a sharp pain in his

back, he sat up in bed. Then he deliberated again, got up and

dressed hurriedly. Perhaps his conscience was uneasy at the thought of

sleeping while the house was unguarded “in such perilous times.”

Smerdyakov, exhausted by his fit, lay motionless in the next room.

Marfa Ignatyevna did not stir. “The stuff’s been too much for the

woman,” Grigory thought, glancing at her, and groaning, he went out on

the steps. No doubt he only intended to look out from the steps, for

he was hardly able to walk, the pain in his back and his right leg was

intolerable. But he suddenly remembered that he had not locked the

little gate into the garden that evening. He was the most punctual and

precise of men, a man who adhered to an unchangeable routine, and

habits that lasted for years. Limping and writhing with pain he went

down the steps and towards the garden. Yes, the gate stood wide

open. Mechanically he stepped into the garden. Perhaps he fancied

something, perhaps caught some sound, and,