Smerdyakov, who was looking at the ground again, and playing with the toe of his right foot, set the foot down, moved the left one forward, and, grinning, articulated:
“If I were able to play such a trick, that is, pretend to have a fit—and it would not be difficult for a man accustomed to them—I should have a perfect right to use such a means to save myself from death. For even if Agrafena Alexandrovna comes to see his father while I am ill, his honor can’t blame a sick man for not telling him. He’d be ashamed to.”
“Hang it all!” Ivan cried, his face working with anger, “why are you always in such a funk for your life? All my brother Dmitri’s threats are only hasty words and mean nothing. He won’t kill you; it’s not you he’ll kill!”
“He’d kill me first of all, like a fly. But even more than that, I am afraid I shall be taken for an accomplice of his when he does something crazy to his father.”
“Why should you be taken for an accomplice?”
“They’ll think I am an accomplice, because I let him know the signals as a great secret.”
“What signals? Whom did you tell? Confound you, speak more plainly.”
“I’m bound to admit the fact,” Smerdyakov drawled with pedantic composure, “that I have a secret with Fyodor Pavlovitch in this business. As you know yourself (if only you do know it) he has for several days past locked himself in as soon as night or even evening comes on. Of late you’ve been going upstairs to your room early every evening, and yesterday you did not come down at all, and so perhaps you don’t know how carefully he has begun to lock himself in at night, and even if Grigory Vassilyevitch comes to the door he won’t open to him till he hears his voice. But Grigory Vassilyevitch does not come, because I wait upon him alone in his room now. That’s the arrangement he made himself ever since this to-do with Agrafena Alexandrovna began. But at night, by his orders, I go away to the lodge so that I don’t get to sleep till midnight, but am on the watch, getting up and walking about the yard, waiting for Agrafena Alexandrovna to come. For the last few days he’s been perfectly frantic expecting her. What he argues is, she is afraid of him, Dmitri Fyodorovitch (Mitya, as he calls him), ‘and so,’ says he, ‘she’ll come the back-way, late at night, to me. You look out for her,’ says he, ‘till midnight and later; and if she does come, you run up and knock at my door or at the window from the garden. Knock at first twice, rather gently, and then three times more quickly, then,’ says he, ‘I shall understand at once that she has come, and will open the door to you quietly.’ Another signal he gave me in case anything unexpected happens. At first, two knocks, and then, after an interval, another much louder. Then he will understand that something has happened suddenly and that I must see him, and he will open to me so that I can go and speak to him. That’s all in case Agrafena Alexandrovna can’t come herself, but sends a message. Besides, Dmitri Fyodorovitch might come, too, so I must let him know he is near. His honor is awfully afraid of Dmitri Fyodorovitch, so that even if Agrafena Alexandrovna had come and were locked in with him, and Dmitri Fyodorovitch were to turn up anywhere near at the time, I should be bound to let him know at once, knocking three times. So that the first signal of five knocks means Agrafena Alexandrovna has come, while the second signal of three knocks means ‘something important to tell you.’ His honor has shown me them several times and explained them. And as in the whole universe no one knows of these signals but myself and his honor, so he’d open the door without the slightest hesitation and without calling out (he is awfully afraid of calling out aloud). Well, those signals are known to Dmitri Fyodorovitch too, now.”
“How are they known? Did you tell him? How dared you tell him?”
“It was through fright I did it. How could I dare to keep it back from him? Dmitri Fyodorovitch kept persisting every day, ‘You are deceiving me, you are hiding something from me! I’ll break both your legs for you.’ So I told him those secret signals that he might see my slavish devotion, and might be satisfied that I was not deceiving him, but was telling him all I could.”
“If you think that he’ll make use of those signals and try to get in, don’t let him in.”
“But if I should be laid up with a fit, how can I prevent him coming in then, even if I dared prevent him, knowing how desperate he is?”
“Hang it! How can you be so sure you are going to have a fit, confound you? Are you laughing at me?”
“How could I dare laugh at you? I am in no laughing humor with this fear on me. I feel I am going to have a fit. I have a presentiment. Fright alone will bring it on.”
“Confound it! If you are laid up, Grigory will be on the watch. Let Grigory know beforehand; he will be sure not to let him in.”
“I should never dare to tell Grigory Vassilyevitch about the signals without orders from my master. And as for Grigory Vassilyevitch hearing him and not admitting him, he has been ill ever since yesterday, and Marfa Ignatyevna intends to give him medicine to-morrow. They’ve just arranged it. It’s a very strange remedy of hers. Marfa Ignatyevna knows of a preparation and always keeps it. It’s a strong thing made from some herb. She has the secret of it, and she always gives it to Grigory Vassilyevitch three times a year when his lumbago’s so bad he is almost paralyzed by it. Then she takes a towel, wets it with the stuff, and rubs his whole back for half an hour till it’s quite red and swollen, and what’s left in the bottle she gives him to drink with a special prayer; but not quite all, for on such occasions she leaves some for herself, and drinks it herself. And as they never take strong drink, I assure you they both drop asleep at once and sleep sound a very long time. And when Grigory Vassilyevitch wakes up he is perfectly well after it, but Marfa Ignatyevna always has a headache from it. So, if Marfa Ignatyevna carries out her intention to-morrow, they won’t hear anything and hinder Dmitri Fyodorovitch. They’ll be asleep.”
“What a rigmarole! And it all seems to happen at once, as though it were planned. You’ll have a fit and they’ll both be unconscious,” cried Ivan. “But aren’t you trying to arrange it so?” broke from him suddenly, and he frowned threateningly.
“How could I?... And why should I, when it all depends on Dmitri Fyodorovitch and his plans?... If he means to do anything, he’ll do it; but if not, I shan’t be thrusting him upon his father.”
“And why should he go to father, especially on the sly, if, as you say yourself, Agrafena Alexandrovna won’t come at all?” Ivan went on, turning white with anger. “You say that yourself, and all the while I’ve been here, I’ve felt sure it was all the old man’s fancy, and the creature won’t come to him. Why should Dmitri break in on him if she doesn’t come? Speak, I want to know what you are thinking!”
“You know yourself why he’ll come. What’s the use of what I think? His honor will come simply because he is in a rage or suspicious on account of my illness perhaps, and he’ll dash in, as he did yesterday through impatience to search the rooms, to see whether she hasn’t escaped him on the sly. He is perfectly well aware, too, that Fyodor Pavlovitch has a big envelope with three thousand roubles in it, tied up with ribbon and sealed with three seals. On it is written in his own hand, ‘To my angel Grushenka, if she will come,’ to which he added three days later, ‘for my little chicken.’ There’s no knowing what that might do.”
“Nonsense!” cried Ivan, almost beside himself. “Dmitri won’t come to steal money and kill my father to do it. He might have killed him yesterday on account of Grushenka, like the frantic, savage fool he is, but he won’t steal.”
“He is in very great need of money now—the greatest need, Ivan Fyodorovitch. You don’t know in what need he is,” Smerdyakov explained, with perfect composure and remarkable distinctness. “He looks on that three thousand as his own, too. He said so to me himself. ‘My father still owes me just three thousand,’ he said. And besides that, consider, Ivan Fyodorovitch, there is something else perfectly true. It’s as good as certain, so to say, that Agrafena Alexandrovna will force him, if only she cares to, to marry her—the master himself, I mean, Fyodor Pavlovitch—if only she cares to, and of course she may care to. All I’ve said is that she won’t come, but maybe she’s looking for more than that—I mean to be mistress here. I know myself that Samsonov, her merchant, was laughing with her about it, telling her quite openly that it would not be at all a stupid thing to do. And she’s got plenty of sense. She wouldn’t marry a beggar like Dmitri Fyodorovitch. So, taking that into consideration, Ivan Fyodorovitch, reflect that then neither Dmitri Fyodorovitch nor yourself and your brother, Alexey Fyodorovitch, would have anything after the master’s death, not a rouble, for Agrafena Alexandrovna would marry him simply to get hold of the whole, all the money there is. But if your father were to die now, there’d be some forty thousand for sure, even for Dmitri Fyodorovitch whom he hates so, for he’s made no will.... Dmitri Fyodorovitch knows all that very well.”
A sort of shudder passed over Ivan’s face. He suddenly flushed.
“Then why on earth,” he suddenly interrupted Smerdyakov, “do you advise me to go to Tchermashnya? What did you mean by that? If I go away, you see what will happen here.” Ivan drew his breath with difficulty.
“Precisely so,” said Smerdyakov, softly and reasonably, watching Ivan intently, however.
“What do you mean by ‘precisely so’?” Ivan questioned him, with a menacing light in his eyes, restraining himself with difficulty.
“I spoke because I felt sorry for you. If I were in your place I should simply throw it all up ... rather than stay on in such a position,” answered Smerdyakov, with the most candid air looking at Ivan’s flashing eyes. They were both silent.
“You seem to be a perfect idiot, and what’s more ... an awful scoundrel, too.” Ivan rose suddenly from the bench. He was about to pass straight through the gate, but he stopped short and turned to Smerdyakov. Something strange followed. Ivan, in a sudden paroxysm, bit his lip, clenched his fists, and, in another minute, would have flung himself on Smerdyakov. The latter, anyway, noticed it at the same moment, started, and shrank back. But the moment passed without mischief to Smerdyakov, and Ivan turned in silence, as it seemed in perplexity, to the gate.
“I am going away to Moscow to-morrow, if you care to know—early to-morrow morning. That’s all!” he suddenly said aloud angrily, and wondered himself afterwards what need there was to say this then to Smerdyakov.
“That’s the best thing you can do,” he responded, as though he had expected to hear it; “except that you can always be telegraphed for from Moscow, if anything should happen here.”
Ivan stopped again, and again turned quickly to Smerdyakov. But a change had passed over him, too. All his familiarity and carelessness had completely disappeared. His face expressed attention and expectation, intent but timid and cringing.
“Haven’t you something more to say—something to add?” could be read in the intent gaze he fixed on Ivan.
“And couldn’t I be sent for from Tchermashnya, too—in case anything happened?” Ivan shouted suddenly, for some unknown reason raising his voice.
“From Tchermashnya, too ... you could be sent for,” Smerdyakov muttered, almost in a whisper, looking disconcerted, but gazing intently into Ivan’s eyes.
“Only Moscow is farther and Tchermashnya is nearer. Is it to save my spending money on the fare, or to save my going so far out of my way, that you insist on Tchermashnya?”
“Precisely so ...” muttered Smerdyakov, with a breaking voice. He looked at Ivan with a revolting smile, and again made ready to draw back. But to his astonishment Ivan broke into a laugh, and went through the gate still laughing. Any one who had seen his face at that moment would have known that he was not laughing from lightness of heart, and he could not have explained himself what he was feeling at that instant. He moved and walked as though in a nervous frenzy.
Chapter VII.
“It’s Always Worth While Speaking To A Clever Man”
And in the same nervous frenzy, too, he spoke. Meeting Fyodor Pavlovitch in the drawing-room directly he went in, he shouted to him, waving his hands, “I am going upstairs to my room, not in to you. Good-by!” and passed by, trying not even to look at his father. Very possibly the old man was too hateful to him at that moment; but such an unceremonious display of hostility was a surprise even to Fyodor Pavlovitch. And the old man evidently wanted to tell him something at once and had come to meet him in the drawing-room on purpose. Receiving this amiable greeting, he stood still in silence and with an ironical air watched his son going upstairs, till he passed out of sight.
“What’s the matter with him?” he promptly asked Smerdyakov, who had followed Ivan.
“Angry about something. Who can tell?” the valet muttered evasively.
“Confound him! Let him be angry then. Bring in the samovar, and get along with you. Look sharp! No news?”
Then followed a series of questions such as Smerdyakov had just complained of to Ivan, all relating to his expected visitor, and these questions we will omit. Half an hour later the house was locked, and the crazy old man was wandering along through the rooms in excited expectation of hearing every minute the five knocks agreed upon. Now and then he peered out into the darkness, seeing nothing.
It was very late, but Ivan was still awake and reflecting. He sat up late that night, till two o’clock. But we will not give an account of his thoughts, and this is not the place to look into that soul—its turn will come. And even if one tried, it would be very hard to give an account of them, for there were no thoughts in his brain, but something very vague, and, above all, intense excitement. He felt himself that he had lost his bearings. He was fretted, too, by all sorts of strange and almost surprising desires; for instance, after midnight he suddenly had an intense irresistible inclination to go down, open the door, go to the lodge and beat Smerdyakov. But if he had been asked why, he could not have given any exact reason, except perhaps that he loathed the valet as one who had insulted him more gravely than any one in the world. On the other hand, he was more than once that night overcome by a sort of inexplicable humiliating terror, which he felt positively paralyzed his physical powers. His head ached and he was giddy. A feeling of hatred was rankling in his heart, as though he meant to avenge himself on some one. He even hated Alyosha, recalling the conversation he had just had with him. At moments he hated himself intensely. Of Katerina Ivanovna he almost forgot to think, and wondered greatly at this afterwards, especially as he remembered perfectly that when he had protested so valiantly to Katerina Ivanovna that he would go away next day to Moscow, something had whispered in his heart, “That’s nonsense, you are not going, and it won’t be so easy to tear yourself away as you are boasting now.”
Remembering that night long afterwards, Ivan recalled with peculiar repulsion how he had suddenly got up from the sofa and had stealthily, as though he were afraid of being watched, opened the door, gone out on the staircase and listened to Fyodor Pavlovitch stirring down below, had listened a long while—some five minutes—with a sort of strange curiosity, holding his breath while his heart throbbed. And why he had done all this, why he was listening, he could not have said. That “action” all his life afterwards he called “infamous,” and at the bottom of his heart, he thought of it as the basest action of his life. For Fyodor Pavlovitch himself he felt no hatred at that moment, but was simply intensely curious to know how he was walking down there below and what he must be doing now. He wondered and imagined how he must be peeping out of the dark windows and stopping in the middle of the room, listening, listening—for some one to knock. Ivan went out on to the stairs twice to listen like this.
About two o’clock when everything was quiet, and even Fyodor Pavlovitch had gone to bed, Ivan had got into bed, firmly resolved to fall asleep at once, as he felt fearfully exhausted. And he did fall asleep at once, and slept soundly without dreams, but waked early, at seven o’clock, when it was broad daylight. Opening his eyes, he was surprised to feel himself extraordinarily vigorous. He jumped up at once and dressed quickly; then dragged out his trunk and began packing immediately. His linen had come back from the laundress the previous morning. Ivan positively smiled at the thought that everything was helping his sudden departure. And his departure certainly was sudden. Though Ivan had said the day before (to Katerina Ivanovna, Alyosha, and Smerdyakov) that he was leaving next day, yet he remembered that he had no thought of departure when he went to bed, or, at least, had not dreamed that his first act in the morning would be to pack his trunk. At last his trunk and bag were ready. It was about nine o’clock when Marfa Ignatyevna came in with her usual inquiry, “Where will your honor take your tea, in your own room or downstairs?” He looked almost cheerful, but there was about him, about his words and gestures, something hurried and scattered. Greeting his father affably, and even inquiring specially after his health, though he did not wait to hear his answer to the end, he announced that he was starting off in an hour to return to Moscow for good, and begged him to send for the horses. His father heard this announcement with no sign of surprise, and forgot in an unmannerly way to show regret at losing him. Instead of doing so, he flew into a great flutter at the recollection of some important business of his own.
“What a fellow you are! Not to tell me yesterday! Never mind; we’ll manage it all the same. Do me a great service, my dear boy. Go to Tchermashnya on the way. It’s only to turn to the left from the station at Volovya, only another twelve versts and you come to Tchermashnya.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t. It’s eighty versts to the railway and the train starts for Moscow at seven o’clock to-night. I can only just catch it.”
“You’ll catch it to-morrow or the day after, but to-day turn off to Tchermashnya. It won’t put you out much to humor your father! If I hadn’t had something to keep me here, I would have run over myself long ago, for I’ve some business there in a hurry. But here I ... it’s not the time for me to go now.... You see, I’ve two pieces of copse land there. The Maslovs, an old merchant and his son, will give eight thousand for the timber. But last year I just missed a purchaser who would have given twelve. There’s no getting any one about here to buy it. The Maslovs have it all their own way. One has to take what they’ll give, for no one here dare bid against them. The priest at Ilyinskoe wrote to me last Thursday that a merchant called Gorstkin, a man I know, had turned up. What makes him valuable is that he is not from these parts, so he is not afraid of the Maslovs. He says he will give me eleven thousand for the copse. Do you hear? But he’ll only be here, the priest writes, for a week altogether, so you must go at once and make a bargain with him.”
“Well, you write to the priest; he’ll make the bargain.”
“He can’t do it. He has no eye for business. He is a perfect treasure, I’d give him twenty thousand to take care of for me without a receipt; but he has no eye for business, he is a perfect child, a crow could deceive him. And yet he is a learned man, would you believe it? This Gorstkin looks like a peasant, he wears a blue kaftan, but he is a regular rogue. That’s the common complaint. He is a liar. Sometimes he tells such lies that you wonder why he is doing it. He told me the year before last that his wife was dead and that he had married another, and would you believe it, there was not a word of truth in it? His wife has never died at all, she is alive to this day and gives him a beating twice a week. So what you have to find out is whether he is lying or speaking the truth, when he says he wants to buy it and would give eleven thousand.”
“I shall be no use in such a business. I have no eye either.”
“Stay, wait a bit! You will be of use, for I will tell you the signs by which you can judge about Gorstkin. I’ve done business with him a long time. You see, you must watch his beard; he has a nasty, thin, red beard. If his beard shakes when he talks and he gets cross, it’s all right, he is saying what he means, he wants to do business. But if he strokes his beard with his left hand and grins—he is trying to cheat you. Don’t watch his eyes, you won’t find out anything from his eyes, he is a deep one, a rogue—but watch his beard! I’ll give you a note and you show it to him. He’s called Gorstkin, though his real name is Lyagavy;[4] but don’t call him so, he will be offended. If you come to an understanding with him, and see it’s all right, write here at once. You need only write: ‘He’s not lying.’ Stand out for eleven thousand; one thousand you can knock off, but not more. Just think! there’s a difference between eight thousand and eleven thousand. It’s as good as picking up three thousand; it’s not so easy to find a purchaser, and I’m in desperate need of money. Only let me know it’s serious, and I’ll run over and fix it up. I’ll snatch the time somehow. But what’s the good of my galloping over, if it’s all a notion of the priest’s? Come, will you go?”
“Oh, I can’t spare the time. You must excuse me.”
“Come, you might oblige your father. I shan’t forget it. You’ve no heart, any of you—that’s what it is? What’s a day or two to you? Where are you going now—to Venice? Your Venice will keep another two days. I would have sent Alyosha, but what use is Alyosha in a thing like that? I send you just because you are a clever fellow. Do you suppose I don’t see that? You know nothing about timber, but you’ve got an eye. All that is wanted is to see whether the man is in earnest. I tell you, watch his beard—if his beard shakes you know he is in earnest.”
“You force me to go to that damned Tchermashnya yourself, then?” cried Ivan, with a malignant smile.
Fyodor Pavlovitch did not catch, or would not catch, the malignancy, but he caught the smile.
“Then you’ll go, you’ll go? I’ll scribble the note for you at once.”
“I don’t know whether I shall go. I don’t know. I’ll decide on the way.”
“Nonsense! Decide at once. My dear fellow, decide! If you settle the matter, write me a line; give it to the priest and he’ll send it on to me at once. And I won’t delay you more than that. You can go to Venice. The priest will give you horses back to Volovya station.”
The old man was quite delighted. He wrote the note, and sent for the horses. A light lunch was brought in, with brandy. When Fyodor Pavlovitch was pleased, he usually became expansive, but to-day he seemed to restrain himself. Of Dmitri, for instance, he did not say a word. He was quite unmoved by the parting, and seemed, in fact, at a loss for something to say. Ivan noticed this particularly. “He must be bored with me,” he thought. Only when accompanying his son out on to the steps, the old man began to fuss about. He would have kissed him, but Ivan made haste to hold out his hand, obviously avoiding the kiss. His father saw it at once, and instantly pulled himself up.
“Well, good luck to you, good luck to you!” he repeated from the steps. “You’ll come again some time or other? Mind you do come. I shall always be glad to see you. Well, Christ be with you!”
Ivan got into the carriage.
“Good-by, Ivan! Don’t be too hard on me!” the father called for the last time.
The whole household came out to take leave—Smerdyakov, Marfa and Grigory. Ivan gave them ten roubles each. When he had seated himself in the carriage, Smerdyakov jumped up to arrange the rug.
“You see ... I am going to Tchermashnya,” broke suddenly from Ivan. Again, as the day before, the words seemed to drop of themselves, and he laughed, too, a peculiar, nervous laugh. He remembered it long after.
“It’s a true saying then, that ‘it’s always worth while speaking to a clever man,’” answered Smerdyakov firmly, looking significantly at Ivan.
The carriage rolled away. Nothing was clear in Ivan’s soul, but he looked eagerly around him at the fields, at the hills, at the trees, at a flock of geese flying high overhead in the bright sky. And all of a sudden he felt very happy. He tried to talk to the driver, and he felt intensely interested in an answer the peasant made him; but a minute later he realized that he was not catching anything, and that he had not really even taken in the peasant’s answer. He was silent, and it was pleasant even so. The air was fresh, pure and cool, the sky bright. The images of Alyosha and Katerina Ivanovna floated into his mind. But he softly smiled, blew softly on the friendly phantoms, and they flew away. “There’s plenty of time for them,” he thought. They reached the station quickly, changed horses, and galloped to Volovya. “Why is it worth while speaking to a clever man? What did he mean by that?” The thought seemed suddenly to clutch at his breathing. “And why did I tell him I was going to Tchermashnya?” They reached Volovya station. Ivan got out of the carriage, and the drivers stood round him bargaining over the journey of twelve versts to Tchermashnya. He told them to harness the horses. He went into the station house, looked round, glanced at the overseer’s wife, and suddenly went back to the entrance.
“I won’t go to Tchermashnya. Am I too late to reach the railway by seven, brothers?”
“We shall just do it. Shall we get the carriage out?”
“At once. Will any one of you be going to the town to-morrow?”
“To be sure. Mitri here will.”
“Can you do me a service, Mitri? Go to my father’s, to Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov, and tell him I haven’t gone to Tchermashnya. Can you?”
“Of course I can. I’ve known Fyodor Pavlovitch a long time.”
“And here’s something for you, for I dare say he won’t give you anything,” said Ivan, laughing gayly.
“You may depend on it he won’t.” Mitya laughed too. “Thank you, sir. I’ll be sure to do it.”
At seven o’clock Ivan got into the train and set off to Moscow “Away with the past. I’ve done with the old world for ever, and may I have no news, no echo, from it. To a new life, new places and no looking back!” But instead of delight his soul was filled with such gloom, and his heart ached with such anguish, as he had never known in his life before. He was thinking all the night. The train flew on, and only at daybreak, when he was approaching Moscow, he suddenly roused himself from his meditation.
“I am a scoundrel,” he whispered to himself.
Fyodor Pavlovitch remained well satisfied at having seen his son off. For two hours afterwards he felt almost happy, and sat drinking brandy. But suddenly something happened which was very annoying and unpleasant for every one in the house, and completely upset Fyodor Pavlovitch’s equanimity at once. Smerdyakov went to the cellar for something and fell down from the top of the steps. Fortunately, Marfa Ignatyevna was in the yard and heard him in time. She did not see the fall, but heard his scream—the strange, peculiar scream, long familiar to her—the scream of the epileptic falling in a fit. They could not tell whether the fit had come on him at the moment he was descending the steps, so that he must have fallen unconscious, or whether it was the fall and the shock that had caused the fit in Smerdyakov, who was known to be liable to them. They found him at the bottom of the cellar steps, writhing in convulsions and foaming at the mouth. It was thought at first that he must have broken something—an arm or a leg—and hurt himself, but “God had preserved him,” as Marfa Ignatyevna expressed it—nothing of the kind had happened. But it was difficult to get him out of the cellar. They asked the neighbors to help and managed it somehow. Fyodor Pavlovitch himself was present at the whole ceremony. He helped, evidently alarmed and upset. The sick man did not regain consciousness; the convulsions ceased for a time, but then began again, and every one concluded that the same thing would happen, as had happened a year before, when he accidentally fell from the garret. They remembered that ice had been put on his head then. There was still ice in the cellar, and Marfa Ignatyevna had some brought up. In the evening, Fyodor Pavlovitch sent for Doctor Herzenstube, who arrived at once. He was a most estimable old man, and the most careful and conscientious doctor in the province. After careful examination, he concluded that the fit was a very violent one and might have serious consequences; that meanwhile he, Herzenstube, did not fully understand it, but that by to-morrow morning, if the present remedies were unavailing, he would venture to try something else. The invalid was taken to the lodge, to a room next to Grigory’s and Marfa Ignatyevna’s.
Then Fyodor Pavlovitch had one misfortune after another to put up with that day. Marfa Ignatyevna cooked the dinner, and the soup, compared with Smerdyakov’s, was “no better than dish-water,” and the fowl was so dried up that it was impossible to masticate it. To her master’s bitter, though deserved, reproaches, Marfa Ignatyevna replied that the fowl was a very old one to begin with, and that she had never been trained as a cook. In the evening there was another trouble in store for Fyodor Pavlovitch; he was informed that Grigory, who had not been well for the last three days, was completely laid up by his lumbago. Fyodor Pavlovitch finished his tea as early as possible and locked himself up alone in the house. He was in terrible excitement and suspense. That evening he reckoned on Grushenka’s coming almost as a certainty. He had received from Smerdyakov that morning an assurance “that she had promised to come without fail.” The incorrigible old man’s heart throbbed with excitement; he paced up and down his empty rooms listening. He had to be on the alert. Dmitri might be on the watch for her somewhere, and when she knocked on the window (Smerdyakov had informed him two days before that he had told her where and how to knock) the door must be opened at once. She must not be a second in the passage, for fear—which God forbid!—that she should be frightened and run away. Fyodor Pavlovitch had much to think of, but never had his heart been steeped in such voluptuous hopes. This time he could say almost certainly that she would come!
Book VI. The Russian Monk
Chapter I.
Father Zossima And His Visitors
When with an anxious and aching heart Alyosha went into his elder’s cell, he stood still almost astonished. Instead of a sick man at his last gasp, perhaps unconscious, as he had feared to find him, he saw him sitting up in his chair and, though weak and exhausted, his face was bright and cheerful, he was surrounded by visitors and engaged in a quiet and joyful conversation. But he had only got up from his bed a quarter of an hour before Alyosha’s arrival; his visitors had gathered together in his cell earlier, waiting for him to wake, having received a most confident assurance from Father Païssy that “the teacher would get up, and as he had himself promised in the morning, converse once more with those dear to his heart.” This promise and indeed every word of the dying elder Father Païssy put implicit trust in. If he had seen him unconscious, if he had seen him breathe his last, and yet had his promise that he would rise up and say good-by to him, he would not have believed perhaps even in death, but would still have expected the dead man to recover and fulfill his promise. In the morning as he lay down to sleep, Father Zossima had told him positively: “I shall not die without the delight of another conversation with you, beloved of my heart. I shall look once more on your dear face and pour out my heart to you once again.” The monks, who had gathered for this probably last conversation with Father Zossima, had all been his devoted friends for many years. There were four of them: Father Iosif and Father Païssy, Father Mihaïl, the warden of the hermitage, a man not very old and far from being learned. He was of humble origin, of strong will and steadfast faith, of austere appearance, but of deep tenderness, though he obviously concealed it as though he were almost ashamed of it. The fourth, Father Anfim, was a very old and humble little monk of the poorest peasant class. He was almost illiterate, and very quiet, scarcely speaking to any one. He was the humblest of the humble, and looked as though he had been frightened by something great and awful beyond the scope of his intelligence. Father Zossima had a great affection for this timorous man, and always treated him with marked respect, though perhaps there was no one he had known to whom he had said less, in spite of the fact that he had spent years wandering about holy Russia with him. That was very long ago, forty years before, when Father Zossima first began his life as a monk in a poor and little monastery at Kostroma, and when, shortly after, he had accompanied Father Anfim on his pilgrimage to collect alms for their poor monastery.
The whole party were in the bedroom which, as we mentioned before, was very small, so that there was scarcely room for the four of them (in addition to Porfiry, the novice, who stood) to sit round Father Zossima on chairs brought from the sitting-room. It was already beginning to get dark, the room was lighted up by the lamps and the candles before the ikons.
Seeing Alyosha standing embarrassed in the doorway, Father Zossima smiled at him joyfully and held out his hand.
“Welcome, my quiet one, welcome, my dear, here you are too. I knew you would come.”
Alyosha went up to him, bowed down before him to the ground and wept. Something surged up from his heart, his soul was quivering, he wanted to sob.
“Come, don’t weep over me yet,” Father Zossima smiled, laying his right hand on his head. “You see I am sitting up talking; maybe I shall live another twenty years yet, as that dear good woman from Vishegorye, with her little Lizaveta in her arms, wished me yesterday. God bless the mother and the little girl Lizaveta,” he crossed himself. “Porfiry, did you take her offering where I told you?”
He meant the sixty copecks brought him the day before by the good-humored woman to be given “to some one poorer than me.” Such offerings, always of money gained by personal toil, are made by way of penance voluntarily undertaken. The elder had sent Porfiry the evening before to a widow, whose house had been burnt down lately, and who after the fire had gone with her children begging alms. Porfiry hastened to reply that he had given the money, as he had been instructed, “from an unknown benefactress.”
“Get up, my dear boy,” the elder went on to Alyosha. “Let me look at you. Have you been home and seen your brother?” It seemed strange to Alyosha that he asked so confidently and precisely, about one of his brothers only—but which one? Then perhaps he had sent him out both yesterday and to-day for the sake of that brother.
“I have seen one of my brothers,” answered Alyosha.
“I mean the elder one, to whom I bowed down.”
“I only saw him yesterday and could not find him to-day,” said Alyosha.
“Make haste to find him, go again to-morrow and make haste, leave everything and make haste. Perhaps you may still have time to prevent something terrible. I bowed down yesterday to the great suffering in store for him.”
He was suddenly silent and seemed to be pondering. The words were strange. Father Iosif, who had witnessed the scene yesterday, exchanged glances with Father Païssy. Alyosha could not resist asking:
“Father and teacher,” he began with extreme emotion, “your words are too obscure.... What is this suffering in store for him?”
“Don’t inquire. I seemed to see something terrible yesterday ... as though his whole future were expressed in his eyes. A look came into his eyes—so that I was instantly horror-stricken at what that man is preparing for himself. Once or twice in my life I’ve seen such a look in a man’s face ... reflecting as it were his future fate, and that fate, alas, came to pass. I sent you to him, Alexey, for I thought your brotherly face would help him. But everything and all our fates are from the Lord. ‘Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.’ Remember that. You, Alexey, I’ve many times silently blessed for your face, know that,” added the elder with a gentle smile. “This is what I think of you, you will go forth from these walls, but will live like a monk in the world. You will have many enemies, but even your foes will love you. Life will bring you many misfortunes, but you will find your happiness in them, and will bless life and will make others bless it—which is what matters most. Well, that is your character. Fathers and teachers,” he addressed his friends with a tender smile, “I have never till to-day told even him why the face of this youth is so dear to me. Now I will tell you. His face has been as it were a remembrance and a prophecy for me. At the dawn of my life when I was a child I had an elder brother who died before my eyes at seventeen. And later on in the course of my life I gradually became convinced that that brother had been for a guidance and a sign from on high for me. For had he not come into my life, I should never perhaps, so I fancy at least, have become a monk and entered on this precious path. He appeared first to me in my childhood, and here, at the end of my pilgrimage, he seems to have come to me over again. It is marvelous, fathers and teachers, that Alexey, who has some, though not a great, resemblance in face, seems to me so like him spiritually, that many times I have taken him for that young man, my brother, mysteriously come back to me at the end of my pilgrimage, as a reminder and an inspiration. So that I positively wondered at so strange a dream in myself. Do you hear this, Porfiry?” he turned to the novice who waited on him. “Many times I’ve seen in your face as it were a look of mortification that I love Alexey more than you. Now you know why that was so, but I love you too, know that, and many times I grieved at your mortification. I should like to tell you, dear friends, of that youth, my brother, for there has been no presence in my life more precious, more significant and touching. My heart is full of tenderness, and I look at my whole life at this moment as though living through it again.”
Here I must observe that this last conversation of Father Zossima with the friends who visited him on the last day of his life has been partly preserved in writing. Alexey Fyodorovitch Karamazov wrote it down from memory, some time after his elder’s death. But whether this was only the conversation that took place then, or whether he added to it his notes of parts of former conversations with his teacher, I cannot determine. In his account, Father Zossima’s talk goes on without interruption, as though he told his life to his friends in the form of a story, though there is no doubt, from other accounts of it, that the conversation that evening was general. Though the guests did not interrupt Father Zossima much, yet they too talked, perhaps even told something themselves. Besides, Father Zossima could not have carried on an uninterrupted narrative, for he was sometimes gasping for breath, his voice failed him, and he even lay down to rest on his bed, though he did not fall asleep and his visitors did not leave their seats. Once or twice the conversation was interrupted by Father Païssy’s reading the Gospel. It is worthy of note, too, that no one of them supposed that he would die that night, for on that evening of his life after his deep sleep in the day he seemed suddenly to have found new strength, which kept him up through this long conversation. It was like a last effort of love which gave him marvelous energy; only for a little time, however, for his life was cut short immediately.... But of that later. I will only add now that I have preferred to confine myself to the account given by Alexey Fyodorovitch Karamazov. It will be shorter and not so fatiguing, though of course, as I must repeat, Alyosha took a great deal from previous conversations and added them to it.
Notes of the Life of the deceased Priest and Monk, the Elder Zossima, taken from his own words by Alexey Fyodorovitch Karamazov.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
(a) Father Zossima’s Brother
Beloved fathers and teachers, I was born in a distant province in the north, in the town of V. My father was a gentleman by birth, but of no great consequence or position. He died when I was only two years old, and I don’t remember him at all. He left my mother a small house built of wood, and a fortune, not large, but sufficient to keep her and her children in comfort. There were two of us, my elder brother Markel and I. He was eight years older than I was, of hasty irritable temperament, but kind-hearted and never ironical. He was remarkably silent, especially at home with me, his mother, and the servants. He did well at school, but did not get on with his schoolfellows, though he never quarreled, at least so my mother has told me. Six months before his death, when he was seventeen, he made friends with a political exile who had been banished from Moscow to our town for freethinking, and led a solitary existence there. He was a good scholar who had gained distinction in philosophy in the university. Something made him take a fancy to Markel, and he used to ask him to see him. The young man would spend whole evenings with him during that winter, till the exile was summoned to Petersburg to take up his post again at his own request, as he had powerful friends.
It was the beginning of Lent, and Markel would not fast, he was rude and laughed at it. “That’s all silly twaddle, and there is no God,” he said, horrifying my mother, the servants, and me too. For though I was only nine, I too was aghast at hearing such words. We had four servants, all serfs. I remember my mother selling one of the four, the cook Afimya, who was lame and elderly, for sixty paper roubles, and hiring a free servant to take her place.
In the sixth week in Lent, my brother, who was never strong and had a tendency to consumption, was taken ill. He was tall but thin and delicate-looking, and of very pleasing countenance. I suppose he caught cold, anyway the doctor, who came, soon whispered to my mother that it was galloping consumption, that he would not live through the spring. My mother began weeping, and, careful not to alarm my brother, she entreated him to go to church, to confess and take the sacrament, as he was still able to move about. This made him angry, and he said something profane about the church. He grew thoughtful, however; he guessed at once that he was seriously ill, and that that was why his mother was begging him to confess and take the sacrament. He had been aware, indeed, for a long time past, that he was far from well, and had a year before coolly observed at dinner to our mother and me, “My life won’t be long among you, I may not live another year,” which seemed now like a prophecy.
Three days passed and Holy Week had come. And on Tuesday morning my brother began going to church. “I am doing this simply for your sake, mother, to please and comfort you,” he said. My mother wept with joy and grief. “His end must be near,” she thought, “if there’s such a change in him.” But he was not able to go to church long, he took to his bed, so he had to confess and take the sacrament at home.
It was a late Easter, and the days were bright, fine, and full of fragrance. I remember he used to cough all night and sleep badly, but in the morning he dressed and tried to sit up in an arm-chair. That’s how I remember him sitting, sweet and gentle, smiling, his face bright and joyous, in spite of his illness. A marvelous change passed over him, his spirit seemed transformed. The old nurse would come in and say, “Let me light the lamp before the holy image, my dear.” And once he would not have allowed it and would have blown it out.
“Light it, light it, dear, I was a wretch to have prevented you doing it. You are praying when you light the lamp, and I am praying when I rejoice seeing you. So we are praying to the same God.”
Those words seemed strange to us, and mother would go to her room and weep, but when she went in to him she wiped her eyes and looked cheerful. “Mother, don’t weep, darling,” he would say, “I’ve long to live yet, long to rejoice with you, and life is glad and joyful.”
“Ah, dear boy, how can you talk of joy when you lie feverish at night, coughing as though you would tear yourself to pieces.”
“Don’t cry, mother,” he would answer, “life is paradise, and we are all in paradise, but we won’t see it, if we would, we should have heaven on earth the next day.”
Every one wondered at his words, he spoke so strangely and positively; we were all touched and wept. Friends came to see us. “Dear ones,” he would say to them, “what have I done that you should love me so, how can you love any one like me, and how was it I did not know, I did not appreciate it before?”
When the servants came in to him he would say continually, “Dear, kind people, why are you doing so much for me, do I deserve to be waited on? If it were God’s will for me to live, I would wait on you, for all men should wait on one another.”
Mother shook her head as she listened. “My darling, it’s your illness makes you talk like that.”
“Mother, darling,” he would say, “there must be servants and masters, but if so I will be the servant of my servants, the same as they are to me. And another thing, mother, every one of us has sinned against all men, and I more than any.”
Mother positively smiled at that, smiled through her tears. “Why, how could you have sinned against all men, more than all? Robbers and murderers have done that, but what sin have you committed yet, that you hold yourself more guilty than all?”
“Mother, little heart of mine,” he said (he had begun using such strange caressing words at that time), “little heart of mine, my joy, believe me, every one is really responsible to all men for all men and for everything. I don’t know how to explain it to you, but I feel it is so, painfully even. And how is it we went on then living, getting angry and not knowing?”
So he would get up every day, more and more sweet and joyous and full of love. When the doctor, an old German called Eisenschmidt, came:
“Well, doctor, have I another day in this world?” he would ask, joking.
“You’ll live many days yet,” the doctor would answer, “and months and years too.”
“Months and years!” he would exclaim. “Why reckon the days? One day is enough for a man to know all happiness. My dear ones, why do we quarrel, try to outshine each other and keep grudges against each other? Let’s go straight into the garden, walk and play there, love, appreciate, and kiss each other, and glorify life.”
“Your son cannot last long,” the doctor told my mother, as she accompanied him to the door. “The disease is affecting his brain.”
The windows of his room looked out into the garden, and our garden was a shady one, with old trees in it which were coming into bud. The first birds of spring were flitting in the branches, chirruping and singing at the windows. And looking at them and admiring them, he began suddenly begging their forgiveness too: “Birds of heaven, happy birds, forgive me, for I have sinned against you too.” None of us could understand that at the time, but he shed tears of joy. “Yes,” he said, “there was such a glory of God all about me: birds, trees, meadows, sky; only I lived in shame and dishonored it all and did not notice the beauty and glory.”
“You take too many sins on yourself,” mother used to say, weeping.
“Mother, darling, it’s for joy, not for grief I am crying. Though I can’t explain it to you, I like to humble myself before them, for I don’t know how to love them enough. If I have sinned against every one, yet all forgive me, too, and that’s heaven. Am I not in heaven now?”
And there was a great deal more I don’t remember. I remember I went once into his room when there was no one else there. It was a bright evening, the sun was setting, and the whole room was lighted up. He beckoned me, and I went up to him. He put his hands on my shoulders and looked into my face tenderly, lovingly; he said nothing for a minute, only looked at me like that.
“Well,” he said, “run and play now, enjoy life for me too.”
I went out then and ran to play. And many times in my life afterwards I remembered even with tears how he told me to enjoy life for him too. There were many other marvelous and beautiful sayings of his, though we did not understand them at the time. He died the third week after Easter. He was fully conscious though he could not talk; up to his last hour he did not change. He looked happy, his eyes beamed and sought us, he smiled at us, beckoned us. There was a great deal of talk even in the town about his death. I was impressed by all this at the time, but not too much so, though I cried a good deal at his funeral. I was young then, a child, but a lasting impression, a hidden feeling of it all, remained in my heart, ready to rise up and respond when the time came. So indeed it happened.
(b) Of the Holy Scriptures in the Life of Father Zossima
I was left alone with my mother. Her friends began advising her to send me to Petersburg as other parents did. “You have only one son now,” they said, “and have a fair income, and you will be depriving him perhaps of a brilliant career if you keep him here.” They suggested I should be sent to Petersburg to the Cadet Corps, that I might afterwards enter the Imperial Guard. My mother hesitated for a long time, it was awful to part with her only child, but she made up her mind to it at last, though not without many tears, believing she was acting for my happiness. She brought me to Petersburg and put me into the Cadet Corps, and I never saw her again. For she too died three years afterwards. She spent those three years mourning and grieving for both of us.
From the house of my childhood I have brought nothing but precious memories, for there are no memories more precious than those of early childhood in one’s first home. And that is almost always so if there is any love and harmony in the family at all. Indeed, precious memories may remain even of a bad home, if only the heart knows how to find what is precious. With my memories of home I count, too, my memories of the Bible, which, child as I was, I was very eager to read at home. I had a book of Scripture history then with excellent pictures, called A Hundred and Four Stories from the Old and New Testament, and I learned to read from it. I have it lying on my shelf now, I keep it as a precious relic of the past. But even before I learned to read, I remember first being moved to devotional feeling at eight years old. My mother took me alone to mass (I don’t remember where my brother was at the time) on the Monday before Easter. It was a fine day, and I remember to-day, as though I saw it now, how the incense rose from the censer and softly floated upwards and, overhead in the cupola, mingled in rising waves with the sunlight that streamed in at the little window. I was stirred by the sight, and for the first time in my life I consciously received the seed of God’s word in my heart. A youth came out into the middle of the church carrying a big book, so large that at the time I fancied he could scarcely carry it. He laid it on the reading desk, opened it, and began reading, and suddenly for the first time I understood something read in the church of God. In the land of Uz, there lived a man, righteous and God-fearing, and he had great wealth, so many camels, so many sheep and asses, and his children feasted, and he loved them very much and prayed for them. “It may be that my sons have sinned in their feasting.” Now the devil came before the Lord together with the sons of God, and said to the Lord that he had gone up and down the earth and under the earth. “And hast thou considered my servant Job?” God asked of him. And God boasted to the devil, pointing to his great and holy servant. And the devil laughed at God’s words. “Give him over to me and Thou wilt see that Thy servant will murmur against Thee and curse Thy name.” And God gave up the just man He loved so, to the devil. And the devil smote his children and his cattle and scattered his wealth, all of a sudden like a thunderbolt from heaven. And Job rent his mantle and fell down upon the ground and cried aloud, “Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return into the earth; the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord for ever and ever.”