Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (691 page)

This upper floor contained a number of large rooms kept purely for show, furnished in the old-fashioned merchant style, with long monotonous rows of clumsy mahogany chairs along the walls, with glass chandeliers under shades, and gloomy mirrors on the walls. All these rooms were entirely empty and unused, for the old man kept to one room, a small, remote bedroom, where he was waited upon by an old servant with a kerchief on her head, and by a lad, who used to sit on the locker in the passage. Owing to his swollen legs, the old man could hardly walk at all, and was only rarely lifted from his leather armchair, when the old woman supporting him led him up and down the room once or twice. He was morose and taciturn even with this old woman.

When he was informed of the arrival of the “captain,” he at once refused to see him. But Mitya persisted and sent his name up again. Samsonov questioned the lad minutely: What he looked like? Whether he was drunk? Was he going to make a row? The answer he received was: that he was sober, but wouldn’t go away. The old man again refused to see him. Then Mitya, who had foreseen this, and purposely brought pencil and paper with him, wrote clearly on the piece of paper the words: “On most important business closely concerning Agrafena Alexandrovna,” and sent it up to the old man.

After thinking a little Samsonov told the lad to take the visitor to the drawing-room, and sent the old woman downstairs with a summons to his younger son to come upstairs to him at once. This younger son, a man over six foot and of exceptional physical strength, who was closely-shaven and dressed in the European style, though his father still wore a kaftan and a beard, came at once without a comment. All the family trembled before the father. The old man had sent for this giant, not because he was afraid of the “captain” (he was by no means of a timorous temper), but in order to have a witness in case of any emergency. Supported by his son and the servant lad, he waddled at last into the drawing-room. It may be assumed that he felt considerable curiosity. The drawing-room in which Mitya was awaiting him was a vast, dreary room that laid a weight of depression on the heart. It had a double row of windows, a gallery, marbled walls, and three immense chandeliers with glass lustres covered with shades.

Mitya was sitting on a little chair at the entrance, awaiting his fate with nervous impatience. When the old man appeared at the opposite door, seventy feet away, Mitya jumped up at once, and with his long, military stride walked to meet him. Mitya was well dressed, in a frock-coat, buttoned up, with a round hat and black gloves in his hands, just as he had been three days before at the elder’s, at the family meeting with his father and brothers. The old man waited for him, standing dignified and unbending, and Mitya felt at once that he had looked him through and through as he advanced. Mitya was greatly impressed, too, with Samsonov’s immensely swollen face. His lower lip, which had always been thick, hung down now, looking like a bun. He bowed to his guest in dignified silence, motioned him to a low chair by the sofa, and, leaning on his son’s arm he began lowering himself on to the sofa opposite, groaning painfully, so that Mitya, seeing his painful exertions, immediately felt remorseful and sensitively conscious of his insignificance in the presence of the dignified person he had ventured to disturb.

“What is it you want of me, sir?” said the old man, deliberately, distinctly, severely, but courteously, when he was at last seated.

Mitya started, leapt up, but sat down again. Then he began at once speaking with loud, nervous haste, gesticulating, and in a positive frenzy. He was unmistakably a man driven into a corner, on the brink of ruin, catching at the last straw, ready to sink if he failed. Old Samsonov probably grasped all this in an instant, though his face remained cold and immovable as a statue’s.

“Most honoured sir, Kuzma Kuzmitch, you have no doubt heard more than once of my disputes with my father, Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov, who robbed me of my inheritance from my mother... seeing the whole town is gossiping about it... for here everyone’s gossiping of what they shouldn’t... and besides, it might have reached you through Grushenka... I beg your pardon, through Agrafena Alexandrovna... Agrafena Alexandrovna, the lady of whom I have the highest respect and esteem...”

So Mitya began, and broke down at the first sentence. We will not reproduce his speech word for word, but will only summarise the gist of it. Three months ago, he said, he had of express intention (Mitya purposely used these words instead of “intentionally”) consulted a lawyer in the chief town of the province, “a distinguished lawyer, Kuzma Kuzmitch, Pavel Pavlovitch Korneplodov. You have perhaps heard of him? A man of vast intellect, the mind of a statesman... he knows you, too... spoke of you in the highest terms...” Mitya broke down again. But these breaks did not deter him. He leapt instantly over the gaps, and struggled on and on.

This Korneplodov, after questioning him minutely, and inspecting the documents he was able to bring him (Mitya alluded somewhat vaguely to these documents, and slurred over the subject with special haste), reported that they certainly might take proceedings concerning the village of Tchermashnya, which ought, he said, to have come to him, Mitya, from his mother, and so checkmate the old villain, his father... “because every door was not closed and justice might still find a loophole.” In fact, he might reckon on an additional sum of six or even seven thousand roubles from Fyodor Pavlovitch, as Tchermashnya was worth, at least, twenty-five thousand, he might say twenty-eight thousand, in fact, “thirty, thirty, Kuzma Kuzmitch, and would you believe it, I didn’t get seventeen from that heartless man!” So he, Mitya, had thrown the business up for the time, knowing nothing about the law, but on coming here was struck dumb by a cross — claim made upon him (here Mitya went adrift again and again took a flying leap forward), “so will not you, excellent and honoured Kuzma Kuzmitch, be willing to take up all my claims against that unnatural monster, and pay me a sum down of only three thousand?... You see, you cannot, in any case, lose over it. On my honour, my honour, I swear that. Quite the contrary, you may make six or seven thousand instead of three.” Above all, he wanted this concluded that very day.

“I’ll do the business with you at a notary’s, or whatever it is... in fact, I’m ready to do anything. .. I’ll hand over all the deeds... whatever you want, sign anything... and we could draw up the agreement at once... and if it were possible, if it were only possible, that very morning.... You could pay me that three thousand, for there isn’t a capitalist in this town to compare with you, and so would save me from... save me, in fact... for a good, I might say an honourable action.... For I cherish the most honourable feelings for a certain person, whom you know well, and care for as a father. I would not have come, indeed, if it had not been as a father. And, indeed, it’s a struggle of three in this business, for it’s fate — that’s a fearful thing, Kuzma Kuzmitch! A tragedy, Kuzma Kuzmitch, a tragedy! And as you’ve dropped out long ago, it’s a tug-of-war between two. I’m expressing it awkwardly, perhaps, but I’m not a literary man. You see, I’m on the one side, and that monster on the other. So you must choose. It’s either I or the monster. It all lies in your hands-.the fate of three lives, and the happiness of two.... Excuse me, I’m making a mess of it, but you understand... I see from your venerable eyes that you understand... and if you don’t understand, I’m done for... so you see!”

Mitya broke off his clumsy speech with that, “so you see!” and jumping up from his seat, awaited the answer to his foolish proposal. At the last phrase he had suddenly become hopelessly aware that it had all fallen flat, above all, that he had been talking utter nonsense.

“How strange it is! On the way here it seemed all right, and now it’s nothing but nonsense.” The idea suddenly dawned on his despairing mind. All the while he had been talking, the old man sat motionless, watching him with an icy expression in his eyes. After keeping him for a moment in suspense, Kuzma Kuzmitch pronounced at last in the most positive and chilling tone:

“Excuse me, we don’t undertake such business.”

Mitya suddenly felt his legs growing weak under him.

“What am I to do now, Kuzma Kuzmitch?” he muttered, with a pale smile. “I suppose it’s all up with me — what do you think?”

“Excuse me...”

Mitya remained standing, staring motionless. He suddenly noticed a movement in the old man’s face. He started.

“You see, sir, business of that sort’s not in our line,” said the old man slowly. “There’s the court, and the lawyers — it’s a perfect misery. But if you like, there is a man here you might apply to.”

“Good heavens! Who is it? You’re my salvation, Kuzma Kuzmitch,” faltered Mitya.

“He doesn’t live here, and he’s not here just now. He is a peasant, he does business in timber. His name is Lyagavy. He’s been haggling with Fyodor Pavlovitch for the last year, over your copse at Tchermashnya. They can’t agree on the price, maybe you’ve heard? Now he’s come back again and is staying with the priest at Ilyinskoe, about twelve versts from the Volovya station. He wrote to me, too, about the business of the copse, asking my advice. Fyodor Pavlovitch means to go and see him himself. So if you were to be beforehand with Fyodor Pavlovitch and to make Lyagavy the offer you’ve made me, he might possibly—”

“A brilliant idea!” Mitya interrupted ecstatically. “He’s the very man, it would just suit him. He’s haggling with him for it, being asked too much, and here he would have all the documents entitling him to the property itself. Ha ha ha!”

And Mitya suddenly went off into his short, wooden laugh, startling Samsonov.

“How can I thank you, Kuzma Kuzmitch?” cried Mitya effusively.

“Don’t mention it,” said Samsonov, inclining his head.

“But you don’t know, you’ve saved me. Oh, it was a true presentiment brought me to you.... So now to this priest!

“No need of thanks.”

“I’ll make haste and fly there. I’m afraid I’ve overtaxed your strength. I shall never forget it. It’s a Russian says that, Kuzma Kuzmitch, a R-r-russian!”

“To be sure!” Mitya seized his hand to press it, but there was a malignant gleam in the old man’s eye. Mitya drew back his hand, but at once blamed himself for his mistrustfulness.

“It’s because he’s tired,” he thought.

“For her sake! For her sake, Kuzma Kuzmitch! You understand that it’s for her,” he cried, his voice ringing through the room. He bowed, turned sharply round, and with the same long stride walked to the door without looking back. He was trembling with delight.

“Everything was on the verge of ruin and my guardian angel saved me,” was the thought in his mind. And if such a business man as Samsonov (a most worthy old man, and what dignity!) had suggested this course, then... then success was assured. He would fly off immediately. “I will be back before night, I shall be back at night and the thing is done. Could the old man have been laughing at me?” exclaimed Mitya, as he strode towards his lodging. He could, of course, imagine nothing but that the advice was practical “from such a business man” with an understanding of the business, with an understanding of this Lyagavy (curious surname!). Or — the old man was laughing at him.

Alas! The second alternative was the correct one. Long afterwards, when the catastrophe had happened, old Samsonov himself confessed, laughing, that he had made a fool of the “captain.” He was a cold, spiteful and sarcastic man, liable to violent antipathies. Whether it was the “captain’s” excited face, or the foolish conviction of the “rake and spendthrift,” that he, Samsonov, could be taken in by such a cock-and-bull story as his scheme, or his jealousy of Grushenka, in whose name this “scapegrace” had rushed in on him with such a tale to get money which worked on the old man, I can’t tell. But at the instant when Mitya stood before him, feeling his legs grow weak under him, and frantically exclaiming that he was ruined, at that moment the old man looked at him with intense spite, and resolved to make a laughing-stock of him. When Mitya had gone, Kuzma Kuzmitch, white with rage, turned to his son and bade him see to it that that beggar be never seen again, and never admitted even into the yard, or else he’d-

He did not utter his threat. But even his son, who often saw him enraged, trembled with fear. For a whole hour afterwards, the old man was shaking with anger, and by evening he was worse, and sent for the doctor.

CHAPTER 2

Lyagavy

SO he must drive at full speed, and he had not the money for horses. He had forty copecks, and that was all, all that was left after so many years of prosperity! But he had at home an old silver watch which had long ceased to go. He snatched it up and carried it to a Jewish watch maker who had a shop in the market-place. The Jew gave him six roubles for it.

“And I didn’t expect that cried Mitya, ecstatically. (He was still in a state of ecstasy.) He seized his six roubles and ran home. At home he borrowed three roubles from the people of the house, who loved him so much that they were pleased to give it him, though it was all they had. Mitya in his excitement told them on the spot that his fate would be decided that day, and he described, in desperate haste, the whole scheme he had put before Samsonov, the latter’s decision, his own hopes for the future, and so on. These people had been told many of their lodger’s secrets before, and so looked upon him as a gentleman who was not at all proud, and almost one of themselves. Having thus collected nine roubles Mitya sent for posting-horses to take him to the Volovya station. This was how the fact came to be remembered and established that “at midday, on the day before the event, Mitya had not a farthing, and that he had sold his watch to get money and had borrowed three roubles from his landlord, all in the presence of witnesses.”

I note this fact, later on it will be apparent why I do so.

Though he was radiant with the joyful anticipation that he would at last solve all his difficulties, yet, as he drew near Volovya station, he trembled at the thought of what Grushenka might be doing in his absence. What if she made up her mind to-day to go to Fyodor Pavlovitch? This was why he had gone off without telling her and why he left orders with his landlady not to let out where he had gone, if anyone came to inquire for him.