The Brothers Karamazov (70 page)

He was lucky. An old merchant, who was being driven in a hired carriage along the small rural road, passed him. Mitya asked the way and it turned out that they were also going to Volovya station; after some discussion, they agreed to take Mitya with them. It took about three hours to get to Volovya, where Mitya at once ordered post-horses for the drive back to town. Then he suddenly realized that he was terribly hungry. While the horses were being harnessed, they prepared him an omelet, which he ate with a thick slice of bread and some salami that they happened to have, downing at the same time three small glasses of vodka. When he had eaten, he felt better; a beam of sunlight broke through his gloom and he cheered up somewhat.

They drove fast toward town, but that didn’t keep Mitya from urging on the coachman. Suddenly he conceived a new “plan”—one he felt sure “cannot fail to get me that damned money.”

“And just to think, just to imagine,” he mumbled scornfully under his breath, “that a human life was almost ruined for lack of a miserable three thousand rubles! But that’s enough—I’ll settle it all today!”

Perhaps if it had not been for his continuous worrying about Grushenka and all the things that might have happened to her, he would have felt perfectly gay and cheerful. The thought of Grushenka, however, kept stabbing him like a sharp blade. At last they reached town, and Mitya immediately dashed off to her house.

Chapter 3: The Gold Mines

THIS WAS the visit which had frightened Grushenka so much and of which she had told Rakitin. She was waiting for her “message” at the time and, as Mitya had not come over either that day or the day before, she was hoping that with luck he might not come at all before she left. But suddenly he burst in on her. We already know what happened then: she quickly convinced him to accompany her to Samsonov’s house, where she was supposed to help the old man “count his money.” And when Mitya had seen her to the door, she made him promise he would come back and pick her up at midnight, to see her back to her house. Mitya was rather pleased with this arrangement—“If she sits there with Samsonov, at least she won’t be rushing off to father’s . . . Unless, of course, she’s lying to me,” he added at once. But he did not think she was lying to him. He was the type of jealous man who, when he is away from his beloved, immediately thinks of God knows what horrors about her deceiving him, but once back with her, shaken and crushed, furious and convinced that 
this
 time she has certainly betrayed him, he regains his confidence as soon as he sees her gay, laughing, tender face and forgets all his suspicions, is ashamed of his jealousy, and joyfully berates himself for it.

Having seen Grushenka off, Dmitry hurried home, for there were still many, many things he had to do that day! But now, at least, the weight was lifted from his heart. “I must find out from Smerdyakov, though, whether anything happened last night, whether she didn’t by any chance go and see father while I was away . . .” The thought flashed through his head, and even before he had reached home, jealousy had again taken hold of his restless heart.

Jealousy! “Othello was not jealous; he was trusting,” Pushkin said. This remark in itself attests to that great poet’s uncanny insight. Othello’s heart was broken and his whole understanding of the world was dimmed because 
his ideal had been shattered
. But Othello would not hide, spy, or sneak, for he was a trusting man. Indeed, it took tremendous efforts to lead him on, arouse his suspicions, and fire his imagination so that the thought of betrayal should occur to him. This is not what the truly jealous man is like. It is hard to imagine what shameful and morally degrading acts a jealous man will not commit, and without the least pang of conscience. And it is not at all that men afflicted with jealousy are necessarily mean and dirty-minded. Indeed, men of noble character, whose love is pure and who would sacrifice anything for the woman they love, can very easily hide under tables, bribe unspeakable people, and indulge in such vile acts as spying and eavesdropping. Othello could never have reconciled himself to infidelity—he might have been able to forgive it, but he would never have been able to reconcile himself to it, though he was unwicked and as innocent as a babe. But a truly jealous man is quite a different matter. It is difficult to think of anything a jealous man will not put up with, reconcile himself to, and forgive! In fact, jealous men are the first to forgive—all women know that. A jealous man is willing and able to forgive (after, of course, making a violent scene) an infidelity that has almost been proven to him, even after he has caught his beloved in the arms of another man, kissing him, as long as he can somehow convince himself that it has happened “for the last time,” that the other man will now disappear, leave for the other end of the earth, or if he himself can take her to a place where the dangerous rival can never follow them. It goes without saying that the reconciliation is only temporary, for, even if the rival in question really does disappear, the jealous man will at once find someone new to be jealous of. And one may wonder what good there is in a love that must be watched all the time, what joy there is in such a love. But this is precisely what jealous men cannot see, although many of them happen to be men of admirable character. But then these admirable men, even though they understand with their admirable hearts, while they are spying and eavesdropping in some little hiding place, how much they have been willing to degrade themselves, still feel no compunction whatsoever as they stand there spying.

And so it was with Mitya. As soon as he saw Grushenka, his jealousy vanished and he became temporarily trusting and considerate and even despised himself for his evil suspicions. But that only goes to show that his love for this woman included something higher than he knew himself, something more than carnal passion, something much deeper than “curves,” about which he had tried to tell Alyosha. On the other hand, no sooner was Grushenka out of his sight than Mitya once more began to suspect her of perfidy and think her capable of every vile trick to deceive him, and at these moments he felt no pangs of conscience at all.

And so jealousy surged up in him once more. Whatever else, he had to hurry. First, he had to raise a little money for his immediate needs. Almost all of yesterday’s nine rubles had been spent on his traveling, and without some money, of course, he could not move at all. But along with the “new plan” he had conceived the day before, he had also thought up a way of getting some money for his immediate needs. He owned a couple of good dueling pistols and their cartridges, which he had not yet pawned because he happened to prize them above all his other belongings. In the Capital City Inn he had become acquainted some time ago with a young government official, a rather well-off bachelor who had a passion for weapons and who liked to buy pistols, revolvers, and daggers to hang on his walls, so that he could show off his familiarity with these arms and his ability to explain the different loading systems, the variety of designs of pistols, and so on, to his acquaintances. Without further thought, Mitya went to this man and offered to pawn his pistols to him for ten rubles. The fellow tried to convince Mitya to sell him the pistols outright, but Mitya refused and the man gave him the ten rubles he had asked for, refusing, of course, to accept any interest on that sum. They parted good friends. From there Mitya dashed off to his hiding place—the summer house at the bottom of his father’s garden—and sent for Smerdyakov to come to him as soon as possible . . .

These actions made it possible later to establish that, just three or four hours before a certain event took place, of which much more will be said later, Mitya had to pawn his most treasured possession because he was almost without a kopek—and then, three hours later, he had thousands of rubles in his hands . . . But I am getting ahead of my story . . .

It was from his father’s neighbor, Maria Kondratiev, that Mitya heard, with surprise and consternation, of Smerdyakov’s sickness. They told him about Smerdyakov’s fall down the cellar steps, and the epileptic seizure that followed, about the doctor’s visit and Mr. Karamazov’s concern; and he also learned with surprise that his brother Ivan had left for Moscow earlier that day. “He must have passed through Volovya just before me,” Dmitry thought. But what bothered him most was Smerdyakov. “What will happen now? Who will keep a look-out for me and let me know?”

He eagerly questioned the women about whether they had noticed anything special the evening before. They knew very well what he was driving at and reassured him: no one had spent the night in Mr. Karamazov’s house, except for Mr. Ivan, and everything was all right. Mitya was perplexed: of course, he would have to keep watch himself now, but he wasn’t sure where he should post himself—right here or at Samsonov’s gate? He finally decided that he would have to take care of both places “as circumstances demanded,” but in the meantime, in the meantime . . . In the meantime he had to carry out his “new plan that could not fail,” the one he had conceived while driving back to town. He could not put off the execution of that plan. He would devote one hour to it. “Within an hour I’ll settle it all and then I’ll know where I stand. Then I’ll go to Samsonov’s house, inquire whether Grushenka is there, rush back, stay here until eleven, then back to Samsonov’s to pick her up and see her home,” Mitya decided.

He ran home, washed, combed his hair, brushed his clothes, dressed, and went to Mrs. Khokhlakov’s, for she, alas, figured in that new plan of his. He was to ask the lady to lend him three thousand rubles. Somehow he had suddenly become absolutely convinced that she could not refuse him. It may seem rather surprising that, if he was so convinced of this, he had not gone to her in the first place and thus remained, so to speak, within his own social circle, instead of going to a man from a different background, such as Samsonov, to whom he did not even know how to talk. The explanation is that Dmitry and Mrs. Khokhlakov had all but broken off relations during the past month, that they had never been very closely acquainted even before, and that he was very well aware of the fact that she had never been able to stand him anyway. The lady had detested him from the very beginning, simply because he was engaged to Katerina, who, she had for some reason decided, should break off with him and marry his brother Ivan instead, “such a nice, chivalrous, cultured man” with “such charming manners.” Dmitry’s manners, on the other hand, she detested. Mitya found all this very amusing and once quipped that “the lady is as forceful and uninhibited as she is ignorant.” And so, while driving back to town earlier that day, a brilliant idea had suddenly occurred to him: “If she is really so much against my marrying Katerina and feels so strongly about it” (he knew she was almost hysterical on the subject), “why should she refuse me the three thousand rubles that would enable me to finish with Katya and leave, never to come back? These spoiled society ladies, when they get an idea into their heads, won’t spare a thing to see their whims realized. Besides, this one is so damned rich,” Mitya’s reasoning went. As to the practical aspect, this “plan” was very much the same as the previous one; that is, he would offer as a guarantee to transfer his rights to Chermashnya to her, but, of course, he would not bring in the incentive of profit he had tried to use with Samsonov the day before, for she certainly would not be interested in the possibility of getting back six or even seven thousand rubles for the three she would lend him; no, with her, Chermashnya would simply be a gentleman’s security for his debt. The more he thought of this new idea of his, the more enthusiastic Mitya became, but then that is the way he always was when he embarked on anything. He always gave himself over passionately to every new idea he had.

Nevertheless, as he was going up the front steps of Mrs. Khokhlakov’s house, an icy shiver of fear chilled his spine, for he realized in a flash that this was his last hope, that if he failed now, there would be nothing left for him, “unless it is to cut someone’s throat and rob him, and all that for a miserable three thousand . . .”

It was seven-thirty when he rang the bell. At first the business seemed quite hopeful. No sooner had he announced himself than he was shown in with the utmost promptness. “It’s as if she’d been waiting for me,” the thought flashed through his head. And hardly a second after he had been ushered into Mrs. Khokhlakov’s drawing room, she herself came in, almost running, and told him openly that she had been expecting him.

“Yes, yes, I was expecting you to come! I was, although, you must agree, there was no reason at all for it even to occur to me that you’d come and see me—I have the most extraordinary instinct, don’t you think? I have known that you’d come ever since the morning.”

“That is really amazing, madam, I must say,” Mitya said, sitting down awkwardly. “I’ve come, you see, on very important business . . . I mean, it’s most important to me, just to me, and I’m in a terrible hurry . . .”

“I know how important it is, Mr. Karamazov. I’m well aware of it. It is not a matter of premonition or primitive, superstitious belief in miraculous insight—did you hear, by the way, about the elder Zosima?—in this case it is purely a matter of mathematics: you could not
not
 come to see me after what has happened with Katerina—you simply could not stay away. It’s sheer mathematics.”

“It’s the realism of true life, madam, that’s how I’d describe it . . . But please allow me to . . .”

“You’ve hit the nail on the head, Mr. Karamazov, realism is just the word for it. As of now, I am all for realism! For I’ve been taught a good lesson about miracles. You’ve heard, haven’t you, that the elder Zosima died?”

“No, madam, this is the first I’ve heard of it,” Mitya said, slightly surprised, and the thought of Alyosha flashed through his mind.

“He died last night, and imagine . . .”

“Madam,” Mitya interrupted her, “the only thing I can imagine just now is the desperate situation in which I happen to be. And if you don’t help me, it will be the end of everything, and first of all the end of me, for I am at the end of my tether. Please forgive me for expressing myself so banally, but I feel feverish, I feel as if I were on fire . . .”