The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (easy to read books for adults list .txt) 📕
"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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like a scoundrel? In your eyes, Alexey Fyodorovitch, I shan’t be a
scoundrel? No, Alexey Fyodorovitch, listen, listen,” he hurried,
touching Alyosha with both his hands. “You are persuading me to take
it, saying that it’s a sister sends it, but inwardly, in your heart
won’t you feel contempt for me if I take it, eh?”
“No, no, on my salvation I swear I shan’t! And no one will ever
know but me-I, you and she, and one other lady, her great friend.”
“Never mind the lady! Listen, Alexey Fyodorovitch, at a moment
like this you must listen, for you can’t understand what these two
hundred roubles mean to me now.” The poor fellow went on rising
gradually into a sort of incoherent, almost wild enthusiasm. He was
thrown off his balance and talked extremely fast, as though afraid
he would not be allowed to say all he had to say.
“Besides its being honestly acquired from a ‘sister,’ so highly
respected and revered, do you know that now I can look after mamma and
Nina, my hunchback angel daughter? Doctor Herzenstube came to me in
the kindness of his heart and was examining them both for a whole
hour. ‘I can make nothing of it,’ said he, but he prescribed a mineral
water which is kept at a chemist’s here. He said it would be sure to
do her good, and he ordered baths, too, with some medicine in them.
The mineral water costs thirty copecks, and she’d need to drink
forty bottles perhaps: so I took the prescription and laid it on the
shelf under the ikons, and there it lies. And he ordered hot baths for
Nina with something dissolved in them, morning and evening. But how
can we carry out such a cure in our mansion, without servants, without
help, without a bath, and without water? Nina is rheumatic all over, I
don’t think I told you that. All her right side aches at night, she is
in agony, and, would you believe it, the angel bears it without
groaning for fear of waking us. We eat what we can get, and she’ll
only take the leavings, what you’d scarcely give to a dog. ‘I am not
worth it, I am taking it from you, I am a burden on you,’ that’s
what her angel eyes try to express. We wait on her, but she doesn’t
like it. ‘I am a useless cripple, no good to anyone.’ As though she
were not worth it, when she is the saving of all of us with her
angelic sweetness. Without her, without her gentle word it would be
hell among us! She softens even Varvara. And don’t judge Varvara
harshly either, she is an angel too, she, too, has suffered wrong. She
came to us for the summer, and she brought sixteen roubles she had
earned by lessons and saved up, to go back with to Petersburg in
September, that is now. But we took her money and lived on it, so
now she has nothing to go back with. Though indeed she couldn’t go
back, for she has to work for us like a slave. She is like an
overdriven horse with all of us on her back. She waits on us all,
mends and washes, sweeps the floor, puts mamma to bed. And mamma is
capricious and tearful and insane! And now I can get a servant with
this money, you understand, Alexey Fyodorovitch, I can get medicines
for the dear creatures, I can send my student to Petersburg, I can buy
beef, I can feed them properly. Good Lord, but it’s a dream!”
Alyosha was delighted that he had brought him such happiness and
that the poor fellow had consented to be made happy.
“Stay, Alexey Fyodorovitch, stay,” the captain began to talk
with frenzied rapidity, carried away by a new day-dream. “Do you
know that Ilusha and I will perhaps really carry out our dream. We
will buy a horse and cart, a black horse, he insists on its being
black, and we will set off as we pretended the other day. I have an
old friend, a lawyer in K. province, and I heard through a trustworthy
man that if I were to go he’d give me a place as clerk in his
office, so, who knows, maybe he would. So I’d just put mamma and
Nina in the cart, and Ilusha could drive, and I’d walk, I’d walk….
Why, if I only succeed in getting one debt paid that’s owing me, I
should have perhaps enough for that too!”
“There would be enough!” cried Alyosha. “Katerina Ivanovna will
send you as much more as you need, and you know, I have money too,
take what you want, as you would from a brother, from a friend, you
can give it back later…. (You’ll get rich. you’ll get rich!) And you
know you couldn’t have a better idea than to move to another province!
It would be the saving of you, especially of your boy and you ought to
go quickly, before the winter, before the cold. You must write to us
when you are there, and we will always be brothers… No, it’s not a
dream!”
Alyosha could have hugged him, he was so pleased. But glancing
at him he stopped short. The man was standing with his neck
outstretched and his lips protruding, with a pale and frenzied face.
His lips were moving as though trying to articulate something; no
sound came, but still his lips moved. It was uncanny.
“What is it?” asked Alyosha, startled.
“Alexey Fyodorovitch… I… you,” muttered the captain,
faltering, looking at him with a strange, wild, fixed stare, and an
air of desperate resolution. At the same time there was a sort of grin
on his lips. “I… you, sir… wouldn’t you like me to show you a
little trick I know?” he murmured, suddenly, in a firm rapid
whisper, his voice no longer faltering.
“What trick?”
“A pretty trick,” whispered the captain. His mouth was twisted
on the left side, his left eye was screwed up. He still stared at
Alyosha.
“What is the matter? What trick?” Alyosha cried, now thoroughly
alarmed.
“Why, look,” squealed the captain suddenly, and showing him the
two notes which he had been holding by one corner between his thumb
and forefinger during the conversation, he crumpled them up savagely
and squeezed them tight in his right hand. “Do you see, do you see?”
he shrieked, pale and infuriated. And suddenly flinging up his hand,
he threw the crumpled notes on the sand. “Do you see?” he shrieked
again, pointing to them. “Look there!”
And with wild fury he began trampling them under his heel, gasping
and exclaiming as he did so:
“So much for your money! So much for your money! So much for
your money! So much for your money!”
Suddenly he darted back and drew himself up before Alyosha, and
his whole figure expressed unutterable pride.
“Tell those who sent you that the wisp of tow does not sell his
honour,” he cried, raising his arm in the air. Then he turned
quickly and began to run; but he had not run five steps before he
turned completely round and kissed his hand to Alyosha. He ran another
five paces and then turned round for the last time. This time his face
was not contorted with laughter, but quivering all over with tears. In
a tearful, faltering, sobbing voice he cried:
“What should I say to my boy if I took money from you for our
shame?”
And then he ran on without turning. Alyosha looked after him,
inexpressibly grieved. Oh, he saw that till the very last moment the
man had not known he would crumple up and fling away the notes. He did
not turn back. Alyosha knew he would not. He would not follow him
and call him back, he knew why. When he was out of sight, Alyosha
picked up the two notes. They were very much crushed and crumpled, and
had been pressed into the sand, but were uninjured and even rustled
like new ones when Alyosha unfolded them and smoothed them out.
After smoothing them out, he folded them up, put them in his pocket
and went to Katerina Ivanovna to report on the success of her
commission.
Pro and Contra
The Engagement
MADAME HOHLAKOV was again the first to meet Alyosha. She was
flustered; something important had happened. Katerina Ivanovna’s
hysterics had ended in a fainting fit, and then “a terrible, awful
weakness had followed, she lay with her eyes turned up and was
delirious. Now she was in a fever. They had sent for Herzenstube; they
had sent for the aunts. The aunts were already here, but Herzenstube
had not yet come. They were all sitting in her room, waiting. She
was unconscious now, and what if it turned to brain fever!”
Madame Hohlakov looked gravely alarmed. “This is serious,
serious,” she added at every word, as though nothing that had happened
to her before had been serious. Alyosha listened with distress, and
was beginning to describe his adventures, but she interrupted him at
the first words. She had not time to listen. She begged him to sit
with Lise and wait for her there.
“Lise,” she whispered almost in his ear, “Lise has greatly
surprised me just now, dear Alexey Fyodorovitch. She touched me,
too, and so my heart forgives her everything. Only fancy, as soon as
you had gone, she began to be truly remorseful for having laughed at
you to-day and yesterday, though she was not laughing at you, but only
joking. But she was seriously sorry for it, almost ready to cry, so
that I was quite surprised. She has never been really sorry for
laughing at me, but has only made a joke of it. And you know she is
laughing at me every minute. But this time she was in earnest She
thinks a great deal of your opinion, Alexey Fyodorovitch, and don’t
take offence or be wounded by her if you can help it. I am never
hard upon her, for she’s such a clever little thing. Would you believe
it? She said just now that you were a friend of her childhood, ‘the
greatest friend of her childhood’- just think of that- ‘greatest
friend’- and what about me? She has very strong feelings and memories,
and, what’s more, she uses these phrases, most unexpected words, which
come out all of a sudden when you least expect them. She spoke
lately about a pine-tree, for instance: there used to be a pine-tree
standing in our garden in her early childhood. Very likely it’s
standing there still; so there’s no need to speak in the past tense.
Pine-trees are not like people, Alexey Fyodorovitch, they don’t change
quickly. ‘Mamma,’ she said, ‘I remember this pine tree as in a dream,’
only she said something so original about it that I can’t repeat it.
Besides, I’ve forgotten it. Well, good-bye! I am so worried I feel I
shall go out of my mind. Ah! Alexey Fyodorovitch, I’ve been out of
my mind twice in my life. Go to Lise, cheer her up, as you always
can so charmingly. Lise,” she cried, going to her door, “here I’ve
brought you Alexey Fyodorovitch, whom you insulted so. He is not at
all angry, I assure you; on the contrary, he is surprised that you
could suppose so.”
“Merci, maman. Come in, Alexey Fyodorovitch.”
Alyosha went in. Lise looked rather embarrassed, and at once
flushed crimson. She was evidently ashamed of something, and, as
people always do in such cases, she began immediately talking of other
things, as though they were of
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