Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (714 page)

He was not kept long. At last it was Grushenka’s turn. Nikolay Parfenovitch was obviously apprehensive of the effect her appearance might have on Mitya, and he muttered a few words of admonition to him, but Mitya bowed his head in silence, giving him to understand “that he would not make a scene.” Mihail Makarovitch himself led Grushenka in. She entered with a stern and gloomy face, that looked almost composed, and sat down quietly on the chair offered her by Nikolay Parfenovitch. She was very pale, she seemed to be cold, and wrapped herself closely in her magnificent black shawl. She was suffering from a slight feverish chill — the first symptom of the long illness which followed that night. Her grave air, her direct earnest look and quiet manner made a very favourable impression on everyone. Nikolay Parfenovitch was even a little bit “fascinated.” He admitted himself, when talking about it afterwards, that only then had he seen “how handsome the woman was,” for, though he had seen her several times he had always looked upon her as something of a “provincial hetaira.”

“She has the manners of the best society,” he said enthusiastically, gossiping about her in a circle of ladies. But this was received with positive indignation by the ladies, who immediately called him a “naughty man,” to his great satisfaction.

As she entered the room, Grushenka only glanced for an instant at Mitya, who looked at her uneasily. But her face reassured him at once. After the first inevitable inquiries and warnings, Nikolay Parfenovitch asked her, hesitating a little, but preserving the most courteous manner, on what terms she was with the retired lieutenant, Dmitri Fyodorovitch Karamazov. To this Grushenka firmly and quietly replied:

“He was an acquaintance. He came to see me as an acquaintance during the last month.” To further inquisitive questions she answered plainly and with complete frankness, that, though “at times” she had thought him attractive, she had not loved him, but had won his heart as well as his old father’s “in my nasty spite,” that she had seen that Mitya was very jealous of Fyodor Pavlovitch and everyone else; but that had only amused her. She had never meant to go to Fyodor Pavlovitch, she had simply been laughing at him. “I had no thoughts for either of them all this last month. I was expecting another man who had wronged me. But I think,” she said in conclusion, “that there’s no need for you to inquire about that, nor for me to answer you, for that’s my own affair.”

Nikolay Parfenovitch immediately acted upon this hint. He again dismissed the “romantic” aspect of the case and passed to the serious one, that is, to the question of most importance, concerning the three thousand roubles. Grushenka confirmed the statement that three thousand roubles had certainly been spent on the first carousal at Mokroe, and, though she had not counted the money herself, she had heard that it was three thousand from Dmitri Fyodorovitch’s own lips.

“Did he tell you that alone, or before someone else, or did you only hear him speak of it to others in your presence?” the prosecutor inquired immediately.

To which Grushenka replied that she had heard him say so before other people, and had heard him say so when they were alone.

“Did he say it to you alone once, or several times?” inquired the prosecutor, and learned that he had told Grushenka so several times.

Ippolit Kirillovitch was very well satisfied with this piece of evidence. Further examination elicited that Grushenka knew, too, where that money had come from, and that Dmitri Fyodorovitch had got it from Katerina Ivanovna.

“And did you never, once, hear that the money spent a month ago was not three thousand, but less, and that Dmitri Fyodorovitch had saved half that sum for his own use?”

“No, I never heard that,” answered Grushenka.

It was explained further that Mitya had, on the contrary, often told her that he hadn’t a farthing.

“He was always expecting to get some from his father,” said Grushenka in conclusion.

“Did he never say before you... casually, or in a moment of irritation,” Nikolay Parfenovitch put in suddenly, “that he intended to make an attempt on his father’s life?”

“Ach, he did say so,” sighed Grushenka.

“Once or several times?”

“He mentioned it several times, always in anger.”

“And did you believe he would do it?”

“No, I never believed it,” she answered firmly. “I had faith in his noble heart.”

“Gentlemen, allow me,” cried Mitya suddenly, “allow me to say one word to Agrafena Alexandrovna, in your presence.”

“You can speak,” Nikolay Parfenovitch assented.

“Agrafena Alexandrovna!” Mitya got up from his chair, “have faith in God and in me. I am not guilty of my father’s murder!”

Having uttered these words Mitya sat down again on his chair. Grushenka stood up and crossed herself devoutly before the ikon.

“Thanks be to Thee, O Lord,” she said, in a voice thrilled with emotion, and still standing, she turned to Nikolay Parfenovitch and added:

“As he has spoken now, believe it! I know him. He’ll say anything as a joke or from obstinacy, but he’ll never deceive you against his conscience. He’s telling the whole truth, you may believe it.”

“Thanks, Agrafena Alexandrovna, you’ve given me fresh courage,” Mitya responded in a quivering voice.

As to the money spent the previous day, she declared that she did not know what sum it was, but had heard him tell several people that he had three thousand with him. And to the question where he got the money, she said that he had told her that he had “stolen” it from Katerina Ivanovna, and that she had replied to that that he hadn’t stolen it, and that he must pay the money back next day. On the prosecutor’s asking her emphatically whether the money he said he had stolen from Katerina Ivanovna was what he had spent yesterday, or what he had squandered here a month ago, she declared that he meant the money spent a month ago, and that that was how she understood him.

Grushenka was at last released, and Nikolay Parfenovitch informed her impulsively that she might at once return to the town and that if he could be of any assistance to her, with horses for example, or if she would care for an escort, he... would be-

“I thank you sincerely,” said Grushenka, bowing to him, “I’m going with this old gentleman; I am driving him back to town with me, and meanwhile, if you’ll allow me, I’ll wait below to hear what you decide about Dmitri Fyodorovitch.”

She went out. Mitya was calm, and even looked more cheerful, but only for a moment. He felt more and more oppressed by a strange physical weakness. His eyes were closing with fatigue. The examination of the witnesses was, at last, over. They procceded to a revision of the protocol. Mitya got up, moved from his chair to the corner by the curtain, lay down on a large chest covered with a rug, and instantly fell asleep.

He had a strange dream, utterly out of keeping with the place and the time.

He was driving somewhere in the steppes, where he had been stationed long ago, and a peasant was driving him in a cart with a pair of horses, through snow and sleet. He was cold, it was early in November, and the snow was falling in big wet flakes, melting as soon as it touched the earth. And the peasant drove him smartly, he had a fair, long beard. He was not an old man, somewhere about fifty, and he had on a grey peasant’s smock. Not far off was a village, he could see the black huts, and half the huts were burnt down, there were only the charred beams sticking up. And as they drove in, there were peasant women drawn up along the road, a lot of women, a whole row, all thin and wan, with their faces a sort of brownish colour, especially one at the edge, a tall, bony woman, who looked forty, but might have been only twenty, with a long thin face. And in her arms was a little baby crying. And her breasts seemed so dried up that there was not a drop of milk in them. And the child cried and cried, and held out its little bare arms, with its little fists blue from cold.

“Why are they crying? Why are they crying?” Mitya asked, as they dashed gaily by.

“It’s the babe,” answered the driver, “the babe weeping.”

And Mitya was struck by his saying, in his peasant way, “the babe,” and he liked the peasant’s calling it a “babe.” There seemed more pity in it.

“But why is it weeping?” Mitya persisted stupidly, “why are its little arms bare? Why don’t they wrap it up?”

“The babe’s cold, its little clothes are frozen and don’t warm it.”

“But why is it? Why?” foolish Mitya still persisted.

“Why, they’re poor people, burnt out. They’ve no bread. They’re begging because they’ve been burnt out.”

“No, no,” Mitya, as it were, still did not understand. “Tell me why it is those poor mothers stand there? Why are people poor? Why is the babe poor? Why is the steppe barren? Why don’t they hug each other and kiss? Why don’t they sing songs of joy? Why are they so dark from black misery? Why don’t they feed the babe?”

And he felt that, though his questions were unreasonable and senseless, yet he wanted to ask just that, and he had to ask it just in that way. And he felt that a passion of pity, such as he had never known before, was rising in his heart, that he wanted to cry, that he wanted to do something for them all, so that the babe should weep no more, so that the dark-faced, dried-up mother should not weep, that no one should shed tears again from that moment, and he wanted to do it at once, at once, regardless of all obstacles, with all the recklessness of the Karamazovs.

“And I’m coming with you. I won’t leave you now for the rest of my life, I’m coming with you”, he heard close beside him Grushenka’s tender voice, thrilling with emotion. And his heart glowed, and he struggled forward towards the light, and he longed to live, to live, to go on and on, towards the new, beckoning light, and to hasten, hasten, now, at once! “What! Where?” he exclaimed opening his eyes, and sitting up on the chest, as though he had revived from a swoon, smiling brightly. Nikolay Parfenovitch was standing over him, suggesting that he should hear the protocol read aloud and sign it. Mitya guessed that he had been asleep an hour or more, but he did not hear Nikolay Parfenovitch. He was suddenly struck by the fact that there was a pillow under his head, which hadn’t been there when he had leant back, exhausted, on the chest.

“Who put that pillow under my head? Who was so kind?” he cried, with a sort of ecstatic gratitude, and tears in his voice, as though some great kindness had been shown him.

He never found out who this kind man was; perhaps one of the peasant witnesses, or Nikolay Parfenovitch’s little secretary, had compassionately thought to put a pillow under his head; but his whole soul was quivering with tears. He went to the table and said that he would sign whatever they liked.

“I’ve had a good dream, gentlemen,” he said in a strange voice, with a new light, as of joy, in his face.

CHAPTER 9

They Carry Mitya Away

WHEN the protocol had been signed, Nikolay Parfenovitch turned solemnly to the prisoner and read him the “Committal,” setting forth, that in such a year, on such a day, in such a place, the investigating lawyer of such-and-such a district court, having examined so-and-so (to wit, Mitya) accused of this and of that (all the charges were carefully written out) and having considered that the accused, not pleading guilty to the charges made against him, had brought forward nothing in his defence, while the witnesses, so-and-so, and so-and-so, and the circumstances such-and-such testify against him, acting in accordance with such-and-such articles of the Statute Book, and so on, has ruled, that, in order to preclude so-and-so (Mitya) from all means of evading pursuit and judgment, he be detained in such-and-such a prison, which he hereby notifies to the accused and communicates a copy of this same “Committal” to the deputy prosecutor, and so on, and so on.

In brief, Mitya was informed that he was, from that moment, a prisoner, and that he would be driven at once to the town, and there shut up in a very unpleasant place. Mitya listened attentively, and only shrugged his shoulders.

“Well, gentlemen, I don’t blame you. I’m ready.... I understand that there’s nothing else for you to do.”

Nikolay Parfenovitch informed him gently that he would be escorted at once by the rural police officer, Mavriky Mavrikyevitch, who happened to be on the spot....

“Stay,” Mitya interrupted, suddenly, and impelled by uncontrollable feeling he pronounced, addressing all in the room:

“Gentlemen, we’re all cruel, we’re all monsters, we all make men weep, and mothers, and babes at the breast, but of all, let it be settled here, now, of all I am the lowest reptile! I’ve sworn to amend, and every day I’ve done the same filthy things. I understand now that such men as I need a blow, a blow of destiny to catch them as with a noose, and bind them by a force from without. Never, never should I have risen of myself! But the thunderbolt has fallen. I accept the torture of accusation, and my public shame; I want to suffer and by suffering I shall be purified. Perhaps I shall be purified, gentlemen? But listen, for the last time, I am not guilty of my father’s blood. I accept my punishment, not because I killed him, but because I meant to kill him, and perhaps I really might have killed him. Still I mean to fight it out with you. I warn you of that. I’ll fight it out with you to the end, and then God will decide. Good-bye, gentlemen, don’t be vexed with me for having shouted at you during the examination. Oh, I was still such a fool then.... In another minute I shall be a prisoner, but now, for the last time, as a free man, Dmitri Karamazov offers you his hand. Saying good-bye to you, I say it to all men.”

His voice quivered and he stretched out his hand, but Nikolay Parfenovitch, who happened to stand nearest to him, with a sudden, almost nervous movement, hid his hands behind his back. Mitya instantly noticed this, and started. He let his outstretched hand fall at once.

“The preliminary inquiry is not yet over,” Nikolay Parfenovitch faltered, somewhat embarrassed. “We will continue it in the town, and I, for my part, of course, am ready to wish you all success... in your defence.... As a matter of fact, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, I’ve always been disposed to regard you as, so to speak, more unfortunate than guilty. All of us here, if I may make bold to speak for all, we are all ready to recognise that you are, at bottom, a young man of honour, but, alas, one who has been carried away by certain passions to a somewhat excessive degree...”