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Read books online » Fiction » The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (best e book reader for android txt) 📖

Book online «The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (best e book reader for android txt) 📖». Author Fyodor Dostoyevsky



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“Pardon me!” said the Father Superior. “It was said of old,

‘Many have begun to speak against me and have uttered evil sayings

about me. And hearing it I have said to myself: it is the correction

of the Lord and He has sent it to heal my vain soul.’ And so we humbly

thank you, honoured guest!” and he made Fyodor Pavlovitch a low bow.

 

“Tut-tut- tut-sanctimoniousness and stock phrases! Old phrases

and old gestures. The old lies and formal prostrations. We know all

about them. A kiss on the lips and a dagger in the heart, as in

Schiller’s Robbers. I don’t like falsehood, Fathers, I want the truth.

But the truth is not to be found in eating gudgeon and that I proclaim

aloud! Father monks, why do you fast? Why do you expect reward in

heaven for that? Why, for reward like that I will come and fast too!

No, saintly monk, you try being virtuous in the world, do good to

society, without shutting yourself up in a monastery at other people’s

expense, and without expecting a reward up aloft for it-you’ll find

that a bit harder. I can talk sense, too, Father Superior. What have

they got here?” He went up to the table. “Old port wine, mead brewed

by the Eliseyev Brothers. Fie, fie, fathers! That is something

beyond gudgeon. Look at the bottles the fathers have brought out, he

he he! And who has provided it all? The Russian peasant, the labourer,

brings here the farthing earned by his horny hand, wringing it from

his family and the tax-gatherer! You bleed the people, you know,

holy Fathers.”

 

“This is too disgraceful!” said Father Iosif.

 

Father Paissy kept obstinately silent. Miusov rushed from the

room, and Kalgonov after him.

 

“Well, Father, I will follow Pyotr Alexandrovitch! I am not coming

to see you again. You may beg me on your knees, I shan’t come. I

sent you a thousand roubles, so you have begun to keep your eye on me.

He he he! No, I’ll say no more. I am taking my revenge for my youth,

for all the humiliation I endured.” He thumped the table with his fist

in a paroxysm of simulated feeling. “This monastery has played a great

part in my life! It has cost me many bitter tears. You used to set

my wife, the crazy one, against me. You cursed me with bell and

book, you spread stories about me all over the place. Enough, fathers!

This is the age of Liberalism, the age of steamers and railways.

Neither a thousand, nor a hundred roubles, no, nor a hundred farthings

will you get out of me!”

 

It must be noted again that our monastery never had played any

great part in his life, and he never had shed a bitter tear owing to

it. But he was so carried away by his simulated emotion, that he was

for one moment almost believing it himself. He was so touched he was

almost weeping. But at that very instant, he felt that it was time

to draw back.

 

The Father Superior bowed his head at his malicious lie, and again

spoke impressively:

 

“It is written again, ‘Bear circumspectly and gladly dishonour

that cometh upon thee by no act of thine own, be not confounded and

hate not him who hath dishonoured thee.’ And so will we.”

 

“Tut, tut, tut! Bethinking thyself and the rest of the

rigmarole. Bethink yourselves Fathers, I will go. But I will take my

son, Alexey, away from here for ever, on my parental authority. Ivan

Fyodorovitch, my most dutiful son, permit me to order you to follow

me. Von Sohn, what have you to stay for? Come and see me now in the

town. It is fun there. It is only one short verst; instead of lenten

oil, I will give you sucking-pig and kasha. We will have dinner with

some brandy and liqueur to it…. I’ve cloudberry wine. Hey, von Sohn,

don’t lose your chance.” He went out, shouting and gesticulating.

 

It was at that moment Rakitin saw him and pointed him out to

Alyosha.

 

“Alexey!” his father shouted, from far off, catching sight of him.

“You come home to me to-day, for good, and bring your pillow and

mattress, and leave no trace behind.”

 

Alyosha stood rooted to the spot, watching the scene in silence.

Meanwhile, Fyodor Pavlovitch had got into the carriage, and Ivan was

about to follow him in grim silence without even turning to say

good-bye to Alyosha. But at this point another almost incredible scene

of grotesque buffoonery gave the finishing touch to the episode.

Maximov suddenly appeared by the side of the carriage. He ran up,

panting, afraid of being too late. Rakitin and Alyosha saw him

running. He was in such a hurry that in his impatience he put his foot

on the step on which Ivan’s left foot was still resting, and clutching

the carriage he kept trying to jump in. “I am going with you! ” he

kept shouting, laughing a thin mirthful laugh with a look of

reckless glee in his face. “Take me, too.”

 

“There!” cried Fyodor Pavlovitch, delighted. “Did I not say he was

von Sohn. It is von Sohn himself, risen from the dead. Why, how did

you tear yourself away? What did you von Sohn there? And how could you

get away from the dinner? You must be a brazen-faced fellow! I am that

myself, but I am surprised at you, brother! Jump in, jump in! Let

him pass, Ivan. It will be fun. He can lie somewhere at our feet. Will

you lie at our feet, von Sohn? Or perch on the box with the

coachman. Skip on to the box, von Sohn!”

 

But Ivan, who had by now taken his seat, without a word gave

Maximov a violent punch in the breast and sent him flying. It was

quite by chance he did not fall.

 

“Drive on!” Ivan shouted angrily to the coachman.

 

“Why, what are you doing, what are you about? Why did you do

that?” Fyodor Pavlovitch protested.

 

But the carriage had already driven away. Ivan made no reply.

 

“Well, you are a fellow,” Fyodor Pavlovitch said again.

 

After a pause of two minutes, looking askance at his son, “Why, it

was you got up all this monastery business. You urged it, you approved

of it. Why are you angry now?”

 

“You’ve talked rot enough. You might rest a bit now,” Ivan snapped

sullenly.

 

Fyodor Pavlovitch was silent again for two minutes.

 

“A drop of brandy would be nice now,” he observed sententiously,

but Ivan made no response.

 

“You shall have some, too, when we get home.”

 

Ivan was still silent.

 

Fyodor Pavlovitch waited another two minutes.

 

“But I shall take Alyosha away from the monastery, though you will

dislike it so much, most honoured Karl von Moor.”

 

Ivan shrugged his shoulders contemptuously, and turning away

stared at the road. And they did not speak again all the way home.

Book III

The Sensualists

Chapter 1

In the Servants’ Quarters

 

THE Karamazovs’ house was far from being in the centre of the

town, but it was not quite outside it. It was a pleasant-looking old

house of two stories, painted grey, with a red iron roof. It was roomy

and snug, and might still last many years. There were all sorts of

unexpected little cupboards and closets and staircases. There were

rats in it, but Fyodor Pavlovitch did not altogether dislike them.

“One doesn’t feel so solitary when one’s left alone in the evening,”

he used to say. It was his habit to send the servants away to the

lodge for the night and to lock himself up alone. The lodge was a

roomy and solid building in the yard. Fyodor Pavlovitch used to have

the cooking done there, although there was a kitchen in the house;

he did not like the smell of cooking, and, winter and summer alike,

the dishes were carried in across the courtyard. The house was built

for a large family; there was room for five times as many, with

their servants. But at the time of our story there was no one living

in the house but Fyodor Pavlovitch and his son Ivan. And in the

lodge there were only three servants: old Grigory, and his old wife

Marfa, and a young man called Smerdyakov. Of these three we must say a

few words. Of old Grigory we have said something already. He was

firm and determined and went blindly and obstinately for his object,

if once be had been brought by any reasons (and they were often very

illogical ones) to believe that it was immutably right. He was

honest and incorruptible. His wife, Marfa Ignatyevna, had obeyed her

husband’s will implicitly all her life, yet she had pestered him

terribly after the emancipation of the serfs. She was set on leaving

Fyodor Pavlovitch and opening a little shop in Moscow with their small

savings. But Grigory decided then, once for all, that “the woman’s

talking nonsense, for every woman is dishonest,” and that they ought

not to leave their old master, whatever he might be, for “that was now

their duty.”

 

“Do you understand what duty is?” he asked Marfa Ignatyevna.

 

“I understand what duty means, Grigory Vassilyevitch, but why it’s

our duty to stay here I never shall understand,” Marfa answered

firmly.

 

“Well, don’t understand then. But so it shall be. And you hold

your tongue.”

 

And so it was. They did not go away, and Fyodor Pavlovitch

promised them a small sum for wages, and paid it regularly. Grigory

knew, too, that he had an indisputable influence over his master. It

was true, and he was aware of it. Fyodor Pavlovitch was an obstinate

and cunning buffoon, yet, though his will was strong enough “in some

of the affairs of life,” as he expressed it, he found himself, to

his surprise, extremely feeble in facing certain other emergencies. He

knew his weaknesses and was afraid of them. There are positions in

which one has to keep a sharp lookout. And that’s not easy without a

trustworthy man, and Grigory was a most trustworthy man. Many times in

the course of his life Fyodor Pavlovitch had only just escaped a sound

thrashing through Grigory’s intervention, and on each occasion the old

servant gave him a good lecture. But it wasn’t only thrashings that

Fyodor Pavlovitch was afraid of. There were graver occasions, and very

subtle and complicated ones, when Fyodor Pavlovitch could not have

explained the extraordinary craving for someone faithful and

devoted, which sometimes unaccountably came upon him all in a

moment. It was almost a morbid condition. Corrupt and often cruel in

his lust, like some noxious insect, Fyodor Pavlovitch was sometimes,

in moments of drunkenness, overcome by superstitious terror and a

moral convulsion which took an almost physical form. “My soul’s simply

quaking in my throat at those times,” he used to say. At such

moments he liked to feel that there was near at hand, in the lodge

if not in the room, a strong, faithful man, virtuous and unlike

himself, who had seen all his debauchery and knew all his secrets, but

was ready in his devotion to overlook all that, not to oppose him,

above all, not to reproach him or threaten him with anything, either

in this world or in the next, and, in case of need, to defend him-from whom? From somebody unknown, but terrible and dangerous. What

he needed was to feel that there was another man, an old and tried

friend, that he might call him in his sick moments merely to look at

his face, or, perhaps, exchange

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