The Brothers Karamazov (75 page)

“To hell with the oysters,” Perkhotin snapped almost spitefully. “I won’t have any. In fact, we don’t need anything.”

“No time for oysters,” Mitya remarked, “and, besides, I’m not hungry. You know what, Perkhotin?” he said suddenly. “I really hate this lack of order . . .”

“Who likes it? Why, it’s ridiculous—three dozen bottles of champagne wasted on uncouth peasants . . . It’s enough to make anyone sick.”

“I didn’t mean that. I was talking about a higher order. There’s no order in me, you see. And so everything is hell. My life has been one continual mess and disorder, but now I’m going to try and put some order into it. Do you think I’m making puns?”

“That’s not punning—it’s raving.”

*

Glory to the highest in the world,

Glory to the highest in me,

*

Mitya declaimed. “Once those lines burst from my soul, and they’re not poetry so much as a moan . . . I thought up those lines myself, but not while I was pulling that captain by his beard . . .”

“What made you think of him all of a sudden?”

“All of a sudden? Nonsense! Everything comes to an end. Everything must eventually be paid for. One day you have to draw a line and add it all up.”

“Listen, I can’t forget about those pistols. I’m worried about them.”

“The pistols are nonsense too! Here, drink, and stop imagining things. I love life, you know. I’ve come to love it so much, in fact, that it’s really quite disgusting. Enough! Here’s to life! Drink up. Why am I so pleased with myself? I know I’m vile, but still I like being what I am. I bless God’s creation and I am prepared to bless God, but . . . but I feel I must crush a certain stinking insect that is crawling about and spoiling life for others . . . So let’s drink to life, brother, for what can be more precious than life? Nothing, nothing! So here’s to life and to the queen of queens!”

“So let’s drink to life . . . All right, I suppose we can drink to your queen too.”

They emptied their glasses. Excited and impatient though he was, Mitya’s sadness was becoming apparent, a heavy anxiety was weighing on him visibly.

“Look,” he cried, “your Misha’s here. Hey, Misha, my boy, come here. I want you to drink this glass to golden-haired Phoebus, who in the morning . . .”

“Leave him be!” Perkhotin said irritably.

“Why, I want him to drink it. Please let me . . .”

“Ah, you . . .”

Misha emptied the glass, bowed, and hurried away.

“He’ll remember a bit longer now,” Mitya remarked. “Listen, Perkhotin, I love a woman. What is a woman? She is the queen of the earth. I feel sad, Perkhotin, very sad. Do you remember Hamlet saying, ‘Alas, poor Yorick’? So perhaps I’m Yorick. Yes, that’s what I am now, and later I’ll be the skull.”

Perkhotin was listening in silence. Mitya fell silent too.

“What dog is this?” he suddenly asked a shop assistant, pointing to a neat little black-eyed lap-dog in a corner of the room.

“It belongs to Mrs. Plotnikov, our boss’s wife. She brought it in here earlier and then forgot to pick it up. Someone will have to take it back home to her.”

“I saw a lap-dog just like this one when I was in the army,” Mitya said dreamily, “only one of its hind legs had been broken . . . By the way, Perkhotin, tell me, have you ever stolen anything in your life?”

“What kind of a question is that?”

“I just wondered. Have you ever picked anyone’s pocket, for instance? Of course, I’m not talking about government funds. Anybody who could get his hands on them would steal them, of course, and that goes for you too.”

“Go to hell.”

“I mean, have you ever stolen someone else’s money straight out of his pocket or purse. See what I mean?”

“I once stole a twenty-kopek piece my mother had left on the table. I put my hand quietly on top of it, closed my hand, and kept it in my fist. I think I was nine years old at the time.”

“And what happened?”

“Nothing. I kept it for three days, but grew too ashamed of myself, gave the coin back, and admitted what I’d done.”

“And what happened then?”

“Obviously, I got a good spanking. But why are you asking me all this? Have you stolen something, by any chance?”

“Yes, I have,” Mitya said with a sly wink.

“What?” Perkhotin wanted to know.

“Twenty kopeks from my mother when I was nine, but I gave it back three days later,” Mitya said and abruptly stood up.

“Mr. Karamazov, sir, shouldn’t we be getting under way?” Andrei called from the door of the shop.

“Is everything ready? Good, let’s go!” Mitya said, again becoming hurried and agitated. “‘One last tale to end my chronicle . . .’ and one glass of vodka for Andrei . . . for the road. And now a glass of brandy on top of the vodka. Here, this case, see?” He pointed at the case with the pistols. “Put it under my seat. Good-by then, Perkhotin, don’t remember me too unkindly after I’ve gone.”

“Why, you’ll be back tomorrow, won’t you?”

“I most certainly will.”

“Would you like to settle your bill now, sir?” An attendant hurried up to Dmitry.

“Ah yes, the bill, of course.”

Again he produced the whole wad of bills, counted off three of them, tossed them onto the counter, and hurriedly left the store, accompanied by the shop assistants and errand boys, all of them bowing to him and wishing him a good time. Andrei cleared his throat after swallowing his brandy and jumped up onto the driver’s box. But just as Mitya was installing himself in the cart, to his great surprise, Fenya appeared. She was running, completely out of breath, and as soon as she reached him, she let out a cry and threw herself down at his feet.

“Mr. Karamazov, sir, dear, don’t kill my mistress, please! It’d be my fault, because it was me who told you everything! And don’t kill him either, sir. He was there before you. He’s her man, Mr. Karamazov. He’s come especially, all the way from Siberia, to marry my mistress. Please, Mr. Karamazov, sir, you mustn’t take human lives . . .”

“Aha, I see, so that’s what he’s up to,” Perkhotin muttered under his breath. “You’ll get yourself into a real mess over there. All right, Karamazov, let’s have those pistols now! Give them to me at once! Come, act like a decent man, Dmitry, do you hear me?”

“The pistols? No need to worry about them. I’ll throw them into some puddle on the way. And you, Fenya, why are you lying there like that? Don’t worry, Mitya won’t kill anyone anymore. The stupid man is through harming people now. And Fenya,” he called out to her when he was already seated in the cart, “I offended you today, so I beg you to forgive me, dog that I am . . . But if you don’t forgive me, it won’t really make much difference now, because nothing really makes any difference anymore. Drive on, Andrei, and be quick about it!”

Andrei drove off. The bells jingled.

“Farewell, Peter Perkhotin, my last tear is for you!”

When the cart was gone, Perkhotin thought: “I know he isn’t drunk, so why is he raving like that?” At first he thought he would stay to supervise the loading of the supplies that were to follow Dmitry to Mokroye, for he was sure that they would try to cheat Mitya and not give him his money’s worth in food and wine. But suddenly he grew angry with himself, shrugged, and went off to the inn to play billiards.

“What a fool, but what a nice fellow,” Perkhotin muttered to himself on his way to the inn. “Yes, I heard something about that retired army officer of Grushenka’s. Well if he’s back for her . . . But those pistols! Ah, hell, what am I—his nurse? Let them all fend for themselves. Besides, I’m sure nothing much will happen. They just like to holler and that’s all: they’ll get drunk, have a fight, make it up, and get drunk again. They’re not serious people. And what was all that rubbish about his ‘getting out of the way’ and about ‘punishing himself’? No, nothing terrible will happen. I’ve heard him hold forth like that a thousand times before—when he was drunk at the inn. But he wasn’t drunk now. ‘Drunk in spirit,’ he said. Ah, they love fancy phrases, these people! I’m not his nurse, after all! And he couldn’t miss picking a fight today—all his face covered with blood. I wonder who the other fellow was? I’ll inquire in the inn. And that handkerchief soaked in blood . . . Damn it, it must still be on the floor in my bedroom.”

He got to the inn in a foul mood and immediately joined a game. Playing billiards relaxed him. He started another game and suddenly told one of his partners that Dmitry Karamazov seemed to be in the money again, that he had perhaps as much as three thousand rubles on him, that he himself had seen the bills, and that now Dmitry had gone off to Mokroye to have a spree with Grushenka. His words provoked an interest quite beyond his expectations. But nobody laughed. On the contrary, they all looked very grave. They even stopped playing.

“Three thousand, did you say? Where could he get three thousand?”

They questioned him further, but did not take seriously what he told them about Mrs. Khokhlakov.

“Isn’t it more likely that he robbed the old man?”

“Three thousand, eh? Something fishy about that.”

“Why, he’s shouted around here often enough that he’d kill his father. Everybody has heard him. And several times he also specifically mentioned the figure three thousand!”

Perkhotin, listening to them, suddenly started answering their questions curtly and evasively. He did not say a word about the blood on Mitya’s hands and face, although, on his way to the inn, he had planned to tell them about it . . . Eventually, the topic of Mitya was exhausted and they started on a third game. But Perkhotin did not feel like playing anymore; he put down his cue and dropped out of the game. And, without having supper as he had planned, he left the inn. In the square outside, he stopped, not knowing what to do, surprised at himself. Then it suddenly dawned on him that where he really wanted to go was to old Karamazov’s house, to find out whether anything had happened there. “It’s all nonsense, I’m sure, and if I go there I’ll just wake everyone up and cause a whole commotion! Besides, I’m not a nanny to look after them all!”

In a foul mood again, he decided to go home to bed. Then he suddenly remembered Fenya. “Why the hell didn’t I question her when I saw her?” he thought in annoyance. “I would know everything now if I had.” And he was suddenly seized by such an irresistible urge to speak to Fenya, to find out as much as he could from her, that he abruptly turned around and walked quickly toward the house of Mrs. Morozov, Grushenka’s former landlady. When he got there and knocked on the gate, the sound of his knocking resounding loudly in the still night suddenly sobered him up and made him furious with himself. Besides, no one seemed to have heard him—everybody appeared to be asleep. “I could cause a commotion here too!” he decided, feeling really sick now; but instead of walking away, he began to bang wildly on the gate. The noise echoed up and down the street.

“Hell, happen what happen may, I’ll knock until someone hears me!” he muttered, becoming more and more furious with himself with every knock, but only knocking harder and harder, just the same.

Chapter 6: I’m Coming!

IN THE meantime Dmitry was speeding along the road. It was just about fifteen miles to Mokroye, but at the rate Andrei was driving his three horses they seemed likely to get there within an hour and a quarter. The fast drive seemed to revive Mitya completely. The air was fresh and cool, large stars twinkled in the clear sky. This was the same night, perhaps even the very same hour, that Alyosha threw himself down on the ground and ecstatically vowed to love the earth forever and ever. But Mitya was troubled, deeply troubled, and many claws lacerated his heart. And yet, at this moment, his whole being yearned only for her, for his queen, to whom he was flying for the last time. One thing is certain: his heart did not waver, not for one second. I don’t know whether I’ll be believed, but I insist that this jealous man felt not the slightest trace of jealousy toward this new rival who had sprung up from nowhere, for that “army officer.” Had it been any other man, jealousy would have overwhelmed him at once, and perhaps those terrifying hands of his would have again been covered with blood. But toward this man, “her first love,” Dmitry felt no jealous hatred whatsoever, nor even any hostility for that matter, as he streaked toward them in his troika. It’s true, though, he had not yet seen the man.

“There’s no doubt she has a right to him and he to her. He’s her first love and she hasn’t forgotten that love for five years, and he’s really the only man she’s ever loved. So where do I come in here? What claims can I possibly have? Out of their way, Mitya! Besides, the way things are now, it’s all over for me anyway; even without that officer, it would have been the end . . .” These words would have roughly expressed Mitya’s feelings had he been able to analyze them. But he was no longer capable of such clear thought. His present determination was not thought out; it was spontaneous; it had come to him all at once, the second Fenya had spoken to him; and he had accepted it in its entirety, with all its consequences. And yet, despite his resolution, he felt deeply confused, so deeply that he was filled with anguish. Even his inner determination to accept the situation gave him no peace. Too much had already happened, and it weighed upon him. And this seemed strange to him at moments, for hadn’t he already pronounced himself guilty and sentenced himself to suffer for the rest of his life? Wasn’t the piece of paper he had written it on in his waistcoat pocket and wasn’t the pistol loaded and ready for use? Hadn’t he already decided how he would greet the first warm rays of golden-haired Phoebus tomorrow? Yes, he had, but he still could not get rid of the past—it was still there, tormenting him; apparently he could not atone for the past just like that. This realization pierced his soul with a shaft of despair. At one point, he wanted to order Andrei to stop, and then to take the loaded pistol, jump down from the cart, and finish the business at once, without waiting for dawn. But the impulse came, then died out like a spark in the night. Besides, the three horses were steadily eradicating the distance that separated him from his immediate goal and, as he came closer to it, the thought of her, of her alone, gripped him more and more strongly, displacing the horrible ghosts that peopled his mind. He yearned desperately to see her, even if only for a second and from a distance: “She’s with 
him
 now . . . so I’ll see them together, her and her first love . . . I ask for nothing else.” Never before had he so loved this woman who had played such a fateful role in his life; never before had he been filled with this unknown tenderness for her, a feeling that surprised him, a tenderness that merged into prayer, into self-immolation before her. “I will make myself disappear!” he said aloud in hysterical rapture.