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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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It must be changed

directly, for it will get warm in a minute. Yulia, bring some ice from

the cellar and another basin of water. Now she is gone, I can speak;

will you give me the letter I sent you yesterday, dear Alexey

Fyodorovitch-be quick, for mamma will be back in a minute and I don’t

want- “

 

“I haven’t got the letter.”

 

“That’s not true, you have. I knew you would say that. You’ve

got it in that pocket. I’ve been regretting that joke all night.

Give me back the letter at once, give it me.”

 

“I’ve left it at home.”

 

“But you can’t consider me as a child, a little girl, after that

silly joke! I beg your pardon for that silliness, but you must bring

me the letter, if you really haven’t got it-bring to-day, you must,

you must.”

 

“To-day I can’t possibly, for I am going back to the monastery and

I shan’t come and see you for the next two days-three or four

perhaps-for Father Zossima- “

 

“Four days, what nonsense! Listen. Did you laugh at me very much?”

 

“I didn’t laugh at all.”

 

“Why not?”

 

“Because I believed all you said.”

 

“You are insulting me!”

 

“Not at all. As soon as I read it, I thought that all that would

come to pass, for as soon as Father Zossima dies, I am to leave the

monastery. Then I shall go back and finish my studies, and when you

reach the legal age we will be married. I shall love you. Though I

haven’t had time to think about it, I believe I couldn’t find a better

wife than you, and Father Zossima tells me I must marry.”

 

“But I am a cripple, wheeled about in a chair,” laughed Lise,

flushing crimson.

 

“I’ll wheel you about myself, but I’m sure you’ll get well by

then.”

 

“But you are mad,” said Lise, nervously, “to make all this

nonsense out of a joke! Here’s mamma, very a propos, perhaps. Mamma,

how slow you always are, how can you be so long! And here’s Yulia with

the ice!

 

“Oh, Lise, don’t scream, above all things don’t scream. That

scream drives me… How can I help it when you put the lint in another

place? I’ve been hunting and hunting-I do believe you did it on

purpose.”

 

“But I couldn’t tell that he would come with a bad finger, or else

perhaps I might have done it on purpose. My darling mamma, you begin

to say really witty things.”

 

“Never mind my being witty, but I must say you show nice feeling

for Alexey Fyodorovitch’s sufferings! Oh, my dear Alexey Fyodorovitch,

what’s killing me is no one thing in particular, not Herzenstube,

but everything together, that’s what is too much for me.”

 

“That’s enough, mamma, enough about Herzenstube,” Lise laughed

gaily. “Make haste with the lint and the lotion, mamma. That’s

simply Goulard’s water, Alexey Fyodorovitch, I remember the name

now, but it’s a splendid lotion. Would you believe it, Mamma, on the

way here he had a fight with the boys in the street, and it was a

boy bit his finger, isn’t he a child, a child himself? Is he fit to be

married after that? For only fancy, he wants to be married, mamma.

Just think of him married, wouldn’t it be funny, wouldn’t it be

awful?”

 

And Lise kept laughing her thin hysterical giggle, looking slyly

at Alyosha.

 

“But why married, Lise? What makes you talk of such a thing?

It’s quite out of place and perhaps the boy was rabid.”

 

“Why, mamma! As though there were rabid boys!”

 

“Why not, Lise, as though I had said something stupid! Your boy

might have been bitten by a mad dog and he would become mad and bite

anyone near him. How well she has bandaged it, Alexey Fyodorovitch!

I couldn’t have done it. Do you still feel the pain?”

 

“It’s nothing much now.”

 

“You don’t feel afraid of water?” asked Lise.

 

“Come, that’s enough, Lise, perhaps I really was rather too

quick talking of the boy being rabid, and you pounced upon it at once.

Katerina Ivanovna has only just heard that you are here, Alexey

Fyodorovitch, she simply rushed at me, she’s dying to see you, dying!”

 

“Ach, mamma, go to them yourself. He can’t go just now, he is in

too much pain.”

 

“Not at all, I can go quite well,” said Alyosha.

 

“What! You are going away? Is that what you say?”

 

“Well, when I’ve seen them, I’ll come back here and we can talk as

much as you like. But I should like to see Katerina Ivanovna at

once, for I am very anxious to be back at the monastery as soon as I

can.”

 

“Mamma, take him away quickly. Alexey Fyodorovitch, don’t

trouble to come and see me afterwards, but go straight back to your

monastery and a good riddance. I want to sleep, I didn’t sleep all

night.”

 

“Ah, Lise, you are only making fun, but how I wish you would

sleep!” cried Madame Hohlakov.

 

“I don’t know what I’ve done…. I’ll stay another three

minutes, five if you like,” muttered Alyosha.

 

“Even five! Do take him away quickly, mamma, he is a monster.”

 

“Lise, you are crazy. Let us go, Alexey Fyodorovitch, she is too

capricious to-day. I am afraid to cross her. Oh, the trouble one has

with nervous girls! Perhaps she really will be able to sleep after

seeing you. How quickly you have made her sleepy, and how fortunate it

is!”

 

“Ah, mamma, how sweetly you talk! I must kiss you for it, mamma.”

 

“And I kiss you too, Lise. Listen, Alexey Fyodorovitch,” Madame

Hohlakov began mysteriously and importantly, speaking in a rapid

whisper. “I don’t want to suggest anything, I don’t want to lift the

veil, you will see for yourself what’s going on. It’s appalling.

It’s the most fantastic farce. She loves your brother, Ivan, and she

is doing her utmost to persuade herself she loves your brother,

Dmitri. It’s appalling! I’ll go in with you, and if they don’t turn me

out, I’ll stay to the end.”

Chapter 5

A Laceration in the Drawing-Room

 

BUT in the drawing-room the conversation was already over.

Katerina Ivanovna was greatly excited, though she looked resolute.

At the moment Alyosha and Madame Hohlakov entered, Ivan Fyodorovitch

stood up to take leave. His face was rather pale, and Alyosha looked

at him anxiously. For this moment was to solve a doubt, a harassing

enigma which had for some time haunted Alyosha. During the preceding

month it had been several times suggested to him that his brother Ivan

was in love with Katerina Ivanovna, and, what was more, that he

meant “to carry her off from Dmitri. Until quite lately the idea

seemed to Alyosha monstrous, though it worried him extremely. He loved

both his brothers, and dreaded such rivalry between them. Meantime,

Dmitri had said outright on the previous day that he was glad that

Ivan was his rival, and that it was a great assistance to him, Dmitri.

In what way did it assist him? To marry Grushenka? But that Alyosha

considered the worst thing possible. Besides all this, Alyosha had

till the evening before implicitly believed that Katerina Ivanovna had

a steadfast and passionate love for Dmitri; but he had only believed

it till the evening before. He had fancied, too, that she was

incapable of loving a man like Ivan, and that she did love Dmitri, and

loved him just as he was, in spite of all the strangeness of such a

passion.

 

But during yesterday’s scene with Grushenka another idea had

struck him. The word “lacerating,” which Madame Hohlakov had just

uttered, almost made him start, because half waking up towards

daybreak that night he had cried out “Laceration, laceration,”

probably applying it to his dream. He had been dreaming all night of

the previous day’s scene at Katerina Ivanovna’s. Now Alyosha was

impressed by Madame Hohlakov’s blunt and persistent assertion that

Katerina Ivanovna was in love with Ivan, and only deceived herself

through some sort of pose, from “self-laceration,” and tortured

herself by her pretended love for Dmitri from some fancied duty of

gratitude. “Yes,” he thought, “perhaps the whole truth lies in those

words.” But in that case what was Ivan’s position? Alyosha felt

instinctively that a character like Katerina Ivanovna’s must dominate,

and she could only dominate someone like Dmitri, and never a man

like Ivan. For Dmitri might-at last submit to her domination “to

his own happiness” (which was what Alyosha would have desired), but

Ivan-no, Ivan could not submit to her, and such submission would

not give him happiness. Alyosha could not help believing that of Ivan.

And now all these doubts and reflections flitted through his mind as

he entered the drawing-room. Another idea, too, forced itself upon

him: “What if she loved neither of them-neither Ivan nor Dmitri?”

 

It must be noted that Alyosha felt as it were ashamed of his own

thoughts and blamed himself when they kept recurring to him during the

last month. “What do I know about love and women and how can I

decide such questions?” he thought reproachfully, after such doubts

and surmises. And yet it was impossible not to think about it. He felt

instinctively that this rivalry was of immense importance in his

brothers’ lives and that a great deal depended upon it.

 

“One reptile will devour the other,” Ivan had pronounced the day

before, speaking in anger of his father and Dmitri. So Ivan looked

upon Dmitri as a reptile, and perhaps long done so. Was it perhaps

since he had known Katerina Ivanovna? That phrase had, of course,

escaped Ivan unawares yesterday, but that only made it more important.

If he felt like that, what chance was there of peace? Were there

not, on the contrary, new grounds for hatred and hostility in their

family? And with which of them was Alyosha to sympathise? And what was

he to wish for each of them? He loved them both, but what could he

desire for each in the midst of these conflicting interests? He

might go quite astray in this maze, and Alyosha’s heart could not

endure uncertainty, because his love was always of an active

character. He was incapable of passive love. If he loved anyone, he

set to work at once to help him. And to do so he must know what he was

aiming at; he must know for certain what was best for each, and having

ascertained this it was natural for him to help them both. But instead

of a definite aim, he found nothing but uncertainty and perplexity

on all sides. “It was lacerating,” as was said just now. But what

could he understand even in this “laceration”? He did not understand

the first word in this perplexing maze.

 

Seeing Alyosha, Katerina Ivanovna said quickly and joyfully to

Ivan, who had already got up to go, “A minute! Stay another minute!

I want to hear the opinion of this person here whom I trust

absolutely. Don’t go away,” she added, addressing Madame Hohlakov. She

made Alyosha sit down beside her, and Madame Hohlakov sat opposite, by

Ivan.

 

“You are all my friends here, all I have in the world, dear

friends,” she warmly, in a voice which quivered with genuine tears

of suffering, and Alyosha’s heart warmed to her at once. “You,

Alexey Fyodorovitch, were witness yesterday of that abominable

scene, and saw what I did. You did not see it, Ivan Fyodorovitch, he

did. What he thought of me yesterday I don’t know. I only know one

thing, that if it were repeated to-day, this

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