The Brothers Karamazov (76 page)

They had been on the way for almost an hour. Mitya was silent and so was the usually talkative Andrei, who seemed afraid to say a word and only kept urging on his rather thin but lively bays. Suddenly Mitya shouted, sounding terribly worried:

“Hey, Andrei, what if they’re asleep?”

The possibility had never occurred to him before.

“It’s likely that they’ve gone to bed by now, sir.”

Mitya frowned painfully. That would be awful—if he arrived there in a rush . . . feeling the way he did . . . and they were asleep . . . and she was there, asleep by his side . . . A current of wickedness shot through him.

“Whip them up, Andrei. Get moving!” he shouted frantically.

“They may still be up, though,” Andrei remarked after a while. “Timofei told me today that there were lots of people there, sir.”

“Where, at the station?”

“No, sir, not at the station, at Plastunov’s guest house. They have a private posting station, Mr. Karamazov. They hire out horses there too.”

“I know that. But who are all the people? Where are there lots of people? What people?”

Mitya became very agitated over this unexpected information.

“From what Timofei said, they’re all gentry. Two are from our town, but I don’t know who they are—Timofei didn’t say—and the two others are from somewhere else. They’re like travelers, I guess. There may be even more of them. I didn’t ask really. They’ve started a card game, Timofei said.”

“Card game?”

“Right, sir, so I reckon they may still be up if they’re playing cards. It’s not late. It’s not eleven yet, I’m sure.”

“Faster, Andrei, move!” Mitya urged him on nervously.

“May I ask you something, sir—only I’m afraid you’ll get angry at me,” Andrei said after a silence.

“What?”

“Just now, Fenya threw herself at your feet, sir, and asked you not to kill her mistress and someone else too . . . And now, sir, I’m driving you right there to them . . . Forgive me, sir, it’s my conscience that’s kind of bothering me . . . sounds stupid, sir . . .”

Mitya grabbed him from behind by the shoulders.

“You’re a coachman, aren’t you?” he started excitedly.

“Yes, sir . . .”

“If you’re a coachman, you must know that there are times when you must yield the right of way. No coachman can just drive on regardless of what’s there, running over people as he goes by. No, you can’t do that. You aren’t allowed to run over people, to mess up people’s lives—and if you do, you must condemn yourself, punish yourself, and take yourself out of the way.”

Mitya seemed quite hysterical as he said this. Andrei, surprised as he was by the outburst, kept up the conversation.

“You’re sure right, Mr. Karamazov, sir. No one can run over people and hurt them, like no one can hurt no creature, because every creature has been created by God. Take a horse, for instance, sir, some people whip and whip a horse for no reason, even coachmen just like me, and there’s nothing to hold them back. They just whip it and drive the poor beast on . . .”

“To hell?” Dmitry interrupted him, bursting into a short, dry laugh. “Tell me, Andrei, you simple soul, will Dmitry Karamazov go straight to hell, wherever that may be? What do you think?” Mitya again grabbed the coachman by the shoulders.

“I wouldn’t know, sir. It depends on you, because you are . . . You see, Mr. Karamazov, when the Son of God was crucified and died, He came down from the cross and went straight to hell to set free all the sinners that were being tortured there. So the devils in hell started moaning and crying because they thought they wouldn’t get no more sinners after that. But then the Lord said to them: ‘Don’t moan because from now on you’ll get the important people. You’ll get governors and judges and the rich, and hell will be as full as it was before, until I come again.’ And that’s true. Those were His very words, sir.”

“What a beautiful story! And now, Andrei, whip up that left bay!”

“So that’s who hell is for, sir,” Andrei said, whipping the left horse, “but you, Mr. Karamazov, you’re just like a little child—that’s what we all think of you, sir, and God will forgive you everything for that, although I must say you’re pretty hot-tempered too.”

“And what about you, Andrei, will you forgive me too?”

“I have nothing to forgive you for, sir. You’ve never harmed me.”

“No, I mean, will you forgive me for all the others? Answer me now, on this road: Will you, you alone, forgive me for all other men? Tell me that, you simple soul, you man of the people!”

“Oh, sir, it’s scary to drive you . . . you talk so strangely, sir.”

Mitya didn’t hear him. He was praying fervently, whispering wildly to himself:

“O Lord, accept me, lawless as I am, and do not judge me. Let me pass without Your judgment. Do not judge me because I have already condemned myself. Do not judge me because I love You, O Lord—vile as I am, I love You. Even if You send me to hell, I will love You there too, and I’ll cry out from there that I will love You forever and ever . . . But while I am on earth, let me love her to the end, O Lord; grant me five more hours to love her, just until the first bright rays of Your sun . . . for I love the queen of my heart and I cannot stop loving her. You know me, O Lord. I will go to her, throw myself at her feet, and say to her: ‘You were right when you passed me by. Farewell, forget me, whom you have made suffer, and never let the thought of me come to haunt you again.’ ”

“Mokroye!” Andrei shouted, pointing ahead with his whip.

A widely scattered mass of completely black houses was emerging from the paler darkness of the night. It looked as if almost all the two thousand inhabitants of Mokroye were asleep, for there were very few lights to be seen.

“Hurry, Andrei! I’m coming. Hurry!” Mitya kept repeating like a man in a fever.

“So they aren’t asleep!” Andrei said, pointing with his whip at the Plastunov guest house at the entrance to the village. The six windows giving onto the street were brightly lighted.

“That’s right, they’re not asleep!” Mitya repeated joyfully. “Make the horses gallop, Andrei, make the bells jingle and the cart rattle—I want lots of noise so they will know I’m coming. Yes, I’m coming!” he cried in exultation.

Andrei whipped his tired horses into a gallop and managed to produce a considerable rattling as he rolled up to the steep front steps of the inn and brought his steaming, choking horses to a sudden stop. Mitya jumped down from the cart, and just at that moment the landlord, who had been about to go to bed, appeared on the front steps to see who had pulled up in such a dashing style.

“Is that you, Trifon?”

The landlord looked at him and then ran down the steps, greeting his visitor obsequiously:

“How good to see you again, Mr. Karamazov, sir. I’m so happy to see you!”

Trifon Plastunov was a solidly built man of medium height, with a rather fleshy face and an expression that was stern and forbidding, especially when he was dealing with the local villagers, but he had the gift of making himself most ingratiating when he felt there was some advantage to be derived from it. He dressed in a Russian shirt with the collar buttoned on one side and a long-skirted peasant coat; he had considerable savings, but constantly dreamed of still better things. He had half the local inhabitants in his clutches, for almost everyone around Mokroye owed him something. He rented land from landowners in the area, and even bought some himself, and set the villagers who owed him money to work on it in order to pay off their debts, which they could never do. He was a widower with four grown-up daughters, one of whom was already a widow herself: she lived at her father’s inn with her little children (who were his grandchildren, of course), where she had to work like a servant. Another of the daughters of this former peasant was married to some pen-pusher who had worked his way up to become a petty government official; and now, in one of the rooms of the guest house, one could see among the family photographs exhibited on the wall a picture of the official in his dress uniform, epaulets and all. The two youngest daughters, who went to church in blue and green dresses fashionably tight-fitting with three-foot trains, got up at dawn on ordinary mornings and, arming themselves with twig brooms, swept out the rooms of the guest house and emptied the slops left by the travelers who had spent the night. Although by now Trifon had quite a few thousand rubles put aside, he was still as eager as ever to fleece a guest when he had the chance and he certainly had not forgotten that less than a month before he had relieved Dmitry Karamazov of well over two—indeed, almost three—hundred rubles during his wild spree in Mokroye with Grushenka. And that was why he welcomed him so enthusiastically now, feeling that, just from the way he had pulled up to the entrance of the inn, Dmitry would be a good person to fleece again.

“Have you come to stay with us again, Mr. Karamazov, sir?”

“Wait a minute, Trifon, first tell me—where is she?”

“You mean Miss Svetlov, sir?” the landlord said, guessing at once whom Mitya meant. “Yes, Mr. Karamazov, she’s here too. She’s here all right.”

“Who is she with?”

“I don’t know them, sir, some strangers . . . One of them is a government official, must be a Pole judging by the way he talks, the one who sent the horses for her from here. The other gentleman is a friend of his, or perhaps just a fellow traveler—I can’t tell. He is wearing civilian clothes.”

“They’re having a great time, aren’t they? Lots of money, I bet?”

“What great time, sir! They don’t amount to much, these people, sir, I can see that.”

“So they don’t amount to much, don’t they? And what about the others?”

“The other two gentlemen are from town, sir. They’re on their way back from Chermy and stopped here for the night. One of them is a young gentleman, a relative of Mr. Miusov’s I believe, but I’ve forgotten his name. And I think you must know the other one too, sir. He’s a landowner by the name of Maximov, and he says he met that young relative of Mr. Miusov’s at the monastery when he went on a pilgrimage there. And now they’re traveling together . . .”

“And that’s all the people there are?”

“That’s all, sir.”

“Wait, tell me—I must know, Trifon: How is she? How does she look?”

“She just arrived a short while ago and now she’s sitting in there with them.”

“Does she seem gay? Is she laughing?”

“She doesn’t seem to be laughing much. In fact, she looks rather sad, if anything, sitting there and combing that young gentleman’s hair.”

“You mean that Pole’s hair, the officer’s?”

“I said the young gentleman. The Pole is not young, sir. And he’s no officer either. No, Mr. Karamazov, it’s Mr. Miusov’s relative, the young one . . . I can’t remember his name.”

“Is it Kalganov?”

“Yes, sir, that’s exactly what it is—Mr. Kalganov.”

“All right, I’ll see for myself. Are they playing cards?”

“They were playing, but they aren’t any longer. They’ve finished their tea and the official has ordered some liqueurs.”

“Wait, Trifon, wait, my friend. I’ll decide about it myself. Now tell me the most important thing—are there any gypsies nearby?”

“I’m afraid I haven’t seen any gypsies lately, Mr. Karamazov. The authorities chased them away. But there are some Jews who play cymbals and fiddles in Roshdestvenskaya. If you say the word, I’ll send for them right away, sir.”

“Yes, send for them at once!” Mitya shouted. “And the girls—you could get them out of bed, like the other time. I want Maria above all, and Stepanida, and also Arina. There will be two hundred rubles for the singers.”

“For that money, sir, I’ll raise the whole village. I’ll pull every single one of them out of bed! I don’t believe, though, Mr. Karamazov, that all the villagers here are worth so much kindness on your part, or the girls either for that matter. That’s much too large a sum to waste on such an ugly, ignorant lot! It’s not right that peasants should smoke those expensive cigars you gave them the last time. Why, sir, they stink, the wretches. And the girls—every one of them has lice, believe me, sir. Why, I’ll get my daughters up for you, sir, and won’t charge you anything for it, let alone a sum like the one you mentioned. I don’t care if they’re asleep. I’ll kick their backsides and make them sing for you. Ah, it breaks my heart when I think of the way you made the peasants drink champagne! It just breaks my heart, sir.”

Trifon was not really concerned about Mitya, for on that last visit he had managed to pinch half a dozen of the bottles of champagne himself, after picking up a hundred-ruble bill under Mitya’s chair and concealing it in his clenched fist, where it stayed.

“Remember, Trifon, I went through at least a thousand rubles here that time.”

“How could I not remember it, sir? In fact, you went through three thousand that time.”

“And it will be the same thing now. See this?” And Dmitry took his wad of bills out of his pocket and almost touched the landlord’s nose with it.

“Now listen carefully: in one hour, the wine, the pies, all the food, and the sweet things will be here. I want everything brought up and opened as soon as it arrives, and I want the champagne served immediately . . . And above all, the girls, and on no account forget Maria.”

He turned back to the cart and pulled out the case with the pistols.

“Now let’s settle our accounts, Andrei. Here’s fifteen rubles for the cart and the horses; and here’s fifty rubles for your zeal and your affection . . . and to remember your fare, Dmitry Karamazov.”

“I’m afraid, sir,” Andrei said hesitatingly, “I can’t accept all that. If you wish, sir, you can tip me five rubles, but I won’t accept more. Let Mr. Plastunov here be my witness, I mean no offense, sir.”

“What are you afraid of?” Dmitry said, looking him up and down. “But if that’s the way you feel, the hell with you,” he cried, tossing Andrei five rubles. “And now, Trifon, I want you to take me in quietly so I can first have a little look at them all without being seen. Where are they now—in your blue room?”

Plastunov glanced worriedly at Dmitry but obeyed at once. He led him cautiously inside, went alone into the first large room next to the one where the guests were sitting, and brought out the candle. Then he quietly led Mitya in, placed him in a dark corner from which he could clearly see the whole party in the other room without being seen by them. But Mitya did not watch for long. Indeed, he was in no state to stand and observe. As soon as he saw her, his heart began to pound wildly and everything became blurred before his eyes. She was sitting in an armchair, sideways to the table. Next to her, on a settee, was Kalganov, a very nice looking young man, still almost a boy. She was holding his hand and seemed to be laughing, while he was saying something in a very loud voice, without looking at her, to Maximov, who sat across the table from him. Kalganov seemed irritated at something, while Maximov was laughing. 
He
 was sitting on a sofa, and next to him, on a chair, sat another stranger. The one on the sofa was sprawled out, smoking a pipe, a smallish, pudgy, broad-faced man, disapproving of something or other—that was Mitya’s fleeting impression of him. His companion, the other stranger, struck Mitya as an exceptionally tall man, but that was all he was able to notice about him. Mitya’s excitement made him breathless. He could not bear to stand in the corner for more than a minute. He put his pistol case on a chest next to him and, feeling a cold tingling in his spine, his heart missing beats, he marched straight into the blue room and up to the party.