The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (best e book reader for android txt) 📖

were costly

goods or money lying about, no one kept watch on her, for they knew

that if she saw thousands of roubles overlooked by them, she would not

have touched a farthing. She scarcely ever went to church. She slept

either in the church porch or climbed over a hurdle (there are many

hurdles instead of fences to this day in our town) into a kitchen

garden. She used at least once a week to turn up “at home,” that is at

the house of her father’s former employers, and in the winter went

there every night, and slept either in the passage or the cow-house.

People were amazed that she could stand such a life, but she was

accustomed to it, and, although she was so tiny, she was of a robust

constitution. Some of the townspeople declared that she did all this

only from pride, but that is hardly credible. She could hardly

speak, and only from time to time uttered an inarticulate grunt. How

could she have been proud?

 

It happened one clear, warm, moonlight night in September (many

years ago) five or six drunken revellers were returning from the

club at a very late hour, according to our provincial notions. They

passed through the “backway,” which led between the back gardens of

the houses, with hurdles on either side. This way leads out on to

the bridge over the long, stinking pool which we were accustomed to

call a river. Among the nettles and burdocks under the hurdle our

revellers saw Lizaveta asleep. They stopped to look at her,

laughing, and began jesting with unbridled licentiousness. It occurred

to one young gentleman to make the whimsical inquiry whether anyone

could possibly look upon such an animal as a woman, and so forth….

They all pronounced with lofty repugnance that it was impossible.

But Fyodor Pavlovitch, who was among them, sprang forward and declared

that it was by no means impossible, and that, indeed, there was a

certain piquancy about it, and so on…. It is true that at that

time he was overdoing his part as a buffoon. He liked to put himself

forward and entertain the company, ostensibly on equal terms, of

course, though in reality he was on a servile footing with them. It

was just at the time when he had received the news of his first wife’s

death in Petersburg, and, with crape upon his hat, was drinking and

behaving so shamelessly that even the most reckless among us were

shocked at the sight of him. The revellers, of course, laughed at this

unexpected opinion; and one of them even began challenging him to

act upon it. The others repelled the idea even more emphatically,

although still with the utmost hilarity, and at last they went on

their way. Later on, Fyodor Pavlovitch swore that he had gone with

them, and perhaps it was so, no one knows for certain, and no one ever

knew. But five or six months later, all the town was talking, with

intense and sincere indignation, of Lizaveta’s condition, and trying

to find out who was the miscreant who had wronged her. Then suddenly a

terrible rumour was all over the town that this miscreant was no other

than Fyodor Pavlovitch. Who set the rumour going? Of that drunken band

five had left the town and the only one still among us was an

elderly and much respected civil councillor, the father of grown-up

daughters, who could hardly have spread the tale, even if there had

been any foundation for it. But rumour pointed straight at Fyodor

Pavlovitch, and persisted in pointing at him. Of course this was no

great grievance to him: he would not have troubled to contradict a set

of tradespeople. In those days he was proud, and did not condescend to

talk except in his own circle of the officials and nobles, whom he

entertained so well.

 

At the time, Grigory stood up for his master vigorously. He

provoked quarrels and altercations in defence of him and succeeded

in bringing some people round to his side. “It’s the wench’s own

fault,” he asserted, and the culprit was Karp, a dangerous convict,

who had escaped from prison and whose name was well known to us, as he

had hidden in our town. This conjecture sounded plausible, for it

was remembered that Karp had been in the neighbourhood just at that

time in the autumn, and had robbed three people. But this affair and

all the talk about it did not estrange popular sympathy from the

poor idiot. She was better looked after than ever. A well-to-do

merchants’s widow named Kondratyev arranged to take her into her house

at the end of April, meaning not to let her go out until after the

confinement. They kept a constant watch over her, but in spite of

their vigilance she escaped on the very last day, and made her way

into Fyodor Pavlovitch’s garden. How, in her condition, she managed to

climb over the high, strong fence remained a mystery. Some

maintained that she must have been lifted over by somebody; others

hinted at something more uncanny. The most likely explanation is

that it happened naturally-that Lizaveta, accustomed to clambering

over hurdles to sleep in gardens, had somehow managed to climb this

fence, in spite of her condition, and had leapt down, injuring

herself.

 

Grigory rushed to Marfa and sent her to Lizaveta, while he ran

to fetch an old midwife who lived close by. They saved the baby, but

Lizaveta died at dawn. Grigory took the baby, brought it home, and

making his wife sit down, put it on her lap. “A child of God-an

orphan is akin to all,” he said, “and to us above others. Our little

lost one has sent us this, who has come from the devil’s son and a

holy innocent. Nurse him and weep no more.”

 

So Marfa brought up the child. He was christened Pavel, to which

people were not slow in adding Fyodorovitch (son of Fyodor). Fyodor

Pavlovitch did not object to any of this, and thought it amusing,

though he persisted vigorously in denying his responsibility. The

townspeople were pleased at his adopting the foundling. Later on,

Fyodor Pavlovitch invented a surname for the child, calling him

Smerdyakov, after his mother’s nickname.

 

So this Smerdyakov became Fyodor Pavlovitch’s second servant,

and was living in the lodge with Grigory and Marfa at the time our

story begins. He was employed as cook. I ought to say something of

this Smerdyakov, but I am ashamed of keeping my readers’ attention

so long occupied with these common menials, and I will go back to my

story, hoping to say more of Smerdyakov in the course of it.