The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (easy to read books for adults list .txt) đź“•
"Those innocent eyes slit my soul up like a razor," he used to say afterwards, with his loathsome snigger. In a man so depraved this might, of course, mean no more than sensual attraction. As he had received no dowry with his wife, and had, so to speak, taken her "from the halter," he did not stand on ceremony with her. Making her feel that she had "wronged" him, he took advantage of her phenomenal meekness and submissiveness to trample on the elemen
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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.”
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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