The Brothers Karamazov (50 page)

“He’d kill a man without even blinking an eye and he’ll start by killing me. But what I’m most afraid of is that, later, they’ll say I was his accomplice if he tries to do something stupid of that sort to his father.”

“Why should they think you were his accomplice?”

“They’ll think it because I gave away the big secret about the signals.”

“What signals? Whom did you tell? God damn it, man, can’t you try to talk so that I can understand you?”

“I must first of all admit to you, sir,” Smerdyakov started, drawling his words smugly and ponderously, “that there’s a certain secret agreement between me and Mr. Karamazov, your father, sir. As you may or may not be aware, sir, your father has locked himself in for several nights now, and sometimes he locks the gate early in the evening. Now I’ve noticed that you, Mr. Ivan, have been going up to your room pretty early these days, and yesterday you never left your room at all. That’s why, I believe, you don’t really realize how thoroughly Mr. Karamazov has been locking himself in at night. Even if Gregory himself came to the door, the master would only let him in when he recognized his voice. But Gregory never comes in the evening now and I’m the only one to serve him in the house. It’s been arranged this way ever since he started this business of waiting for Miss Grushenka. But even now, at night, I go back to the servants’ cottage, the agreement being that until midnight I’m not to go to bed, but must make the rounds of the yard every so often, watching out for Miss Grushenka, for whom he’s been waiting the last few days just as if he’d gone mad. This is how he sees the situation: she, he says, is afraid of him—meaning Mr. Dmitry, to whom he refers as ‘that damned dog, Mitya’—and so she’ll come late at night by the back alleys. So he wants me to keep a look-out for her until after midnight. And if she comes, he says, I must knock on his door or window from the garden: first two slow knocks like this—one, two—and then three quick ones—bang-bang-bang. And then, he says, he’ll know she’s come and he’ll open the door quietly and let her in. Then he told me to use another signal in case something unforeseen happens: first two quick light knocks and then, after a second, one more, much harder knock. Then he’ll understand that something has happened and that I must see him urgently, and he’ll let me in so that I can tell him what it is. That is in case Miss Grushenka can’t come herself but sends him a message. He also wants me to warn him if Mr. Dmitry is around, because he’s very much afraid of Mr. Dmitry. So, even if he and Miss Grushenka are already locked inside the house and Mr. Dmitry comes around, I’m still to warn him by knocking three times. So the first signal—five knocks altogether—means ‘Miss Grushenka has arrived,’ the second signal—three knocks—‘Something urgent to report.’ That’s what he taught me himself, and he made me repeat it over and over again. And since he and I are the only ones in the whole world to know about these signals, it’s absolutely certain that the master will open the door as soon as he hears the knocks, without asking, ‘Who’s there?’—because he’s very much afraid to raise his voice. And it is these signals that have become known to Mr. Dmitry now.”

“How have they become known to him? Did you tell him? What made you do that?”

“As I told you, sir, I was too afraid of him. I didn’t dare keep the secret from him. And Mr. Dmitry pushed me around a bit and kept repeating: ‘You aren’t hiding anything from me, are you? If you are, I’ll break both your legs for you.’ Well, when he said that, I told him about those secret signals, to show him how loyal I was to him and that I wouldn’t deceive him for anything, and that I’d report whatever I found out to him.”

“So if he comes and tries to make use of those signals, just don’t let him in. That’s all there is to it.”

“But what if I’m laid up with a fit of the falling sickness? How could I refuse to let him in, even if I dared refuse otherwise, knowing what a desperate person Mr. Dmitry is?”

“But, damn it, what the hell is there to make you so sure that you’ll have an epileptic fit just then? You aren’t trying to make fun of me, by any chance, are you?”

“I’d never dare try to make fun of you, sir, and, besides, I don’t at all feel like making fun of anyone, frightened as I am. I feel I’m about to have a fit. I have that feeling, and I could have it just from being so afraid.”

“Oh, hell, if you’re laid up, Gregory will be watching out instead of you. So warn him about it all and he’s sure not to let Dmitry in.”

“I’d never dare tell Gregory about the signals unless the master ordered me to. As for stopping Mr. Dmitry from getting in when he hears him come, Gregory, I must tell you, has been sick since yesterday and Martha is planning to give him her treatment tomorrow. That treatment is a very curious one: it’s an infusion of certain herbs that Martha prepares according to some secret recipe. It’s very powerful and she always has some on hand, ready to use. She gives him that strong stuff perhaps three times a year or so, when he gets those pains around the waist and then gets like paralyzed from the waist down, which happens to him, as I said, about three times a year. Then Martha takes a towel, dips it in the solution, and rubs it all over his back for maybe half an hour, until the towel is completely dry, and usually her face is all red by the time she’s through. Then she pours some of the stuff into a glass and makes him drink it, and says a certain prayer. But she’s careful not to give him all of it. She always leaves some, which she drinks herself. And let me tell you, sir, that those two, who would never take a drink otherwise, as soon as they taste that stuff, they drop off to sleep and they keep sleeping soundly for a very long time. And when Gregory wakes up after that sleep, he’s almost always recovered, while Martha always has a headache. So if she’s planning to give him that treatment tomorrow, it’s not very likely that either of them will hear when Mr. Dmitry comes, and there’ll be no one to stop him. They’ll be fast asleep when he comes.”

“It sounds as if you were raving, with all these incredible coincidences, all these things happening exactly at the same time: you laid up with your epileptic fit and both Gregory and his wife lying unconscious after drinking their medicine! Unless . . . unless you’re planning to help things happen yourself that way . . .”

These last words escaped him unwittingly and he knit his brows menacingly.

“How could I be planning it, sir, and why should I help things happen when everything is in Mr. Dmitry’s hands and everything depends on what comes into his head? If he decides to do something, he’ll do it; if not, he won’t; and I certainly won’t be the one to bring him over here and push him into his father’s house.”

“But why should he try to get into the house at all, if Miss Grushenka, as you told me yourself, doesn’t even intend to come?” Ivan went on, turning pale with anger. “You said so yourself and I myself, since I’ve been living here, have become convinced that the old man is just fooling himself and that the creature will never come to him. So why should Dmitry try to break into the house when she’s not there? Speak up—I want you to explain what is really in your mind.”

“You know very well yourself why he’ll come here, so what’s in my mind really has nothing to do with it. He’ll come here because he’ll be raving mad or because he’ll be afraid that I’ve failed to let him know because of my illness, or he may just lose patience, become suspicious, and want to search the house, as he did yesterday when you were here yourself, to make sure that she hasn’t slipped in unnoticed somehow. He also knows that his father has an envelope in the house with three thousand rubles in it, which he sealed with three seals, tied with a ribbon, and addressed in his own hand ‘to my darling Grushenka if she comes to me,’ to which, three days later, he added, ‘To my little chick.’ Well, all this worries me, Mr. Ivan.”

“Rot!” Ivan shouted, almost in a frenzy. “Dmitry will never break in to steal money, or kill his father in order to do so! He could have killed him yesterday over Grushenka, enraged, maddened fool that he is, but he would never stoop to theft!”

“Mr. Dmitry happens to need money very badly just now, very, very badly. You have no idea how much he needs it,” Smerdyakov said with great composure and the utmost clarity. “Besides, Mr. Dmitry feels that that three thousand is in a way his by right, as he told me himself: ‘I still have three thousand rubles of my money coming to me from my father.’ And whatever we may say, it’s the truth, Mr. Ivan—you can work it out for yourself—that if Miss Grushenka should so decide, she could surely make him marry her, I mean my master, Mr. Karamazov himself, and, after all, it’s pretty likely that she’ll end up by deciding to do so. For I wasn’t all that sure really when I told you that she wouldn’t come here. She may very well feel like becoming a lady just like that, right away. I know myself that her merchant friend, Samsonov, told her quite frankly that it would not be at all stupid of her to do it, and he even laughed when he told her that. And Miss Grushenka is certainly not stupid. She’s not likely to marry a fellow who doesn’t have a thing to his name, like Mr. Dmitry. So if you take that into account, then you must realize that there will be not one single ruble coming to you after Mr. Karamazov passes on, neither to you, Mr. Ivan, nor to Mr. Dmitry, nor to your brother, Mr. Alexei, because once she marries him, Miss Grushenka will see to it that everything is transferred to her, and whatever capital there is will be in her name. On the other hand, if your father dies right now before anything of that sort happens, each of the three of you is sure to get forty thousand right away, even Mr. Dmitry, whom Mr. Karamazov hates so much, because there happens to be no will . . . Well, Mr. Dmitry is well aware of all this.”

Ivan’s face twitched in a peculiar way. Then the blood rushed to his cheeks.

“If that’s the way it is,” he interrupted Smerdyakov, “why would you want me to leave town and go to Chermashnya? What are you trying to tell me? Is it that if I leave, that’s what will happen here?” He was breathing with difficulty.

“That’s right, sir,” Smerdyakov said in a quiet, reasonable tone, but his eyes remained riveted on Ivan.

“What is right?”

Ivan could hardly control himself. His eyes flashed threateningly.

“I spoke out of concern for you, sir. If I were you and happened to be here at this time, I’d just drop everything and leave . . . I wouldn’t sit around here, considering all the things that may happen,” Smerdyakov said suddenly, with the utmost candor, looking straight into Ivan’s flashing eyes.

“I believe you’re an awful idiot,” Ivan said, rising abruptly from the bench, “and certainly a terrible, crooked monster . . .” He walked to the gate and was about to pass through it into the garden when he stopped, turned back, and looked at Smerdyakov. Then something strange happened. Ivan’s face twitched spasmodically; he bit his lips, clenched his fists, and in another moment would have pounced on Smerdyakov. Smerdyakov realized it at once; he shuddered and his whole body pulled back. But after one alarming second, Smerdyakov was out of danger. Ivan suddenly looked at him in bewilderment, turned silently away, and entered the gate.

“If you must know,” Smerdyakov suddenly heard Ivan say in a loud, clear voice, “I’m leaving for Moscow tomorrow morning, early. And that’s all.”

Later Ivan often wondered why he had had to tell Smerdyakov that.

“That’s the best thing to do, sir,” Smerdyakov said at once approvingly, as though he had expected Ivan to say just that. “Only, of course, sir, they may call you back by telegram if anything should happen here when you’re gone.”

Again Ivan stopped and again he turned his head to look at Smerdyakov. But something seemed to have happened to Smerdyakov. There was nothing left of his familiarity and his faintly arrogant air. His face was tense and expectant, but now he looked at Ivan with servile timidity. “Is there anything else you would care to order, sir,” his fixed, unblinking look seemed to be asking Ivan.

“Why would it be any different if I were in Chermashnya? Wouldn’t they summon me from there too?” Ivan unaccountably shouted at the top of his voice.

“That’s right, sir, they’d bother you just the same in Chermashnya . . .” Smerdyakov said almost in a whisper, taken aback a bit but still looking very intently into Ivan’s eyes.

“So, since the only difference is that Moscow is farther away than Chermashnya,” Ivan said, “you must want me to save the train fare. Unless you think that it would be too tiring for me to do all that extra traveling?”

“That’s right, sir . . .” Smerdyakov murmured now in a faltering voice, smiling abjectly, prepared to draw back at any second before Ivan’s anger. But, to his surprise, Ivan suddenly began to laugh, and he went on laughing as he passed through the gate and walked across the garden. Anyone seeing his face would have understood that he was not laughing because he felt in a laughing mood. He himself could not have explained what was going on inside him at that moment—it was as if all his movements were determined by some sort of spasmodic muscular contraction beyond his control.

Chapter 7: It’s Always Rewarding To Talk To A Clever Man

IVAN’S SPEECH was spasmodic too. Entering the house and seeing his father in the living room, he shouted to him, gesticulating: “I’m going right upstairs to my room. I’m not coming in. Good-night,” and he walked on, not even looking at his father. It is quite possible that the sight of the old man was more than he could bear at that moment, but such an overt display of hostility surprised even Mr. Karamazov. Indeed, it seemed the old man was anxious to tell his son something and he had come out into the living room especially to meet him. But after such a greeting, he stopped and with sly amusement watched Ivan dash upstairs and disappear from sight.

“What’s the matter with him?” he asked Smerdyakov, who had followed Ivan into the house.

“Seems to be angry at something . . . One can never tell with Mr. Ivan,” Smerdyakov muttered evasively.

“So let him be angry, the hell with him! Bring in the samovar, and then clear out, you too. There’s nothing new, is there?”