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

Delirium

WHAT followed was almost an orgy, a feast to which all were

welcome. Grushenka was the first to call for wine.

“I want to drink. I want to be quite drunk, as we were before.

Do you remember, Mitya, do you remember how we made friends here

last time!”

Mitya himself was almost delirious, feeling that his happiness was

at hand. But Grushenka was continually sending him away from her.

“Go and enjoy yourself. Tell them to dance, to make merry, ‘let

the stove and cottage dance’; as we had it last time,” she kept

exclaiming. She was tremendously excited. And Mitya hastened to obey

her. The chorus were in the next room. The room in which they had been

sitting till that moment was too small, and was divided in two by

cotton curtains, behind which was a huge bed with a puffy feather

mattress and a pyramid of cotton pillows. In the four rooms for

visitors there were beds. Grushenka settled herself just at the

door. Mitya set an easy chair for her. She had sat in the same place

to watch the dancing and singing “the time before,” when they had made

merry there. All the girls who had come had been there then; the

Jewish band with fiddles and zithers had come, too, and at last the

long expected cart had arrived with the wines and provisions.

Mitya bustled about. All sorts of people began coming into the

room to look on, peasants and their women, who had been roused from

sleep and attracted by the hopes of another marvellous entertainment

such as they had enjoyed a month before. Mitya remembered their faces,

greeting and embracing everyone he knew. He uncorked bottles and

poured out wine for everyone who presented himself. Only the girls

were very eager for the champagne. The men preferred rum, brandy, and,

above all, hot punch. Mitya had chocolate made for all the girls,

and ordered that three samovars should be kept boiling all night to

provide tea and punch for everyone to help himself.

An absurd chaotic confusion followed, but Mitya was in his natural

element, and the more foolish it became, the more his spirits rose. If

the peasants had asked him for money at that moment, he would have

pulled out his notes and given them away right and left. This was

probably why the landlord, Trifon Borissovitch, kept hovering about

Mitya to protect him. He seemed to have given up all idea of going

to bed that night; but he drank little, only one glass of punch, and

kept a sharp lookout on Mitya’s interests after his own fashion. He

intervened in the nick of time, civilly and obsequiously persuading

Mitya not to give away “cigars and Rhine wine,” and, above all,

money to the peasants as he had done before. He was very indignant,

too, at the peasant girls drinking liqueur, and eating sweets.

“They’re a lousy lot, Dmitri Fyodorovitch,” he said. “I’d give

them a kick, every one of them, and they’d take it as an honour-that’s all they’re worth!”

Mitya remembered Andrey again, and ordered punch to be sent out to

him. “I was rude to him just now,” he repeated with a sinking,

softened voice. Kalgonov did to drink, and at first did not care for

the girls singing; but after he had drunk a couple of glasses of

champagne he became extraordinarily lively, strolling about the

room, laughing and praising the music and the songs, admiring everyone

and everything. Maximov, blissfully drunk, never left his side.

Grushenka, too, was beginning to get drunk. Pointing to Kalganov,

she said to Mitya:

“What a dear, charming boy he is!”

And Mitya, delighted, ran to kiss Kalgonov and Maximov. Oh,

great were his hopes! She had said nothing yet, and seemed, indeed,

purposely to refrain from speaking. But she looked at him from time to

time with caressing and passionate eyes. At last she suddenly

gripped his hand and drew him vigorously to her. She was sitting at

the moment in the low chair by the door.

“How was it you came just now, eh? Have you walked in!… I was

frightened. So you wanted to give me up to him, did you? Did you

really want to?”

“I didn’t want to spoil your happiness!” Mitya faltered

blissfully. But she did not need his answer.

“Well, go and enjoy yourself…” she sent him away once more.

“Don’t cry, I’ll call you back again.”

He would run away and she listened to the singing and looked at

the dancing, though her eyes followed him wherever he went. But in

another quarter of an hour she would call him once more and again he

would run back to her.

“Come, sit beside me, tell me, how did you hear about me, and my

coming here yesterday? From whom did you first hear it?”

And Mitya began telling her all about it, disconnectedly,

incoherently, feverishly. He spoke strangely, often frowning, and

stopping abruptly.

“What are you frowning at?” she asked.

“Nothing…. I left a man ill there. I’d give ten years of my life

for him to get well, to know he was all right!”

“Well, never mind him, if he’s ill. So you meant to shoot yourself

to-morrow! What a silly boy! What for? I like such reckless fellows as

you,” she lisped, with a rather halting tongue. “So you would go any

length for me, eh? Did you really mean to shoot yourself to-morrow,

you stupid? No, wait a little. To-morrow I may have something to say

to you…. I won’t say it to-day, but to-morrow. You’d like it to be

to-day? No, I don’t want to to-day. Come, go along now, go and amuse

yourself.”

Once, however, she called him, as it were, puzzled and uneasy.

“Why are you sad? I see you’re sad…. Yes, I see it,” she

added, looking intently into his eyes. “Though you keep kissing the

peasants and shouting, I see something. No, be merry. I’m merry; you

be merry, too…. I love somebody here. Guess who it is. Ah, look,

my boy has fallen asleep, poor dear, he’s drunk.”

She meant Kalganov. He was, in fact, drunk, and had dropped asleep

for a moment, sitting on the sofa. But he was not merely drowsy from

drink; he felt suddenly dejected, or, as