The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (easy to read books for adults list .txt) 📕

intensely depressed by the girls’ songs, which, as the drinking went

on, gradually became coarse and more reckless. And the dances were

as bad. Two girls dressed up as bears, and a lively girl, called

Stepanida, with a stick in her hand, acted the part of keeper, and

began to “show them.”

“Look alive, Marya, or you’ll get the stick!

The bears rolled on the ground at last in the most unseemly

fashion, amid roars of laughter from the closely-packed crowd of men

and women.

“Well, let them! Let them!” said Grushenka sententiously, with

an ecstatic expression on her face. “When they do get a day to enjoy

themselves; why shouldn’t folks be happy?”

Kalgonov looked as though he had been besmirched with dirt.

“It’s swinish, all this peasant foolery,” he murmured, moving

away; “it’s the game they play when it’s light all night in summer.”

He particularly disliked one “new” song to a jaunty dance-tune. It

described how a gentleman came and tried his luck with the girls, to

see whether they would love him:

The master came to try the girls:

Would they love him, would they not?

But the girls could not love the master:

He would beat me cruelly

And such love won’t do for me.

Then a gypsy comes along and he, too, tries:

The gypsy came to try the girls:

Would they love him, would they not?

But they couldn’t love the gypsy either:

He would be a thief, I fear,

And would cause me many a tear.

And many more men come to try their luck, among them a soldier:

The soldier came to try the girls:

Would they love him, would they not?

But the soldier is rejected with contempt, in two indecent

lines, sung with absolute frankness and producing a furore in the

audience. The song ends with a merchant:

The merchant came to try the girls:

Would they love him, would they not?

And it appears that he wins their love because:

The merchant will make gold for me

And his queen I’ll gladly be.

Kalgonov was positively indignant.

“That’s just a song of yesterday,” he said aloud. “Who writes such

things for them? They might just as well have had a railwayman or a

Jew come to try his luck with the girls; they’d have carried all

before them.”

And, almost as though it were a personal affront, he declared,

on the spot, that he was bored, sat down on the sofa and immediately

fell asleep. His pretty little face looked rather pale, as it fell

back on the sofa cushion.

“Look how pretty he is,” said Grushenka, taking Mitya up to him.

“I was combing his hair just now; his hair’s like flax, and so

thick…”

And, bending over him tenderly, she kissed his forehead.

Kalgonov instantly opened his eyes, looked at her, stood up, and

with the most anxious air inquired where was Maximov?

“So that’s who it is you want.” Grushenka laughed. “Stay with me a

minute. Mitya, run and find his Maximov.”

Maximov, it appeared, could not tear himself away from the

girls, only running away from time to time to pour himself out a glass

of liqueur. He had drunk two cups of chocolate. His face was red,

and his nose was crimson; his eyes were moist, and mawkishly

sweet.He ran up and announced that he was going to dance the

“sabotiere.”

“They taught me all those well-bred, aristocratic dances when I

was little…”

“Go, go with him, Mitya, and I’ll watch from here how he

dances,” said Grushenka.

“No, no, I’m coming to look on, too,” exclaimed Kalganov, brushing

aside in the most naive way Grushenka’s offer to sit with him. They

all went to look on. Maximov danced his dance. But it roused no

great admiration in anyone but Mitya. It consisted of nothing but

skipping and hopping, kicking the feet, and at every skip Maximov

slapped the upturned sole of his foot. Kalgonov did not like it at

all, but Mitya kissed the dancer.

“Thanks. You’re tired perhaps? What are you looking for here?

Would you like some sweets? A cigar, perhaps?”

“A cigarette.”

“Don’t you want a drink?”

“I’ll just have a liqueur…. Have you any chocolates?”

“Yes, there’s a heap of them on the table there. Choose one, my

dear soul!”

“I like one with vanilla… for old people. He he!

“No, brother, we’ve none of that special sort.”

“I say,” the old man bent down to whisper in Mitya’s ear. “That

girl there, little Marya, he he! How would it be if you were to help

me make friends with her?”

“So that’s what you’re after! No, brother, that won’t do!”

“I’d do no harm to anyone,” Maximov muttered disconsolately.

“Oh, all right, all right. They only come here to dance and

sing, you know, brother. But damn it all, wait a bit!… Eat and drink

and be merry, meanwhile. Don’t you want money?”

“Later on, perhaps,” smiled Maximov.

“All right, all right…”

Mitya’s head was burning. He went outside to the wooden balcony

which ran round the whole building on the inner side, overlooking

the courtyard. The fresh air revived him. He stood alone in a dark

corner, and suddenly clutched his head in both hands. His scattered

thoughts came together; his sensations blended into a whole and

threw a sudden light into his mind. A fearful and terrible light!

“If I’m to shoot myself, why not now?” passed through his mind. “Why

not go for the pistols, bring them here, and here, in this dark

dirty corner, make an end?” Almost a minute he undecided. A few

hours earlier, when he had been dashing here, he was pursued by

disgrace, by the theft he had committed, and that blood, that

blood!… But yet it was easier for him then. Then everything was

over: he had lost her, given her up. She was gone, for him-oh, then

his death sentence had been easier for him; at least it had seemed

necessary, inevitable, for what had he to stay on earth for?

But now? Was it the same as then? Now one phantom, one terror at

least was at an end: that first, rightful lover, that fateful figure

had vanished, leaving no trace. The terrible phantom had turned into

something so small, so comic; it had been carried into the bedroom and

locked in. It would never return. She was ashamed, and from her eyes

he could see now whom she loved. Now he had everything to make life

happy… but he could not go on living, he could not; oh, damnation!

“O God! restore to life the man I knocked down at the fence! Let

this fearful cup pass from me! Lord, thou hast wrought miracles for

such sinners as me! But what, what if the old man’s alive? Oh, then

the shame of the other disgrace I would wipe away. I would restore the

stolen money. I’d give it back; I’d get it somehow…. No trace of

that shame will remain except in my heart for ever! But no, no; oh,

impossible cowardly dreams! Oh, damnation!”

Yet there was a ray of light and hope in his darkness. He jumped

up and ran back to the room-to her, to her, his queen for ever! Was

not one moment of her love worth all the rest of life, even in the

agonies of disgrace? This wild question clutched at his heart. “To

her, to her alone, to see her, to hear her, to think of nothing, to

forget everything, if only for that night, for an hour, for a moment!”

Just as he turned from the balcony into the passage, he came upon

the landlord, Trifon Borissovitch. He thought he looked gloomy and

worried, and fancied he had come to find him.

“What is it, Trifon Borissovitch? Are you looking for me?”

“No, sir,” The landlord seemed disconcerted. “Why should I be

looking for you? Where have you been?”

“Why do you look so glum? You’re not angry, are you? Wait a bit,

you shall soon get to bed…. What’s the time?”

“It’ll be three o’clock. Past three, it must be.”

“We’ll leave off soon. We’ll leave off.”

“Don’t mention it; it doesn’t matter. Keep it up as long as you

like…”

“What’s the matter with him?” Mitya wondered for an instant, and

he ran back to the room where the girls were dancing. But she was

not there. She was not in the blue room either; there was no one but

Kalgonov asleep on the sofa. Mitya peeped behind the curtain-she

was there. She was sitting in the corner, on a trunk. Bent forward,

with her head and arms on the bed close by, she was crying bitterly,

doing her utmost to stifle her sobs that she might not be heard.

Seeing Mitya, she beckoned him to her, and when he ran to her, she

grasped his hand tightly.

“Mitya, Mitya, I loved him, you know. How I have loved him these

five years, all that time! Did I love him or only my own anger? No,

him, him! It’s a lie that it was my anger I loved and not him.

Mitya, I was only seventeen then; he was so kind to me, so merry; he

used to sing to me…. Or so it seemed to a silly girl like me…. And

now, O Lord, it’s not the same man. Even his face is not the same;

he’s different altogether. I shouldn’t have known him. I drove here

with Timofey, and all the way I was thinking how I should meet him,

what I should say to him, how we should look at one another. My soul

was faint, and all of a sudden it was just as though he had emptied

a pail of dirty water over me. He talked to me like a schoolmaster,

all so grave and learned; he met me so solemnly that I was struck

dumb. I couldn’t get a word in. At first I thought he was ashamed to

talk before his great big Pole. I sat staring at him and wondering why

I couldn’t say a word to him now. It must have been his wife that

ruined him; you know he threw me up to get married. She must have

changed him like that. Mitya, how shameful it is! Oh, Mitya, I’m

ashamed, I’m ashamed for all my life. Curse it, curse it, curse

those five years!”

And again she burst into tears, but clung tight to Mitya’s hand

and did not let it go.

“Mitya, darling, stay, don’t go away. I want to say one word to

you,” she whispered, and suddenly raised her face to him. “Listen,

tell me who it is I love? I love one man here. Who is that man? That’s

what you must tell me.”

A smile lighted up her face that was swollen with weeping, and her

eyes shone in the half darkness.

“A falcon flew in, and my heart sank. “Fool! that’s the man you

love!’ That was what my heart whispered to me at once. You came in and

all grew bright. What’s he afraid of? I wondered. For you were

frightened; you couldn’t speak. It’s not them he’s afraid of-could

you be frightened of anyone? It’s me he’s afraid of, I thought, only

me. So Fenya told you, you little stupid, how I called to Alyosha

out of the window that I’d loved Mityenka for one hour, and that I was

going now to love… another. Mitya, Mitya,