The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Dostoevsky (the reader ebook txt) 📖

“But what is the matter with you? What’s wrong?” cried Pyotr Ilyitch, looking wildly at his guest. “How is it that you’re all covered with blood? Have you had a fall? Look at yourself!”

He took him by the elbow and led him to the glass.

Seeing his bloodstained face, Mitya started and scowled wrathfully.

“Damnation! That’s the last straw,” he muttered angrily, hurriedly changing the notes from his right hand to the left, and impulsively jerked the handkerchief out of his pocket. But the handkerchief turned out to be soaked with blood, too (it was the handkerchief he had used to wipe Grigory’s face). There was scarcely a white spot on it, and it had not merely begun to dry, but had stiffened into a crumpled ball and could not be pulled apart. Mitya threw it angrily on the floor.

“Oh, damn it!” he said. “Haven’t you a rag of some sort⁠ ⁠… to wipe my face?”

“So you’re only stained, not wounded? You’d better wash,” said Pyotr Ilyitch. “Here’s a washstand. I’ll pour you out some water.”

“A washstand? That’s all right⁠ ⁠… but where am I to put this?”

With the strangest perplexity he indicated his bundle of hundred-rouble notes, looking inquiringly at Pyotr Ilyitch as though it were for him to decide what he, Mitya, was to do with his own money.

“In your pocket, or on the table here. They won’t be lost.”

“In my pocket? Yes, in my pocket. All right.⁠ ⁠… But, I say, that’s all nonsense,” he cried, as though suddenly coming out of his absorption. “Look here, let’s first settle that business of the pistols. Give them back to me. Here’s your money⁠ ⁠… because I am in great need of them⁠ ⁠… and I haven’t a minute, a minute to spare.”

And taking the topmost note from the bundle he held it out to Pyotr Ilyitch.

“But I shan’t have change enough. Haven’t you less?”

“No,” said Mitya, looking again at the bundle, and as though not trusting his own words he turned over two or three of the topmost ones.

“No, they’re all alike,” he added, and again he looked inquiringly at Pyotr Ilyitch.

“How have you grown so rich?” the latter asked. “Wait, I’ll send my boy to Plotnikov’s, they close late⁠—to see if they won’t change it. Here, Misha!” he called into the passage.

“To Plotnikov’s shop⁠—first-rate!” cried Mitya, as though struck by an idea. “Misha,” he turned to the boy as he came in, “look here, run to Plotnikov’s and tell them that Dmitri Fyodorovitch sends his greetings, and will be there directly.⁠ ⁠… But listen, listen, tell them to have champagne, three dozen bottles, ready before I come, and packed as it was to take to Mokroe. I took four dozen with me then,” he added (suddenly addressing Pyotr Ilyitch); “they know all about it, don’t you trouble, Misha,” he turned again to the boy. “Stay, listen; tell them to put in cheese, Strasburg pies, smoked fish, ham, caviar, and everything, everything they’ve got, up to a hundred roubles, or a hundred and twenty as before.⁠ ⁠… But wait: don’t let them forget dessert, sweets, pears, watermelons, two or three or four⁠—no, one melon’s enough, and chocolate, candy, toffee, fondants; in fact, everything I took to Mokroe before, three hundred roubles’ worth with the champagne⁠ ⁠… let it be just the same again. And remember, Misha, if you are called Misha⁠—His name is Misha, isn’t it?” He turned to Pyotr Ilyitch again.

“Wait a minute,” Protr Ilyitch intervened, listening and watching him uneasily, “you’d better go yourself and tell them. He’ll muddle it.”

“He will, I see he will! Eh, Misha! Why, I was going to kiss you for the commission.⁠ ⁠… If you don’t make a mistake, there’s ten roubles for you, run along, make haste.⁠ ⁠… Champagne’s the chief thing, let them bring up champagne. And brandy, too, and red and white wine, and all I had then.⁠ ⁠… They know what I had then.”

“But listen!” Pyotr Ilyitch interrupted with some impatience. “I say, let him simply run and change the money and tell them not to close, and you go and tell them.⁠ ⁠… Give him your note. Be off, Misha! Put your best leg forward!”

Pyotr Ilyitch seemed to hurry Misha off on purpose, because the boy remained standing with his mouth and eyes wide open, apparently understanding little of Mitya’s orders, gazing up with amazement and terror at his bloodstained face and the trembling bloodstained fingers that held the notes.

“Well, now come and wash,” said Pyotr Ilyitch sternly. “Put the money on the table or else in your pocket.⁠ ⁠… That’s right, come along. But take off your coat.”

And beginning to help him off with his coat, he cried out again:

“Look, your coat’s covered with blood, too!”

“That⁠ ⁠… it’s not the coat. It’s only a little here on the sleeve.⁠ ⁠… And that’s only here where the handkerchief lay. It must have soaked through. I must have sat on the handkerchief at Fenya’s, and the blood’s come through,” Mitya explained at once with a childlike unconsciousness that was astounding. Pyotr Ilyitch listened, frowning.

“Well, you must have been up to something; you must have been fighting with someone,” he muttered.

They began to wash. Pyotr Ilyitch held the jug and poured out the water. Mitya, in desperate haste, scarcely soaped his hands (they were trembling, and Pyotr Ilyitch remembered it afterwards). But the young official insisted on his soaping them thoroughly and rubbing them more. He seemed to exercise more and more sway over Mitya, as time went on. It may be noted in passing that he was a young man of sturdy character.

“Look, you haven’t got your nails clean. Now rub your face; here, on your temples, by your ear.⁠ ⁠… Will you go in that shirt? Where are you going? Look, all the cuff of your right sleeve is covered with blood.”

“Yes, it’s all bloody,” observed Mitya, looking at the cuff of his shirt.

“Then change your shirt.”

“I haven’t time. You see I’ll⁠ ⁠…” Mitya went on with the same confiding ingenuousness, drying his face and hands on the towel, and putting on his coat. “I’ll