The Brothers Karamazov (39 page)

“But now if I take this two hundred rubles, I can hire a servant, and you must understand, Mr. Karamazov, that it would make medical treatment for my loved ones possible, that I’d be able to send my learned daughter back to Petersburg, that I’d buy us some meat and we’d have a new diet . . . My God, but it’d be just like in a dream!”

Alyosha was elated to see the poor man happy and willing to accept what made that happiness possible.

“Wait, Alexei, wait!” the captain cried, as if snatching another daydream out of thin air, and once more he went rattling on excitedly and at great speed. “You know what? Perhaps it would be possible now for Ilyusha and me to make our dream really come true: perhaps we could really buy a horse and buggy—it must be a black horse, though, he especially insisted on that point—and we could leave just as we planned to do a couple of days ago. I know a lawyer in Kursk Province—I knew him when we were boys—and I have been assured by a reliable person that if I could get there, he would take me on as a clerk in his office. Well, who can tell, perhaps he’d really take me on . . . Ah, it would be wonderful to seat mother and Nina in the buggy, put Ilyusha on the driver’s box, and I would run along beside it, watching my family ride . . . Ah, dear God, if only I could collect a little debt that someone owes me as well, there would be enough money even for that too!”

“There will be enough, there will be!” Alyosha assured him enthusiastically. “I’m sure Katerina will send you more. She’ll send you all you need . . . And then I, too, I have some money of my own, and I’d like you to take as much as you need, accept it as from a friend, a brother. You’ll pay me back some day . . . Because I’m sure you’ll get rich, I’m sure of it . . . And you know, you could think of nothing better than moving to another province! That would be salvation for you, and especially for your little boy. And, believe me, you should do it soon, before the winter sets in, before it starts to freeze. I hope you’ll write me from there and that we’ll always be like brothers . . . No, no, this is no daydream!”

Alyosha was so pleased and so full of enthusiasm that he felt like hugging the captain, but as he looked at him again, he stopped dead. Snegirev stood with his neck stretched forward, his lips pursed, and a frenzied expression on his pale face. His lips were moving in an effort to say something, but no sound came out. It was a frightening sight.

“What’s the matter?” Alyosha said with a shudder.

“Mr. Ka-Karamaz-ov . . . I . . . you . . .” Snegirev muttered, staring strangely and wildly straight into Alyosha’s eyes with the look of a man who has suddenly decided to jump off a mountain peak, while at the same time he forced his lips into a smile, “I, sir . . . wouldn’t you like me, sir, to show you a little trick?” he managed to whisper quickly, his speech suddenly no longer faltering.

“What trick?”

“A hocus-pocus trick,” the captain whispered, his mouth twisting to the left and his left eye narrowing as he stared at Alyosha as though his gaze were riveted on him.

“What are you talking about, what trick?” Alyosha asked in alarm.

“Here, look at this!” the captain shrieked.

For a second he waved before Alyosha’s eyes the two hundred-ruble bills that, throughout their conversation, he had been holding by a corner between thumb and forefinger. Then he snatched at them with his other hand, crumpled them, and squeezed them tightly in his fist.

“Did you see it? Did you see it?” he screeched, pale and beside himself. He lifted his fist in the air and with all his might threw the crumpled bills into the sand. “Did you see? Well, so now you know!”

He raised his foot and trampled the bills under his heel, furiously, breathing hard, shouting each time he brought his heel down:

“Here’s your money! Here’s your money! Here it is, see!” Then suddenly he jumped back and stood erect, facing Alyosha, his whole figure striving to express his unquenchable pride.

“Kindly transmit to those who sent you that the back-scrubber’s honor is not for sale!” he cried, waving his finger in the air.

Then, abruptly turning away, he started to run. But a few steps away, he stopped, turned toward Alyosha, and blew him a kiss. Then he ran a few steps farther, stopped again, and for the last time looked back at Alyosha. This time his features were no longer twisted and his clownish expression had vanished. Instead, tears were running down his cheeks and he was shaken by sobs. In a tearful, choking, faltering voice, he shouted:

“And how could I explain to my boy why I accepted your money for having been disgraced!”

He ran off again and this time did not turn back.

Alyosha watched him disappear, feeling infinitely sad. He knew that, until the very last moment, Snegirev had not known himself that he would crumple up the bills and throw them away. Also, as he watched Snegirev, he knew the man would not look back now. Alyosha did not want to call him or try to catch him, for he knew it would be to no avail.

When Snegirev was out of sight, Alyosha picked up the two bills. They were very crumpled, crushed, and pressed deep into the sand, but otherwise they were quite undamaged. They even crackled like new bills as he smoothed them out. Having done so, he folded them neatly, put them in his pocket, and went to report to Katerina on the results of the errand.

Book V: Pro And Contra

Chapter 1: An Engagement

IT WAS again Mrs. Khokhlakov who came out to meet Alyosha. She was in a great hurry. Something grave had happened—Katerina’s hysterics had ended in her fainting, after which, Mrs. Khokhlakov said, “she felt terribly weak and lay down; her eyes rolled back and she became delirious. She’s feverish now and I’ve sent for Herzenstube and the aunts. The aunts have already arrived, but Herzenstube isn’t here yet. They’re all sitting by her bedside, waiting. I’m very worried—she’s still unconscious. What if it should turn out to be brain fever? . . .”

Mrs. Khokhlakov looked really frightened as she told Alyosha about it, and she kept adding, “This is very, very serious,” to everything she said, as if all that had happened before had not been serious. Alyosha listened to her sadly, then tried to tell her about his own adventure, but after the very first words she interrupted him: she had no time to listen to that now, and she would appreciate it if he would go in to see Lise and keep her company for a while, and could he please wait for her there?

“My dear Alexei,” she whispered in Alyosha’s ear, “Lise really amazed me just now, but she also moved me and for that I’m forced to forgive her for everything. Just after you left, she suddenly became very sorry for having laughed at you yesterday and again today. Of course, I know she wasn’t really laughing at you. She was just teasing you, just joking. But she was so deeply sorry, almost in tears over it, that I was quite surprised. She has never been so sincerely sorry after laughing at me. She has always turned it into another joke. As you know, she’s constantly making fun of me. But now she’s serious. Everything is serious now. Your opinion is serious now. She values your opinion so tremendously, my dear Alexei, so if you can, please don’t be offended at her remarks, don’t hold them against her. I myself keep forgiving her, because she’s such a clever little girl. You wouldn’t believe how clever she is! Just now she told me that you were her childhood friend, ‘the closest childhood friend I ever had,’ as she put it—just imagine that, the closest—and what about me? Where do I come in? She feels very strongly about this and remembers many things very clearly. She says things that again and again take me completely by surprise. Recently, for instance, about a pine tree—we had a pine tree in our garden when she was very little. Well, possibly that pine is still there, so there’s no need to talk about it in the past tense, for pines are not people—they don’t change so quickly. ‘Mother,’ she said, ‘I remember so clearly now that pine I’ve been pining for.’ You understand, ‘pine’ and ‘to pine’—although actually she said it somewhat differently—I’m a bit confused. The word ‘pine’ by itself is just a silly word, but she said something extremely original, something that I can’t seem to repeat. Besides, I’ve forgotten exactly what she said. Well, I’ll see you in a few minutes, Alexei. I’m sorry I’m in such an awful state. I think I’m about to lose my mind. You know, Alexei, twice before in my life I began to go mad and had to be put under medical care. Please go to Lise and cheer her up, as you always do so well. Lise!” Mrs. Khokhlakov called, as they approached the door of Lise’s room. “Here, I’ve brought you Alexei Karamazov, whom you offended so badly, and I assure you he’s not in the least angry with you. Indeed, he’s quite surprised that you should have thought he would be!”

“
Merci, maman
. Do come in, Alexei.”

Alyosha went in. Lise looked at him in embarrassment and suddenly blushed red. She was obviously ashamed of something and, as always happens in such cases, she started talking instead about something completely unrelated, as though that extraneous topic was the only thing she was interested in at that particular moment.

“Mother just told me about the two hundred rubles and the errand you were given . . . for that poor ex-army officer . . . She told me how horribly he’d been insulted and, you know, despite my mother’s quite hopeless way of telling anything—she interrupts herself constantly and keeps skipping from one idea to another—the story made me weep. Well, how did it go? Did you give him the money? And what is the wretched man doing now?”

“That’s the trouble—I couldn’t give it to him. It’s a whole story,” Alyosha said, as if he, too, were exclusively preoccupied with his failure to get Snegirev to accept the money, although Lise could see that he, too, was looking away and trying not to broach a certain subject.

Alyosha sat down at the table and started to tell his story. From the very first words, he completely forgot his embarrassment, and soon Lise became absorbed too. He spoke under the influence of a strong emotion and of the stark impression the scene had made on him; he reconstructed the incident powerfully and in great detail. Even back in Moscow, when Lise was still a child, he had liked to tell her about things that had impressed him, whether it was something he had read or had experienced, recently or in his childhood. Sometimes the two of them would dream up whole stories together, but these were usually cheerful, funny stories. And now, suddenly, they both felt as if they had been transported back to the old days in Moscow, two years before.

Lise was tremendously moved by the story. Alyosha had drawn a very warm, vivid portrait of little Ilyusha Snegirev for her. And when he had finished his complete account of the scene in which the hapless captain trampled the hundred-ruble bills underfoot, Lise threw up her hands in despair and cried with unrestrained feeling:

“So you didn’t manage to get him to keep the money! And then you let him run away! Good God, you should at least have tried to run after him, to catch him, and . . .”

“You’re wrong, Lise. I’m glad I didn’t run after him. It’s better this way.”

He got up and paced the room, looking worried.

“Why is it better this way? They have no money even for bread now. They face real starvation.”

“No, they won’t starve, because they’ll get that two hundred rubles, whatever happens. He’ll accept it tomorrow anyhow. I’m pretty sure he’ll take it tomorrow,” Alyosha said, pacing the room, his face concentrated in thought. “You see, Lise,” he went on after a while, stopping in front of her, “I made one mistake, but even that mistake turned out to be all for the best in the end.”

“What mistake? And why was it for the best?”

“Well, because that man is weak and frightened. He’s been terribly harassed, and he’s very kind. So I’ve been wondering what it was that could have infuriated him enough to make him trample that money underfoot, for, believe me, he had no idea himself until the very last second that he’d throw it down and stamp on it. Well, I see now that much of what I said to him could have offended him, in fact was bound to offend a man in his position. To start with, he was angry at himself for having shown too openly how glad he was to get the two hundred rubles, for not having hidden his joy from me. If he had been a bit less excited when I handed him the bills, if he hadn’t shown how pleased he was, if he had pretended to be offended and acted at first as if he would refuse it, that is, if he had gone through all the routines customary under such circumstances, he could have taken the money in the end. However, because he had allowed himself to show his joy sincerely, he felt insulted. Ah, Lise, he’s a kind, sincere man, and that makes it all the more difficult in such cases! When he decided to reject the money, his voice was so terribly weak, so faltering; the words came out so quickly and he was sort of chuckling all the time, or was he weeping even then? . . . Yes, he was weeping even before that, when he talked of his daughters with such infinite admiration and when he told me he hoped to get that job in the town in Kursk Province. And then, having bared his soul before me, he became ashamed of himself, and the next second he hated me. For he’s one of those poor people who are painfully sensitive about their poverty. But what offended him most was that he had accepted me too quickly as his friend and had been in too much of a hurry to lower his guard. Before that, he had made threatening movements and it even looked as if he were about to attack me, but the moment he saw the money he wanted to embrace me. He really felt like hugging me. He kept touching me all the time. I think that’s why he felt so humiliated when he thought of it, and it was at that moment that I made my mistake: I suddenly blurted out that if this two hundred rubles wasn’t enough to enable him to move to another town, he’d be given more, and that, in fact, I had some money of my own and he could have as much of it as he needed. That was what suddenly offended him: who was I to push myself forward like that and offer him help? You know, Lise, it’s horribly painful for a man down on his luck when every person he meets looks at him as if he were his benefactor. The elder explained that to me. I don’t know how to put it, but I’ve observed it myself. Besides, I’d feel exactly the same way, too. And the most important fact is that, although until the last moment he didn’t know he would trample those bills underfoot, he certainly had a foreboding of it. That’s why his joy and elation were so great, because he had that foreboding . . . And yet, although it is so sad, it’s all for the best. I don’t think it could have turned out any better.”

“Why, why couldn’t it have turned out any better?” Lise cried, looking at Alyosha in amazement.

“Because if he hadn’t trampled on the money but had taken it, one hour later, at home, he would have wept bitterly at this new humiliation. He would have wept and probably tomorrow he’d have come to see me, thrown down the bills, and trampled on them in front of me, just as he did today. Instead, as things are now, he has walked away with his head erect, feeling infinitely proud, although conscious of the fact that, by that gesture, he has sealed his doom. So there’s nothing easier now than to make him accept the two hundred rubles no later than tomorrow, since he’s already proved to himself that he’s a man of honor by throwing away the money offered to him and trampling it underfoot. After all, how could he know, when he was trampling the bills, that I’d bring them back to him again the next day? And he did it despite the fact that he needs that money desperately. Proud though he may feel today, he cannot help but think sadly of the assistance he rejected. Tonight he’ll think of it even more, he’ll dream of it, and by morning perhaps he’ll be ready to hurry to me and beg me to forgive him. But instead of his having to do that, I’ll go to him and tell him something to the effect that now he has proved his pride and I beg him to forgive us for our presumption, but insist that he must accept . . . And this time he will.”

Alyosha said the words “And this time he will” in a sort of rapture. Lise clapped her hands.

“It’s true, so true, I see it so clearly now! You’re so young, but yet you understand so well how people feel—I’d never have thought of all that!”

“The most important thing now is to convince him that he’s on an equal footing with us even though he has accepted money from us,” Alyosha went on hopefully. “Indeed, he is not only on an equal, but even on a sort of superior, footing . . .”

“A superior footing? A charming idea—please go on, Alexei!”

“Well, maybe I didn’t put it quite right when I said ‘superior footing,’ but it doesn’t make any difference, because . . .”

“Of course, of course, it makes no difference . . . You know, Alyosha dear, until now I had very little respect for you, I mean, I respected you only on an equal footing, but from now on I’ll respect you on a superior footing . . . Please, my sweet Alyosha, don’t be angry, I’m just trying to be witty. I’m just a ridiculous little girl, while you . . .” Strong emotion could now be detected in her voice. “Listen, Alexei Karamazov, isn’t there in all this analysis of ours—I mean yours, no, better say 
ours
—isn’t there a certain contempt for that unhappy man, just in the way we allow ourselves to examine his soul as if from somewhere high above, in our deciding that now he can’t fail to accept the money?”

“No, Lise, there’s no contempt for him,” Alyosha said firmly, as if he’d been expecting that question. “I was thinking about that on my way here. What sort of contempt could there be when we’re all just like him, for we are—we are not his betters. And even if we were his betters, in his position we would have acted just as he did . . . I don’t know about you, Lise, but I consider myself a quite despicable person in many respects. But he isn’t despicable; on the contrary, he’s a very sensitive, vulnerable man . . . No, no, Lise, there’s no contempt for him whatsoever! You know, my elder once said that we should always treat people as if they were children and sometimes we should treat them as if they were patients in a hospital . . .”

“Good, Alexei, my dear boy, from now on let’s treat people like hospital patients!”

“Let’s, Lise, I’m quite willing, although I don’t always feel up to it yet, because I lack patience and my judgment is often poor. But for you, it’s quite different.”

“I can’t believe it! I’m so happy, Alexei!”

“It’s so good that you should say that!”

“You’re an amazingly nice person, Alexei, but there are times when you sound rather smug. Then I take a good look at you and I know you’re not smug at all. Please go to the door, open it a little, and see if mother isn’t eavesdropping,” Lise suddenly whispered nervously.

Alyosha got up, walked over to the door, and reported that no one was listening to them.

“Now, come over here, Alexei,” Lise said, blushing more and more. “Give me your hand. Good. There’s something I must confess to you: that letter I wrote you yesterday, it wasn’t really a joke—I meant it.”

She covered her eyes with her other hand and it was obvious that she was very ashamed of making this confession. All of a sudden she drew Alyosha’s hand to her lips and kissed it three times in quick succession.

“Ah, Lise, it’s all right! Anyway, I was quite sure you meant it seriously.”

“Imagine that—he was sure!” She quickly removed his hand from her lips without letting go of it and giggled happily. “What a man: here I am kissing his hand and all he has to say is ‘all right.’ ”