{"train":[{"text":" Alexey Fyodorovitch Karamazov was the third son of Fyodor Pavlovitc Karamazov, a land owner well known in our district in his own day, an still remembered among us owing to his gloomy and tragic death, whic happened thirteen years ago, and which I shall describe in its prope place. For the present I will only say that this \"landowner\"--for s we used to call him, although he hardly spent a day of his life on hi own estate--was a strange type, yet one pretty frequently to be me with, a type abject and vicious and at the same time senseless. But h was one of those senseless persons who are very well capable of lookin after their worldly affairs, and, apparently, after nothing else Fyodor Pavlovitch, for instance, began with next to nothing; his estat was of the smallest; he ran to dine at other men's tables, and fastene on them as a toady, yet at his death it appeared that he had a hundre thousand roubles in hard cash. At the same time, he was all his lif one of the most senseless, fantastical fellows in the whole district.  repeat, it was not stupidity--the majority of these fantastica fellows are shrewd and intelligent enough--but just senselessness, an a peculiar national form of it."},
{"text":"He was married twice, and had three sons, the eldest, Dmitri, by hi first wife, and two, Ivan and Alexey, by his second. Fyodo Pavlovitch's first wife, Adelada Ivanovna, belonged to a fairly ric and distinguished noble family, also landowners in our district, th Misovs. How it came to pass that an heiress, who was also a beauty and moreover one of those vigorous, intelligent girls, so common i this generation, but sometimes also to be found in the last, could hav married such a worthless, puny weakling, as we all called him, I won' attempt to explain. I knew a young lady of the last \"romantic\"generation who after some years of an enigmatic passion for  gentleman, whom she might quite easily have married at any moment invented insuperable obstacles to their union, and ended by throwin herself one stormy night into a rather deep and rapid river from a hig bank, almost a precipice, and so perished, entirely to satisfy her ow caprice, and to be like Shakespeare's Ophelia. Indeed, if thi precipice, a chosen and favorite spot of hers, had been les picturesque, if there had been a prosaic flat bank in its place, mos likely the suicide would never have taken place. This is a fact, an probably there have been not a few similar instances in the last two o three generations. Adelada Ivanovna Misov's action was similarly, n doubt, an echo of other people's ideas, and was due to the irritatio caused by lack of mental freedom. She wanted, perhaps, to show he feminine independence, to override class distinctions and the despotis of her family. And a pliable imagination persuaded her, we mus suppose, for a brief moment, that Fyodor Pavlovitch, in spite of hi parasitic position, was one of the bold and ironical spirits of tha progressive epoch, though he was, in fact, an ill-natured buffoon an nothing more. What gave the marriage piquancy was that it was precede by an elopement, and this greatly captivated Adelada Ivanovna's fancy Fyodor Pavlovitch's position at the time made him specially eager fo any such enterprise, for he was passionately anxious to make a caree in one way or another. To attach himself to a good family and obtain  dowry was an alluring prospect. As for mutual love it did not exis apparently, either in the bride or in him, in spite of Adelad Ivanovna's beauty. This was, perhaps, a unique case of the kind in th life of Fyodor Pavlovitch, who was always of a voluptuous temper, an ready to run after any petticoat on the slightest encouragement. Sh seems to have been the only woman who made no particular appeal to hi senses."},
{"text":"Immediately after the elopement Adelada Ivanovna discerned in a flas that she had no feeling for her husband but contempt. The marriag accordingly showed itself in its true colors with extraordinar rapidity. Although the family accepted the event pretty quickly an apportioned the runaway bride her dowry, the husband and wife began t lead a most disorderly life, and there were everlasting scenes betwee them. It was said that the young wife showed incomparably mor generosity and dignity than Fyodor Pavlovitch, who, as is now known got hold of all her money up to twenty-five thousand roubles as soon a she received it, so that those thousands were lost to her forever. Th little village and the rather fine town house which formed part of he dowry he did his utmost for a long time to transfer to his name, b means of some deed of conveyance. He would probably have succeeded merely from her moral fatigue and desire to get rid of him, and fro the contempt and loathing he aroused by his persistent and shameles importunity. But, fortunately, Adelada Ivanovna's family intervene and circumvented his greediness. It is known for a fact that frequen fights took place between the husband and wife, but rumor had it tha Fyodor Pavlovitch did not beat his wife but was beaten by her, for sh was a hot-tempered, bold, dark-browed, impatient woman, possessed o remarkable physical strength. Finally, she left the house and ran awa from Fyodor Pavlovitch with a destitute divinity student, leavin Mitya, a child of three years old, in her husband's hands. Immediatel Fyodor Pavlovitch introduced a regular harem into the house, an abandoned himself to orgies of drunkenness. In the intervals he used t drive all over the province, complaining tearfully to each and all o Adelada Ivanovna's having left him, going into details too disgracefu for a husband to mention in regard to his own married life. What seeme to gratify him and flatter his self-love most was to play th ridiculous part of the injured husband, and to parade his woes wit embellishments."},
{"text":"\"One would think that you'd got a promotion, Fyodor Pavlovitch, yo seem so pleased in spite of your sorrow,\" scoffers said to him. Man even added that he was glad of a new comic part in which to play th buffoon, and that it was simply to make it funnier that he pretended t be unaware of his ludicrous position. But, who knows, it may have bee simplicity. At last he succeeded in getting on the track of his runawa wife. The poor woman turned out to be in Petersburg, where she had gon with her divinity student, and where she had thrown herself into a lif of complete emancipation. Fyodor Pavlovitch at once began bustlin about, making preparations to go to Petersburg, with what object h could not himself have said. He would perhaps have really gone; bu having determined to do so he felt at once entitled to fortify himsel for the journey by another bout of reckless drinking. And just at tha time his wife's family received the news of her death in Petersburg She had died quite suddenly in a garret, according to one story, o typhus, or as another version had it, of starvation. Fyodor Pavlovitc was drunk when he heard of his wife's death, and the story is that h ran out into the street and began shouting with joy, raising his hand to Heaven: \"Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace,\" bu others say he wept without restraint like a little child, so much s that people were sorry for him, in spite of the repulsion he inspired It is quite possible that both versions were true, that he rejoiced a his release, and at the same time wept for her who released him. As  general rule, people, even the wicked, are much more naive an simple-hearted than we suppose. And we ourselves are, too."},
{"text":" II"},
{"text":"He Gets Rid of His Eldest Son"},
{"text":"You can easily imagine what a father such a man could be and how h would bring up his children. His behavior as a father was exactly wha might be expected. He completely abandoned the child of his marriag with Adelada Ivanovna, not from malice, nor because of his matrimonia grievances, but simply because he forgot him. While he was wearyin everyone with his tears and complaints, and turning his house into  sink of debauchery, a faithful servant of the family, Grigory, took th three-year-old Mitya into his care. If he hadn't looked after him ther would have been no one even to change the baby's little shirt."},
{"text":"It happened moreover that the child's relations on his mother's sid forgot him too at first. His grandfather was no longer living, hi widow, Mitya's grandmother, had moved to Moscow, and was seriously ill while his daughters were married, so that Mitya remained for almost  whole year in old Grigory's charge and lived with him in the servant' cottage. But if his father had remembered him (he could not, indeed have been altogether unaware of his existence) he would have sent hi back to the cottage, as the child would only have been in the way o his debaucheries. But a cousin of Mitya's mother, Pyotr Alexandrovitc Misov, happened to return from Paris. He lived for many year afterwards abroad, but was at that time quite a young man, an distinguished among the Misovs as a man of enlightened ideas and o European culture, who had been in the capitals and abroad. Towards th end of his life he became a Liberal of the type common in the fortie and fifties. In the course of his career he had come into contact wit many of the most Liberal men of his epoch, both in Russia and abroad He had known Proudhon and Bakunin personally, and in his declinin years was very fond of describing the three days of the Pari Revolution of February 1848, hinting that he himself had almost take part in the fighting on the barricades. This was one of the mos grateful recollections of his youth. He had an independent property o about a thousand souls, to reckon in the old style. His splendid estat lay on the outskirts of our little town and bordered on the lands o our famous monastery, with which Pyotr Alexandrovitch began an endles lawsuit, almost as soon as he came into the estate, concerning th rights of fishing in the river or wood-cutting in the forest, I don' know exactly which. He regarded it as his duty as a citizen and a ma of culture to open an attack upon the \"clericals.\" Hearing all abou Adelada Ivanovna, whom he, of course, remembered, and in whom he ha at one time been interested, and learning of the existence of Mitya, h intervened, in spite of all his youthful indignation and contempt fo Fyodor Pavlovitch. He made the latter's acquaintance for the firs time, and told him directly that he wished to undertake the child' education. He used long afterwards to tell as a characteristic touch that when he began to speak of Mitya, Fyodor Pavlovitch looked for som time as though he did not understand what child he was talking about and even as though he was surprised to hear that he had a little son i the house. The story may have been exaggerated, yet it must have bee something like the truth."},
{"text":"Fyodor Pavlovitch was all his life fond of acting, of suddenly playin an unexpected part, sometimes without any motive for doing so, and eve to his own direct disadvantage, as, for instance, in the present case This habit, however, is characteristic of a very great number o people, some of them very clever ones, not like Fyodor Pavlovitch Pyotr Alexandrovitch carried the business through vigorously, and wa appointed, with Fyodor Pavlovitch, joint guardian of the child, who ha a small property, a house and land, left him by his mother. Mitya did in fact, pass into this cousin's keeping, but as the latter had n family of his own, and after securing the revenues of his estates wa in haste to return at once to Paris, he left the boy in charge of on of his cousins, a lady living in Moscow. It came to pass that, settlin permanently in Paris he, too, forgot the child, especially when th Revolution of February broke out, making an impression on his mind tha he remembered all the rest of his life. The Moscow lady died, and Mity passed into the care of one of her married daughters. I believe h changed his home a fourth time later on. I won't enlarge upon that now as I shall have much to tell later of Fyodor Pavlovitch's firstborn and must confine myself now to the most essential facts about him without which I could not begin my story."},
{"text":"In the first place, this Mitya, or rather Dmitri Fyodorovitch, was th only one of Fyodor Pavlovitch's three sons who grew up in the belie that he had property, and that he would be independent on coming o age. He spent an irregular boyhood and youth. He did not finish hi studies at the gymnasium, he got into a military school, then went t the Caucasus, was promoted, fought a duel, and was degraded to th ranks, earned promotion again, led a wild life, and spent a good dea of money. He did not begin to receive any income from Fyodor Pavlovitc until he came of age, and until then got into debt. He saw and knew hi father, Fyodor Pavlovitch, for the first time on coming of age, when h visited our neighborhood on purpose to settle with him about hi property. He seems not to have liked his father. He did not stay lon with him, and made haste to get away, having only succeeded i obtaining a sum of money, and entering into an agreement for futur payments from the estate, of the revenues and value of which he wa unable (a fact worthy of note), upon this occasion, to get a statemen from his father. Fyodor Pavlovitch remarked for the first time the (this, too, should be noted) that Mitya had a vague and exaggerate idea of his property. Fyodor Pavlovitch was very well satisfied wit this, as it fell in with his own designs. He gathered only that th young man was frivolous, unruly, of violent passions, impatient, an dissipated, and that if he could only obtain ready money he would b satisfied, although only, of course, for a short time. So Fyodo Pavlovitch began to take advantage of this fact, sending him from tim to time small doles, installments. In the end, when four years later Mitya, losing patience, came a second time to our little town to settl up once for all with his father, it turned out to his amazement that h had nothing, that it was difficult to get an account even, that he ha received the whole value of his property in sums of money from Fyodo Pavlovitch, and was perhaps even in debt to him, that by variou agreements into which he had, of his own desire, entered at variou previous dates, he had no right to expect anything more, and so on, an so on. The young man was overwhelmed, suspected deceit and cheating and was almost beside himself. And, indeed, this circumstance led t the catastrophe, the account of which forms the subject of my firs introductory story, or rather the external side of it. But before  pass to that story I must say a little of Fyodor Pavlovitch's other tw sons, and of their origin."},
{"text":" III"},
{"text":"The Second Marriage and the Second Family"},
{"text":"Very shortly after getting his four-year-old Mitya off his hands Fyodo Pavlovitch married a second time. His second marriage lasted eigh years. He took this second wife, Sofya Ivanovna, also a very youn girl, from another province, where he had gone upon some small piece o business in company with a Jew. Though Fyodor Pavlovitch was a drunkar and a vicious debauchee he never neglected investing his capital, an managed his business affairs very successfully, though, no doubt, no over-scrupulously. Sofya Ivanovna was the daughter of an obscur deacon, and was left from childhood an orphan without relations. Sh grew up in the house of a general's widow, a wealthy old lady of goo position, who was at once her benefactress and tormentor. I do not kno the details, but I have only heard that the orphan girl, a meek an gentle creature, was once cut down from a halter in which she wa hanging from a nail in the loft, so terrible were her sufferings fro the caprice and everlasting nagging of this old woman, who wa apparently not bad-hearted but had become an insufferable tyran through idleness."},
{"text":"Fyodor Pavlovitch made her an offer; inquiries were made about him an he was refused. But again, as in his first marriage, he proposed a elopement to the orphan girl. There is very little doubt that she woul not on any account have married him if she had known a little mor about him in time. But she lived in another province; besides, wha could a little girl of sixteen know about it, except that she would b better at the bottom of the river than remaining with her benefactress So the poor child exchanged a benefactress for a benefactor. Fyodo Pavlovitch did not get a penny this time, for the general's widow wa furious. She gave them nothing and cursed them both. But he had no reckoned on a dowry; what allured him was the remarkable beauty of th innocent girl, above all her innocent appearance, which had a peculia attraction for a vicious profligate, who had hitherto admired only th coarser types of feminine beauty."},
{"text":"\"Those innocent eyes slit my soul up like a razor,\" he used to sa afterwards, with his loathsome snigger. In a man so depraved thi might, of course, mean no more than sensual attraction. As he ha received no dowry with his wife, and had, so to speak, taken her \"fro the halter,\" he did not stand on ceremony with her. Making her fee that she had \"wronged\" him, he took advantage of her phenomena meekness and submissiveness to trample on the elementary decencies o marriage. He gathered loose women into his house, and carried on orgie of debauchery in his wife's presence. To show what a pass things ha come to, I may mention that Grigory, the gloomy, stupid, obstinate argumentative servant, who had always hated his first mistress Adelada Ivanovna, took the side of his new mistress. He championed he cause, abusing Fyodor Pavlovitch in a manner little befitting  servant, and on one occasion broke up the revels and drove all th disorderly women out of the house. In the end this unhappy young woman kept in terror from her childhood, fell into that kind of nervou disease which is most frequently found in peasant women who are said t be \"possessed by devils.\" At times after terrible fits of hysterics sh even lost her reason. Yet she bore Fyodor Pavlovitch two sons, Ivan an Alexey, the eldest in the first year of marriage and the second thre years later. When she died, little Alexey was in his fourth year, and strange as it seems, I know that he remembered his mother all his life like a dream, of course. At her death almost exactly the same thin happened to the two little boys as to their elder brother, Mitya. The were completely forgotten and abandoned by their father. They wer looked after by the same Grigory and lived in his cottage, where the were found by the tyrannical old lady who had brought up their mother She was still alive, and had not, all those eight years, forgotten th insult done her. All that time she was obtaining exact information a to her Sofya's manner of life, and hearing of her illness and hideou surroundings she declared aloud two or three times to her retainers:"},
{"text":"\"It serves her right. God has punished her for her ingratitude.\""},
{"text":"Exactly three months after Sofya Ivanovna's death the general's wido suddenly appeared in our town, and went straight to Fyodor Pavlovitch' house. She spent only half an hour in the town but she did a grea deal. It was evening. Fyodor Pavlovitch, whom she had not seen fo those eight years, came in to her drunk. The story is that instantl upon seeing him, without any sort of explanation, she gave him tw good, resounding slaps on the face, seized him by a tuft of hair, an shook him three times up and down. Then, without a word, she wen straight to the cottage to the two boys. Seeing, at the first glance that they were unwashed and in dirty linen, she promptly gave Grigory too, a box on the ear, and announcing that she would carry off both th children she wrapped them just as they were in a rug, put them in th carriage, and drove off to her own town. Grigory accepted the blow lik a devoted slave, without a word, and when he escorted the old lady t her carriage he made her a low bow and pronounced impressively that \"God would repay her for the orphans.\" \"You are a blockhead all th same,\" the old lady shouted to him as she drove away."},
{"text":"Fyodor Pavlovitch, thinking it over, decided that it was a good thing and did not refuse the general's widow his formal consent to an proposition in regard to his children's education. As for the slaps sh had given him, he drove all over the town telling the story."},
{"text":"It happened that the old lady died soon after this, but she left th boys in her will a thousand roubles each \"for their instruction, and s that all be spent on them exclusively, with the condition that it be s portioned out as to last till they are twenty-one, for it is more tha adequate provision for such children. If other people think fit t throw away their money, let them.\" I have not read the will myself, bu I heard there was something queer of the sort, very whimsicall expressed. The principal heir, Yefim Petrovitch Polenov, the Marshal o Nobility of the province, turned out, however, to be an honest man Writing to Fyodor Pavlovitch, and discerning at once that he coul extract nothing from him for his children's education (though th latter never directly refused but only procrastinated as he always di in such cases, and was, indeed, at times effusively sentimental), Yefi Petrovitch took a personal interest in the orphans. He becam especially fond of the younger, Alexey, who lived for a long while a one of his family. I beg the reader to note this from the beginning And to Yefim Petrovitch, a man of a generosity and humanity rarely t be met with, the young people were more indebted for their educatio and bringing up than to anyone. He kept the two thousand roubles lef to them by the general's widow intact, so that by the time they came o age their portions had been doubled by the accumulation of interest. H educated them both at his own expense, and certainly spent far mor than a thousand roubles upon each of them. I won't enter into  detailed account of their boyhood and youth, but will only mention  few of the most important events. Of the elder, Ivan, I will only sa that he grew into a somewhat morose and reserved, though far from timi boy. At ten years old he had realized that they were living not i their own home but on other people's charity, and that their father wa a man of whom it was disgraceful to speak. This boy began very early almost in his infancy (so they say at least), to show a brilliant an unusual aptitude for learning. I don't know precisely why, but he lef the family of Yefim Petrovitch when he was hardly thirteen, entering  Moscow gymnasium, and boarding with an experienced and celebrate teacher, an old friend of Yefim Petrovitch. Ivan used to declar afterwards that this was all due to the \"ardor for good works\" of Yefi Petrovitch, who was captivated by the idea that the boy's genius shoul be trained by a teacher of genius. But neither Yefim Petrovitch no this teacher was living when the young man finished at the gymnasiu and entered the university. As Yefim Petrovitch had made no provisio for the payment of the tyrannical old lady's legacy, which had grow from one thousand to two, it was delayed, owing to formalitie inevitable in Russia, and the young man was in great straits for th first two years at the university, as he was forced to keep himself al the time he was studying. It must be noted that he did not even attemp to communicate with his father, perhaps from pride, from contempt fo him, or perhaps from his cool common sense, which told him that fro such a father he would get no real assistance. However that may hav been, the young man was by no means despondent and succeeded in gettin work, at first giving sixpenny lessons and afterwards gettin paragraphs on street incidents into the newspapers under the signatur of \"Eyewitness.\" These paragraphs, it was said, were so interesting an piquant that they were soon taken. This alone showed the young man' practical and intellectual superiority over the masses of needy an unfortunate students of both sexes who hang about the offices of th newspapers and journals, unable to think of anything better tha everlasting entreaties for copying and translations from the French Having once got into touch with the editors Ivan Fyodorovitch alway kept up his connection with them, and in his latter years at th university he published brilliant reviews of books upon various specia subjects, so that he became well known in literary circles. But only i his last year he suddenly succeeded in attracting the attention of  far wider circle of readers, so that a great many people noticed an remembered him. It was rather a curious incident. When he had just lef the university and was preparing to go abroad upon his two thousan roubles, Ivan Fyodorovitch published in one of the more importan journals a strange article, which attracted general notice, on  subject of which he might have been supposed to know nothing, as he wa a student of natural science. The article dealt with a subject whic was being debated everywhere at the time--the position of th ecclesiastical courts. After discussing several opinions on the subjec he went on to explain his own view. What was most striking about th article was its tone, and its unexpected conclusion. Many of the Churc party regarded him unquestioningly as on their side. And yet not onl the secularists but even atheists joined them in their applause Finally some sagacious persons opined that the article was nothing bu an impudent satirical burlesque. I mention this incident particularl because this article penetrated into the famous monastery in ou neighborhood, where the inmates, being particularly interested in th question of the ecclesiastical courts, were completely bewildered b it. Learning the author's name, they were interested in his being  native of the town and the son of \"that Fyodor Pavlovitch.\" And jus then it was that the author himself made his appearance among us."},
{"text":"Why Ivan Fyodorovitch had come amongst us I remember asking myself a the time with a certain uneasiness. This fateful visit, which was th first step leading to so many consequences, I never fully explained t myself. It seemed strange on the face of it that a young man s learned, so proud, and apparently so cautious, should suddenly visi such an infamous house and a father who had ignored him all his life hardly knew him, never thought of him, and would not under an circumstances have given him money, though he was always afraid tha his sons Ivan and Alexey would also come to ask him for it. And her the young man was staying in the house of such a father, had bee living with him for two months, and they were on the best possibl terms. This last fact was a special cause of wonder to many others a well as to me. Pyotr Alexandrovitch Misov, of whom we have spoke already, the cousin of Fyodor Pavlovitch's first wife, happened to b in the neighborhood again on a visit to his estate. He had come fro Paris, which was his permanent home. I remember that he was mor surprised than anyone when he made the acquaintance of the young man who interested him extremely, and with whom he sometimes argued and no without an inner pang compared himself in acquirements."},
{"text":"\"He is proud,\" he used to say, \"he will never be in want of pence; h has got money enough to go abroad now. What does he want here? Everyon can see that he hasn't come for money, for his father would never giv him any. He has no taste for drink and dissipation, and yet his fathe can't do without him. They get on so well together!\""},
{"text":"That was the truth; the young man had an unmistakable influence ove his father, who positively appeared to be behaving more decently an even seemed at times ready to obey his son, though often extremely an even spitefully perverse."},
{"text":"It was only later that we learned that Ivan had come partly at th request of, and in the interests of, his elder brother, Dmitri, whom h saw for the first time on this very visit, though he had before leavin Moscow been in correspondence with him about an important matter o more concern to Dmitri than himself. What that business was the reade will learn fully in due time. Yet even when I did know of this specia circumstance I still felt Ivan Fyodorovitch to be an enigmatic figure and thought his visit rather mysterious."},
{"text":"I may add that Ivan appeared at the time in the light of a mediato between his father and his elder brother Dmitri, who was in ope quarrel with his father and even planning to bring an action agains him."},
{"text":"The family, I repeat, was now united for the first time, and some o its members met for the first time in their lives. The younger brother Alexey, had been a year already among us, having been the first of th three to arrive. It is of that brother Alexey I find it most difficul to speak in this introduction. Yet I must give some preliminary accoun of him, if only to explain one queer fact, which is that I have t introduce my hero to the reader wearing the cassock of a novice. Yes he had been for the last year in our monastery, and seemed willing t be cloistered there for the rest of his life."},
{"text":"He was only twenty, his brother Ivan was in his twenty-fourth year a the time, while their elder brother Dmitri was twenty-seven. First o all, I must explain that this young man, Alyosha, was not a fanatic and, in my opinion at least, was not even a mystic. I may as well giv my full opinion from the beginning. He was simply an early lover o humanity, and that he adopted the monastic life was simply because a that time it struck him, so to say, as the ideal escape for his sou struggling from the darkness of worldly wickedness to the light o love. And the reason this life struck him in this way was that he foun in it at that time, as he thought, an extraordinary being, ou celebrated elder, Zossima, to whom he became attached with all the war first love of his ardent heart. But I do not dispute that he was ver strange even at that time, and had been so indeed from his cradle.  have mentioned already, by the way, that though he lost his mother i his fourth year he remembered her all his life--her face, he caresses, \"as though she stood living before me.\" Such memories ma persist, as everyone knows, from an even earlier age, even from tw years old, but scarcely standing out through a whole lifetime lik spots of light out of darkness, like a corner torn out of a hug picture, which has all faded and disappeared except that fragment. Tha is how it was with him. He remembered one still summer evening, an ope window, the slanting rays of the setting sun (that he recalled mos vividly of all); in a corner of the room the holy image, before it  lighted lamp, and on her knees before the image his mother, sobbin hysterically with cries and moans, snatching him up in both arms squeezing him close till it hurt, and praying for him to the Mother o God, holding him out in both arms to the image as though to put hi under the Mother's protection ... and suddenly a nurse runs in an snatches him from her in terror. That was the picture! And Alyosh remembered his mother's face at that minute. He used to say that it wa frenzied but beautiful as he remembered. But he rarely cared to spea of this memory to anyone. In his childhood and youth he was by no mean expansive, and talked little indeed, but not from shyness or a sulle unsociability; quite the contrary, from something different, from  sort of inner preoccupation entirely personal and unconcerned wit other people, but so important to him that he seemed, as it were, t forget others on account of it. But he was fond of people: he seeme throughout his life to put implicit trust in people: yet no one eve looked on him as a simpleton or naive person. There was something abou him which made one feel at once (and it was so all his life afterwards that he did not care to be a judge of others--that he would never tak it upon himself to criticize and would never condemn anyone fo anything. He seemed, indeed, to accept everything without the leas condemnation though often grieving bitterly: and this was so much s that no one could surprise or frighten him even in his earliest youth Coming at twenty to his father's house, which was a very sink of filth debauchery, he, chaste and pure as he was, simply withdrew in silenc when to look on was unbearable, but without the slightest sign o contempt or condemnation. His father, who had once been in a dependen position, and so was sensitive and ready to take offense, met him a first with distrust and sullenness. \"He does not say much,\" he used t say, \"and thinks the more.\" But soon, within a fortnight indeed, h took to embracing him and kissing him terribly often, with drunke tears, with sottish sentimentality, yet he evidently felt a real an deep affection for him, such as he had never been capable of feelin for anyone before."},
{"text":"Everyone, indeed, loved this young man wherever he went, and it was s from his earliest childhood. When he entered the household of hi patron and benefactor, Yefim Petrovitch Polenov, he gained the heart of all the family, so that they looked on him quite as their own child Yet he entered the house at such a tender age that he could not hav acted from design nor artfulness in winning affection. So that the gif of making himself loved directly and unconsciously was inherent in him in his very nature, so to speak. It was the same at school, though h seemed to be just one of those children who are distrusted, sometime ridiculed, and even disliked by their schoolfellows. He was dreamy, fo instance, and rather solitary. From his earliest childhood he was fon of creeping into a corner to read, and yet he was a general favorit all the while he was at school. He was rarely playful or merry, bu anyone could see at the first glance that this was not from an sullenness. On the contrary he was bright and good-tempered. He neve tried to show off among his schoolfellows. Perhaps because of this, h was never afraid of anyone, yet the boys immediately understood that h was not proud of his fearlessness and seemed to be unaware that he wa bold and courageous. He never resented an insult. It would happen tha an hour after the offense he would address the offender or answer som question with as trustful and candid an expression as though nothin had happened between them. And it was not that he seemed to hav forgotten or intentionally forgiven the affront, but simply that he di not regard it as an affront, and this completely conquered an captivated the boys. He had one characteristic which made all hi schoolfellows from the bottom class to the top want to mock at him, no from malice but because it amused them. This characteristic was a wil fanatical modesty and chastity. He could not bear to hear certain word and certain conversations about women. There are \"certain\" words an conversations unhappily impossible to eradicate in schools. Boys pur in mind and heart, almost children, are fond of talking in school amon themselves, and even aloud, of things, pictures, and images of whic even soldiers would sometimes hesitate to speak. More than that, muc that soldiers have no knowledge or conception of is familiar to quit young children of our intellectual and higher classes. There is n moral depravity, no real corrupt inner cynicism in it, but there is th appearance of it, and it is often looked upon among them as somethin refined, subtle, daring, and worthy of imitation. Seeing that Alyosh Karamazov put his fingers in his ears when they talked of \"that,\" the used sometimes to crowd round him, pull his hands away, and shou nastiness into both ears, while he struggled, slipped to the floor tried to hide himself without uttering one word of abuse, endurin their insults in silence. But at last they left him alone and gave u taunting him with being a \"regular girl,\" and what's more they looke upon it with compassion as a weakness. He was always one of the best i the class but was never first."},
{"text":"At the time of Yefim Petrovitch's death Alyosha had two more years t complete at the provincial gymnasium. The inconsolable widow wen almost immediately after his death for a long visit to Italy with he whole family, which consisted only of women and girls. Alyosha went t live in the house of two distant relations of Yefim Petrovitch, ladie whom he had never seen before. On what terms he lived with them he di not know himself. It was very characteristic of him, indeed, that h never cared at whose expense he was living. In that respect he was  striking contrast to his elder brother Ivan, who struggled with povert for his first two years in the university, maintained himself by hi own efforts, and had from childhood been bitterly conscious of livin at the expense of his benefactor. But this strange trait in Alyosha' character must not, I think, be criticized too severely, for at th slightest acquaintance with him anyone would have perceived tha Alyosha was one of those youths, almost of the type of religiou enthusiast, who, if they were suddenly to come into possession of  large fortune, would not hesitate to give it away for the asking either for good works or perhaps to a clever rogue. In general h seemed scarcely to know the value of money, not, of course, in  literal sense. When he was given pocket-money, which he never aske for, he was either terribly careless of it so that it was gone in  moment, or he kept it for weeks together, not knowing what to do wit it."},
{"text":"In later years Pyotr Alexandrovitch Misov, a man very sensitive on th score of money and bourgeois honesty, pronounced the followin judgment, after getting to know Alyosha:"},
{"text":"\"Here is perhaps the one man in the world whom you might leave alon without a penny, in the center of an unknown town of a millio inhabitants, and he would not come to harm, he would not die of col and hunger, for he would be fed and sheltered at once; and if he wer not, he would find a shelter for himself, and it would cost him n effort or humiliation. And to shelter him would be no burden, but, o the contrary, would probably be looked on as a pleasure.\""},
{"text":"He did not finish his studies at the gymnasium. A year before the en of the course he suddenly announced to the ladies that he was going t see his father about a plan which had occurred to him. They were sorr and unwilling to let him go. The journey was not an expensive one, an the ladies would not let him pawn his watch, a parting present from hi benefactor's family. They provided him liberally with money and eve fitted him out with new clothes and linen. But he returned half th money they gave him, saying that he intended to go third class. On hi arrival in the town he made no answer to his father's first inquiry wh he had come before completing his studies, and seemed, so they say unusually thoughtful. It soon became apparent that he was looking fo his mother's tomb. He practically acknowledged at the time that tha was the only object of his visit. But it can hardly have been the whol reason of it. It is more probable that he himself did not understan and could not explain what had suddenly arisen in his soul, and draw him irresistibly into a new, unknown, but inevitable path. Fyodo Pavlovitch could not show him where his second wife was buried, for h had never visited her grave since he had thrown earth upon her coffin and in the course of years had entirely forgotten where she was buried."},
{"text":"Fyodor Pavlovitch, by the way, had for some time previously not bee living in our town. Three or four years after his wife's death he ha gone to the south of Russia and finally turned up in Odessa, where h spent several years. He made the acquaintance at first, in his ow words, \"of a lot of low Jews, Jewesses, and Jewkins,\" and ended b being received by \"Jews high and low alike.\" It may be presumed that a this period he developed a peculiar faculty for making and hoardin money. He finally returned to our town only three years befor Alyosha's arrival. His former acquaintances found him looking terribl aged, although he was by no means an old man. He behaved not exactl with more dignity but with more effrontery. The former buffoon showe an insolent propensity for making buffoons of others. His depravit with women was not simply what it used to be, but even more revolting In a short time he opened a great number of new taverns in th district. It was evident that he had perhaps a hundred thousand rouble or not much less. Many of the inhabitants of the town and district wer soon in his debt, and, of course, had given good security. Of late too, he looked somehow bloated and seemed more irresponsible, mor uneven, had sunk into a sort of incoherence, used to begin one thin and go on with another, as though he were letting himself g altogether. He was more and more frequently drunk. And, if it had no been for the same servant Grigory, who by that time had age considerably too, and used to look after him sometimes almost like  tutor, Fyodor Pavlovitch might have got into terrible scrapes Alyosha's arrival seemed to affect even his moral side, as thoug something had awakened in this prematurely old man which had long bee dead in his soul."},
{"text":"\"Do you know,\" he used often to say, looking at Alyosha, \"that you ar like her, `the crazy woman' \"--that was what he used to call his dea wife, Alyosha's mother. Grigory it was who pointed out the \"craz woman's\" grave to Alyosha. He took him to our town cemetery and showe him in a remote corner a cast-iron tombstone, cheap but decently kept on which were inscribed the name and age of the deceased and the dat of her death, and below a four-lined verse, such as are commonly use on old-fashioned middle-class tombs. To Alyosha's amazement this tom turned out to be Grigory's doing. He had put it up on the poor \"craz woman's\" grave at his own expense, after Fyodor Pavlovitch, whom he ha often pestered about the grave, had gone to Odessa, abandoning th grave and all his memories. Alyosha showed no particular emotion at th sight of his mother's grave. He only listened to Grigory's minute an solemn account of the erection of the tomb; he stood with bowed hea and walked away without uttering a word. It was perhaps a year befor he visited the cemetery again. But this little episode was not withou an influence upon Fyodor Pavlovitch--and a very original one. H suddenly took a thousand roubles to our monastery to pay for requiem for the soul of his wife; but not for the second, Alyosha's mother, th \"crazy woman,\" but for the first, Adelada Ivanovna, who used to thras him. In the evening of the same day he got drunk and abused the monk to Alyosha. He himself was far from being religious; he had probabl never put a penny candle before the image of a saint. Strange impulse of sudden feeling and sudden thought are common in such types."},
{"text":"I have mentioned already that he looked bloated. His countenance a this time bore traces of something that testified unmistakably to th life he had led. Besides the long fleshy bags under his little, alway insolent, suspicious, and ironical eyes; besides the multitude of dee wrinkles in his little fat face, the Adam's apple hung below his shar chin like a great, fleshy goiter, which gave him a peculiar, repulsive sensual appearance; add to that a long rapacious mouth with full lips between which could be seen little stumps of black decayed teeth. H slobbered every time he began to speak. He was fond indeed of makin fun of his own face, though, I believe, he was well satisfied with it He used particularly to point to his nose, which was not very large but very delicate and conspicuously aquiline. \"A regular Roman nose,\"he used to say, \"with my goiter I've quite the countenance of a ancient Roman patrician of the decadent period.\" He seemed proud of it."},
{"text":"Not long after visiting his mother's grave Alyosha suddenly announce that he wanted to enter the monastery, and that the monks were willin to receive him as a novice. He explained that this was his stron desire, and that he was solemnly asking his consent as his father. Th old man knew that the elder Zossima, who was living in the monaster hermitage, had made a special impression upon his \"gentle boy.\""},
{"text":"\"That is the most honest monk among them, of course,\" he observed after listening in thoughtful silence to Alyosha, and seeming scarcel surprised at his request. \"H'm! ... So that's where you want to be my gentle boy?\""},
{"text":"He was half drunk, and suddenly he grinned his slow half-drunken grin which was not without a certain cunning and tipsy slyness. \"H'm! .. I had a presentiment that you would end in something like this. Woul you believe it? You were making straight for it. Well, to be sure yo have your own two thousand. That's a dowry for you. And I'll neve desert you, my angel. And I'll pay what's wanted for you there, if the ask for it. But, of course, if they don't ask, why should we worr them? What do you say? You know, you spend money like a canary, tw grains a week. H'm! ... Do you know that near one monastery there's  place outside the town where every baby knows there are none but `th monks' wives' living, as they are called. Thirty women, I believe.  have been there myself. You know, it's interesting in its own way, o course, as a variety. The worst of it is it's awfully Russian. Ther are no French women there. Of course they could get them fast enough they have plenty of money. If they get to hear of it they'll com along. Well, there's nothing of that sort here, no `monks' wives,' an two hundred monks. They're honest. They keep the fasts. I admit it. ... H'm. ... So you want to be a monk? And do you know I'm sorry t lose you, Alyosha; would you believe it, I've really grown fond of you Well, it's a good opportunity. You'll pray for us sinners; we hav sinned too much here. I've always been thinking who would pray for me and whether there's anyone in the world to do it. My dear boy, I' awfully stupid about that. You wouldn't believe it. Awfully. You see however stupid I am about it, I keep thinking, I keep thinking--fro time to time, of course, not all the while. It's impossible, I think for the devils to forget to drag me down to hell with their hooks whe I die. Then I wonder--hooks? Where would they get them? What of? Iro hooks? Where do they forge them? Have they a foundry there of som sort? The monks in the monastery probably believe that there's  ceiling in hell, for instance. Now I'm ready to believe in hell, bu without a ceiling. It makes it more refined, more enlightened, mor Lutheran that is. And, after all, what does it matter whether it has  ceiling or hasn't? But, do you know, there's a damnable questio involved in it? If there's no ceiling there can be no hooks, and i there are no hooks it all breaks down, which is unlikely again, fo then there would be none to drag me down to hell, and if they don' drag me down what justice is there in the world? Il faudrait le inventer, those hooks, on purpose for me alone, for, if you only knew Alyosha, what a blackguard I am.\""},
{"text":"\"But there are no hooks there,\" said Alyosha, looking gently an seriously at his father."},
{"text":"\"Yes, yes, only the shadows of hooks, I know, I know. That's how  Frenchman described hell: `J'ai vu l'ombre d'un cocher qui avec l'ombr d'une brosse frottait l'ombre d'une carrosse.' How do you know ther are no hooks, darling? When you've lived with the monks you'll sing  different tune. But go and get at the truth there, and then come an tell me. Anyway it's easier going to the other world if one knows wha there is there. Besides, it will be more seemly for you with the monk than here with me, with a drunken old man and young harlots .. though you're like an angel, nothing touches you. And I dare sa nothing will touch you there. That's why I let you go, because I hop for that. You've got all your wits about you. You will burn and yo will burn out; you will be healed and come back again. And I will wai for you. I feel that you're the only creature in the world who has no condemned me. My dear boy, I feel it, you know. I can't help feelin it.\""},
{"text":"And he even began blubbering. He was sentimental. He was wicked an sentimental."},
{"text":"Some of my readers may imagine that my young man was a sickly ecstatic, poorly developed creature, a pale, consumptive dreamer. O the contrary, Alyosha was at this time a well-grown, red-cheeked clear-eyed lad of nineteen, radiant with health. He was very handsome too, graceful, moderately tall, with hair of a dark brown, with  regular, rather long, oval-shaped face, and wide-set dark gray, shinin eyes; he was very thoughtful, and apparently very serene. I shall b told, perhaps, that red cheeks are not incompatible with fanaticism an mysticism; but I fancy that Alyosha was more of a realist than anyone Oh! no doubt, in the monastery he fully believed in miracles, but, t my thinking, miracles are never a stumbling-block to the realist. It i not miracles that dispose realists to belief. The genuine realist, i he is an unbeliever, will always find strength and ability t disbelieve in the miraculous, and if he is confronted with a miracle a an irrefutable fact he would rather disbelieve his own senses tha admit the fact. Even if he admits it, he admits it as a fact of natur till then unrecognized by him. Faith does not, in the realist, sprin from the miracle but the miracle from faith. If the realist onc believes, then he is bound by his very realism to admit the miraculou also. The Apostle Thomas said that he would not believe till he saw but when he did see he said, \"My Lord and my God!\" Was it the miracl forced him to believe? Most likely not, but he believed solely becaus he desired to believe and possibly he fully believed in his secre heart even when he said, \"I do not believe till I see.\""},
{"text":"I shall be told, perhaps, that Alyosha was stupid, undeveloped, had no finished his studies, and so on. That he did not finish his studies i true, but to say that he was stupid or dull would be a great injustice I'll simply repeat what I have said above. He entered upon this pat only because, at that time, it alone struck his imagination an presented itself to him as offering an ideal means of escape for hi soul from darkness to light. Add to that that he was to some extent  youth of our last epoch--that is, honest in nature, desiring th truth, seeking for it and believing in it, and seeking to serve it a once with all the strength of his soul, seeking for immediate action and ready to sacrifice everything, life itself, for it. Though thes young men unhappily fail to understand that the sacrifice of life is in many cases, the easiest of all sacrifices, and that to sacrifice for instance, five or six years of their seething youth to hard an tedious study, if only to multiply tenfold their powers of serving th truth and the cause they have set before them as their goal--such  sacrifice is utterly beyond the strength of many of them. The pat Alyosha chose was a path going in the opposite direction, but he chos it with the same thirst for swift achievement. As soon as he reflecte seriously he was convinced of the existence of God and immortality, an at once he instinctively said to himself: \"I want to live fo immortality, and I will accept no compromise.\" In the same way, if h had decided that God and immortality did not exist, he would at onc have become an atheist and a socialist. For socialism is not merely th labor question, it is before all things the atheistic question, th question of the form taken by atheism today, the question of the towe of Babel built without God, not to mount to heaven from earth but t set up heaven on earth. Alyosha would have found it strange an impossible to go on living as before. It is written: \"Give all tha thou hast to the poor and follow Me, if thou wouldst be perfect.\""},
{"text":"Alyosha said to himself: \"I can't give two roubles instead of `all, and only go to mass instead of `following Him.' \" Perhaps his memorie of childhood brought back our monastery, to which his mother may hav taken him to mass. Perhaps the slanting sunlight and the holy image t which his poor \"crazy\" mother had held him up still acted upon hi imagination. Brooding on these things he may have come to us perhap only to see whether here he could sacrifice all or only \"two roubles,\"and in the monastery he met this elder. I must digress to explain wha an \"elder\" is in Russian monasteries, and I am sorry that I do not fee very competent to do so. I will try, however, to give a superficia account of it in a few words. Authorities on the subject assert tha the institution of \"elders\" is of recent date, not more than a hundre years old in our monasteries, though in the orthodox East, especiall in Sinai and Athos, it has existed over a thousand years. It i maintained that it existed in ancient times in Russia also, but throug the calamities which overtook Russia--the Tartars, civil war, th interruption of relations with the East after the destruction o Constantinople--this institution fell into oblivion. It was revive among us towards the end of last century by one of the grea \"ascetics,\" as they called him, Passy Velitchkovsky, and hi disciples. But to this day it exists in few monasteries only, and ha sometimes been almost persecuted as an innovation in Russia. I flourished especially in the celebrated Kozelski Optin Monastery. Whe and how it was introduced into our monastery I cannot say. There ha already been three such elders and Zossima was the last of them. But h was almost dying of weakness and disease, and they had no one to tak his place. The question for our monastery was an important one, for i had not been distinguished by anything in particular till then: the had neither relics of saints, nor wonder-working icons, nor gloriou traditions, nor historical exploits. It had flourished and bee glorious all over Russia through its elders, to see and hear who pilgrims had flocked for thousands of miles from all parts."},
{"text":"What was such an elder? An elder was one who took your soul, your will into his soul and his will. When you choose an elder, you renounce you own will and yield it to him in complete submission, complet self-abnegation. This novitiate, this terrible school of abnegation, i undertaken voluntarily, in the hope of self-conquest, of self-mastery in order, after a life of obedience, to attain perfect freedom, tha is, from self; to escape the lot of those who have lived their whol life without finding their true selves in themselves. This institutio of elders is not founded on theory, but was established in the Eas from the practice of a thousand years. The obligations due to an elde are not the ordinary \"obedience\" which has always existed in ou Russian monasteries. The obligation involves confession to the elder b all who have submitted themselves to him, and to the indissoluble bon between him and them."},
{"text":"The story is told, for instance, that in the early days of Christianit one such novice, failing to fulfill some command laid upon him by hi elder, left his monastery in Syria and went to Egypt. There, afte great exploits, he was found worthy at last to suffer torture and  martyr's death for the faith. When the Church, regarding him as  saint, was burying him, suddenly, at the deacon's exhortation, \"Depar all ye unbaptized,\" the coffin containing the martyr's body left it place and was cast forth from the church, and this took place thre times. And only at last they learnt that this holy man had broken hi vow of obedience and left his elder, and, therefore, could not b forgiven without the elder's absolution in spite of his great deeds Only after this could the funeral take place. This, of course, is onl an old legend. But here is a recent instance."},
{"text":"A monk was suddenly commanded by his elder to quit Athos, which h loved as a sacred place and a haven of refuge, and to go first t Jerusalem to do homage to the Holy Places and then to go to the nort to Siberia: \"There is the place for thee and not here.\" The monk overwhelmed with sorrow, went to the Ecumenical Patriarch a Constantinople and besought him to release him from his obedience. Bu the Patriarch replied that not only was he unable to release him, bu there was not and could not be on earth a power which could release hi except the elder who had himself laid that duty upon him. In this wa the elders are endowed in certain cases with unbounded and inexplicabl authority. That is why in many of our monasteries the institution wa at first resisted almost to persecution. Meantime the elder immediately began to be highly esteemed among the people. Masses of th ignorant people as well as men of distinction flocked, for instance, t the elders of our monastery to confess their doubts, their sins, an their sufferings, and ask for counsel and admonition. Seeing this, th opponents of the elders declared that the sacrament of confession wa being arbitrarily and frivolously degraded, though the continua opening of the heart to the elder by the monk or the layman had nothin of the character of the sacrament. In the end, however, the institutio of elders has been retained and is becoming established in Russia monasteries. It is true, perhaps, that this instrument which had stoo the test of a thousand years for the moral regeneration of a man fro slavery to freedom and to moral perfectibility may be a two-edge weapon and it may lead some not to humility and complete self-contro but to the most Satanic pride, that is, to bondage and not to freedom."},
{"text":"The elder Zossima was sixty-five. He came of a family of landowners had been in the army in early youth, and served in the Caucasus as a officer. He had, no doubt, impressed Alyosha by some peculiar qualit of his soul. Alyosha lived in the cell of the elder, who was very fon of him and let him wait upon him. It must be noted that Alyosha wa bound by no obligation and could go where he pleased and be absent fo whole days. Though he wore the monastic dress it was voluntarily, no to be different from others. No doubt he liked to do so. Possibly hi youthful imagination was deeply stirred by the power and fame of hi elder. It was said that so many people had for years past come t confess their sins to Father Zossima and to entreat him for words o advice and healing, that he had acquired the keenest intuition an could tell from an unknown face what a newcomer wanted, and what wa the suffering on his conscience. He sometimes astounded and almos alarmed his visitors by his knowledge of their secrets before they ha spoken a word."},
{"text":"Alyosha noticed that many, almost all, went in to the elder for th first time with apprehension and uneasiness, but came out with brigh and happy faces. Alyosha was particularly struck by the fact tha Father Zossima was not at all stern. On the contrary, he was alway almost gay. The monks used to say that he was more drawn to those wh were more sinful, and the greater the sinner the more he loved him There were, no doubt, up to the end of his life, among the monks som who hated and envied him, but they were few in number and they wer silent, though among them were some of great dignity in the monastery one, for instance, of the older monks distinguished for his stric keeping of fasts and vows of silence. But the majority were on Fathe Zossima's side and very many of them loved him with all their hearts warmly and sincerely. Some were almost fanatically devoted to him, an declared, though not quite aloud, that he was a saint, that there coul be no doubt of it, and, seeing that his end was near, they anticipate miracles and great glory to the monastery in the immediate future fro his relics. Alyosha had unquestioning faith in the miraculous power o the elder, just as he had unquestioning faith in the story of th coffin that flew out of the church. He saw many who came with sic children or relatives and besought the elder to lay hands on them an to pray over them, return shortly after--some the next day--and falling in tears at the elder's feet, thank him for healing their sick."},
{"text":"Whether they had really been healed or were simply better in th natural course of the disease was a question which did not exist fo Alyosha, for he fully believed in the spiritual power of his teache and rejoiced in his fame, in his glory, as though it were his ow triumph. His heart throbbed, and he beamed, as it were, all over whe the elder came out to the gates of the hermitage into the waiting crow of pilgrims of the humbler class who had flocked from all parts o Russia on purpose to see the elder and obtain his blessing. They fel down before him, wept, kissed his feet, kissed the earth on which h stood, and wailed, while the women held up their children to him an brought him the sick \"possessed with devils.\" The elder spoke to them read a brief prayer over them, blessed them, and dismissed them. O late he had become so weak through attacks of illness that he wa sometimes unable to leave his cell, and the pilgrims waited for him t come out for several days. Alyosha did not wonder why they loved hi so, why they fell down before him and wept with emotion merely a seeing his face. Oh! he understood that for the humble soul of th Russian peasant, worn out by grief and toil, and still more by th everlasting injustice and everlasting sin, his own and the world's, i was the greatest need and comfort to find someone or something holy t fall down before and worship."},
{"text":"\"Among us there is sin, injustice, and temptation, but yet, somewher on earth there is someone holy and exalted. He has the truth; he know the truth; so it is not dead upon the earth; so it will come one day t us, too, and rule over all the earth according to the promise.\""},
{"text":"Alyosha knew that this was just how the people felt and even reasoned He understood it, but that the elder Zossima was this saint an custodian of God's truth--of that he had no more doubt than th weeping peasants and the sick women who held out their children to th elder. The conviction that after his death the elder would brin extraordinary glory to the monastery was even stronger in Alyosha tha in anyone there, and, of late, a kind of deep flame of inner ecstas burnt more and more strongly in his heart. He was not at all trouble at this elder's standing as a solitary example before him."},
{"text":"\"No matter. He is holy. He carries in his heart the secret of renewa for all: that power which will, at last, establish truth on the earth and all men will be holy and love one another, and there will be n more rich nor poor, no exalted nor humbled, but all will be as th children of God, and the true Kingdom of Christ will come.\" That wa the dream in Alyosha's heart."},
{"text":"The arrival of his two brothers, whom he had not known till then seemed to make a great impression on Alyosha. He more quickly mad friends with his half-brother Dmitri (though he arrived later) tha with his own brother Ivan. He was extremely interested in his brothe Ivan, but when the latter had been two months in the town, though the had met fairly often, they were still not intimate. Alyosha wa naturally silent, and he seemed to be expecting something, ashame about something, while his brother Ivan, though Alyosha noticed a first that he looked long and curiously at him, seemed soon to hav left off thinking of him. Alyosha noticed it with some embarrassment He ascribed his brother's indifference at first to the disparity o their age and education. But he also wondered whether the absence o curiosity and sympathy in Ivan might be due to some other caus entirely unknown to him. He kept fancying that Ivan was absorbed i something--something inward and important--that he was strivin towards some goal, perhaps very hard to attain, and that that was wh he had no thought for him. Alyosha wondered, too, whether there was no some contempt on the part of the learned atheist for him--a foolis novice. He knew for certain that his brother was an atheist. He coul not take offense at this contempt, if it existed; yet, with an uneas embarrassment which he did not himself understand, he waited for hi brother to come nearer to him. Dmitri used to speak of Ivan with th deepest respect and with a peculiar earnestness. From him Alyosh learnt all the details of the important affair which had of late forme such a close and remarkable bond between the two elder brothers Dmitri's enthusiastic references to Ivan were the more striking i Alyosha's eyes since Dmitri was, compared with Ivan, almost uneducated and the two brothers were such a contrast in personality and characte that it would be difficult to find two men more unlike."},
{"text":"It was at this time that the meeting, or, rather gathering of th members of this inharmonious family took place in the cell of the elde who had such an extraordinary influence on Alyosha. The pretext fo this gathering was a false one. It was at this time that the discor between Dmitri and his father seemed at its acutest stage and thei relations had become insufferably strained. Fyodor Pavlovitch seems t have been the first to suggest, apparently in joke, that they shoul all meet in Father Zossima's cell, and that, without appealing to hi direct intervention, they might more decently come to an understandin under the conciliating influence of the elder's presence. Dmitri, wh had never seen the elder, naturally supposed that his father was tryin to intimidate him, but, as he secretly blamed himself for his outburst of temper with his father on several recent occasions, he accepted th challenge. It must be noted that he was not, like Ivan, staying wit his father, but living apart at the other end of the town. It happene that Pyotr Alexandrovitch Misov, who was staying in the district a the time, caught eagerly at the idea. A Liberal of the forties an fifties, a freethinker and atheist, he may have been led on by boredo or the hope of frivolous diversion. He was suddenly seized with th desire to see the monastery and the holy man. As his lawsuit with th monastery still dragged on, he made it the pretext for seeing th Superior, in order to attempt to settle it amicably. A visitor comin with such laudable intentions might be received with more attention an consideration than if he came from simple curiosity. Influences fro within the monastery were brought to bear on the elder, who of late ha scarcely left his cell, and had been forced by illness to deny even hi ordinary visitors. In the end he consented to see them, and the day wa fixed."},
{"text":"\"Who has made me a judge over them?\" was all he said, smilingly, t Alyosha."},
{"text":"Alyosha was much perturbed when he heard of the proposed visit. Of al the wrangling, quarrelsome party, Dmitri was the only one who coul regard the interview seriously. All the others would come fro frivolous motives, perhaps insulting to the elder. Alyosha was wel aware of that. Ivan and Misov would come from curiosity, perhaps o the coarsest kind, while his father might be contemplating some piec of buffoonery. Though he said nothing, Alyosha thoroughly understoo his father. The boy, I repeat, was far from being so simple as everyon thought him. He awaited the day with a heavy heart. No doubt he wa always pondering in his mind how the family discord could be ended. Bu his chief anxiety concerned the elder. He trembled for him, for hi glory, and dreaded any affront to him, especially the refined courteous irony of Misov and the supercilious half-utterances of th highly educated Ivan. He even wanted to venture on warning the elder telling him something about them, but, on second thoughts, sai nothing. He only sent word the day before, through a friend, to hi brother Dmitri, that he loved him and expected him to keep his promise Dmitri wondered, for he could not remember what he had promised, but h answered by letter that he would do his utmost not to let himself b provoked \"by vileness,\" but that, although he had a deep respect fo the elder and for his brother Ivan, he was convinced that the meetin was either a trap for him or an unworthy farce."},
{"text":"\"Nevertheless I would rather bite out my tongue than be lacking i respect to the sainted man whom you reverence so highly,\" he wrote i conclusion. Alyosha was not greatly cheered by the letter."},
{"text":"It was a warm, bright day at the end of August. The interview with th elder had been fixed for half-past eleven, immediately after late mass Our visitors did not take part in the service, but arrived just as i was over. First an elegant open carriage, drawn by two valuable horses drove up with Misov and a distant relative of his, a young man o twenty, called Pyotr Fomitch Kalganov. This young man was preparing t enter the university. Misov, with whom he was staying for the time was trying to persuade him to go abroad to the university of Zurich o Jena. The young man was still undecided. He was thoughtful an absentminded. He was nice-looking, strongly built, and rather tall There was a strange fixity in his gaze at times. Like all ver absentminded people he would sometimes stare at a person without seein him. He was silent and rather awkward, but sometimes, when he was alon with anyone, he became talkative and effusive, and would laugh a anything or nothing. But his animation vanished as quickly as i appeared. He was always well and even elaborately dressed; he ha already some independent fortune and expectations of much more. He wa a friend of Alyosha's."},
{"text":"In an ancient, jolting, but roomy, hired carriage, with a pair of ol pinkish-gray horses, a long way behind Misov's carriage, came Fyodo Pavlovitch, with his son Ivan. Dmitri was late, though he had bee informed of the time the evening before. The visitors left thei carriage at the hotel, outside the precincts, and went to the gates o the monastery on foot. Except Fyodor Pavlovitch, none of the party ha ever seen the monastery, and Misov had probably not even been t church for thirty years. He looked about him with curiosity, togethe with assumed ease. But, except the church and the domestic buildings though these too were ordinary enough, he found nothing of interest i the interior of the monastery. The last of the worshippers were comin out of the church, bareheaded and crossing themselves. Among th humbler people were a few of higher rank--two or three ladies and  very old general. They were all staying at the hotel. Our visitors wer at once surrounded by beggars, but none of them gave them anything except young Kalganov, who took a ten-copeck piece out of his purse and, nervous and embarrassed--God knows why!--hurriedly gave it to a old woman, saying: \"Divide it equally.\" None of his companions made an remark upon it, so that he had no reason to be embarrassed; but perceiving this, he was even more overcome."},
{"text":"It was strange that their arrival did not seem expected, and that the were not received with special honor, though one of them had recentl made a donation of a thousand roubles, while another was a very wealth and highly cultured landowner, upon whom all in the monastery were in  sense dependent, as a decision of the lawsuit might at any moment pu their fishing rights in his hands. Yet no official personage met them."},
{"text":"Misov looked absentmindedly at the tombstones round the church, an was on the point of saying that the dead buried here must have paid  pretty penny for the right of lying in this \"holy place,\" bu refrained. His liberal irony was rapidly changing almost into anger."},
{"text":"\"Who the devil is there to ask in this imbecile place? We must fin out, for time is passing,\" he observed suddenly, as though speaking t himself."},
{"text":"All at once there came up a bald-headed, elderly man with ingratiatin little eyes, wearing a full, summer overcoat. Lifting his hat, h introduced himself with a honeyed lisp as Maximov, a landowner of Tula He at once entered into our visitors' difficulty."},
{"text":"\"Father Zossima lives in the hermitage, apart, four hundred paces fro the monastery, the other side of the copse.\""},
{"text":"\"I know it's the other side of the copse,\" observed Fyodor Pavlovitch \"but we don't remember the way. It is a long time since we've bee here.\""},
{"text":"\"This way, by this gate, and straight across the copse ... the copse Come with me, won't you? I'll show you. I have to go. ... I am goin myself. This way, this way.\""},
{"text":"They came out of the gate and turned towards the copse. Maximov, a ma of sixty, ran rather than walked, turning sideways to stare at the all, with an incredible degree of nervous curiosity. His eyes looke starting out of his head."},
{"text":"\"You see, we have come to the elder upon business of our own,\" observe Misov severely. \"That personage has granted us an audience, so t speak, and so, though we thank you for showing us the way, we canno ask you to accompany us.\""},
{"text":"\"I've been there. I've been already; un chevalier parfait,\" and Maximo snapped his fingers in the air."},
{"text":"\"Who is a chevalier?\" asked Misov."},
{"text":"\"The elder, the splendid elder, the elder! The honor and glory of th monastery, Zossima. Such an elder!\""},
{"text":"But his incoherent talk was cut short by a very pale, wan-looking mon of medium height, wearing a monk's cap, who overtook them. Fyodo Pavlovitch and Misov stopped."},
{"text":"The monk, with an extremely courteous, profound bow, announced:"},
{"text":"\"The Father Superior invites all of you gentlemen to dine with hi after your visit to the hermitage. At one o'clock, not later. And yo also,\" he added, addressing Maximov."},
{"text":"\"That I certainly will, without fail,\" cried Fyodor Pavlovitch, hugel delighted at the invitation. \"And, believe me, we've all given our wor to behave properly here. ... And you, Pyotr Alexandrovitch, will yo go, too?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, of course. What have I come for but to study all the custom here? The only obstacle to me is your company. ...\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, Dmitri Fyodorovitch is nonexistent as yet.\""},
{"text":"\"It would be a capital thing if he didn't turn up. Do you suppose  like all this business, and in your company, too? So we will come t dinner. Thank the Father Superior,\" he said to the monk."},
{"text":"\"No, it is my duty now to conduct you to the elder,\" answered the monk."},
{"text":"\"If so I'll go straight to the Father Superior--to the Fathe Superior,\" babbled Maximov."},
{"text":"\"The Father Superior is engaged just now. But as you please--\" th monk hesitated."},
{"text":"\"Impertinent old man!\" Misov observed aloud, while Maximov ran back t the monastery."},
{"text":"\"He's like Von Sohn,\" Fyodor Pavlovitch said suddenly."},
{"text":"\"Is that all you can think of? ... In what way is he like Von Sohn Have you ever seen Von Sohn?\""},
{"text":"\"I've seen his portrait. It's not the features, but somethin indefinable. He's a second Von Sohn. I can always tell from th physiognomy.\""},
{"text":"\"Ah, I dare say you are a connoisseur in that. But, look here, Fyodo Pavlovitch, you said just now that we had given our word to behav properly. Remember it. I advise you to control yourself. But, if yo begin to play the fool I don't intend to be associated with you here. ... You see what a man he is\"--he turned to the monk--\"I'm afraid t go among decent people with him.\" A fine smile, not without a certai slyness, came on to the pale, bloodless lips of the monk, but he mad no reply, and was evidently silent from a sense of his own dignity Misov frowned more than ever."},
{"text":"\"Oh, devil take them all! An outer show elaborated through centuries and nothing but charlatanism and nonsense underneath,\" flashed throug Misov's mind."},
{"text":"\"Here's the hermitage. We've arrived,\" cried Fyodor Pavlovitch. \"Th gates are shut.\""},
{"text":"And he repeatedly made the sign of the cross to the saints painte above and on the sides of the gates."},
{"text":"\"When you go to Rome you must do as the Romans do. Here in thi hermitage there are twenty-five saints being saved. They look at on another, and eat cabbages. And not one woman goes in at this gate That's what is remarkable. And that really is so. But I did hear tha the elder receives ladies,\" he remarked suddenly to the monk."},
{"text":"\"Women of the people are here too now, lying in the portico ther waiting. But for ladies of higher rank two rooms have been buil adjoining the portico, but outside the precincts--you can see th windows--and the elder goes out to them by an inner passage when he i well enough. They are always outside the precincts. There is a Harko lady, Madame Hohlakov, waiting there now with her sick daughter Probably he has promised to come out to her, though of late he has bee so weak that he has hardly shown himself even to the people.\""},
{"text":"\"So then there are loopholes, after all, to creep out of the hermitag to the ladies. Don't suppose, holy father, that I mean any harm. But d you know that at Athos not only the visits of women are not allowed but no creature of the female sex--no hens, nor turkey-hens, no cows.\""},
{"text":"\"Fyodor Pavlovitch, I warn you I shall go back and leave you here They'll turn you out when I'm gone.\""},
{"text":"\"But I'm not interfering with you, Pyotr Alexandrovitch. Look,\" h cried suddenly, stepping within the precincts, \"what a vale of rose they live in!\""},
{"text":"Though there were no roses now, there were numbers of rare an beautiful autumn flowers growing wherever there was space for them, an evidently tended by a skillful hand; there were flowerbeds round th church, and between the tombs; and the one-storied wooden house wher the elder lived was also surrounded with flowers."},
{"text":"\"And was it like this in the time of the last elder, Varsonofy? H didn't care for such elegance. They say he used to jump up and thras even ladies with a stick,\" observed Fyodor Pavlovitch, as he went u the steps."},
{"text":"\"The elder Varsonofy did sometimes seem rather strange, but a grea deal that's told is foolishness. He never thrashed anyone,\" answere the monk. \"Now, gentlemen, if you will wait a minute I will announc you.\""},
{"text":"\"Fyodor Pavlovitch, for the last time, your compact, do you hear Behave properly or I will pay you out!\" Misov had time to mutte again."},
{"text":"\"I can't think why you are so agitated,\" Fyodor Pavlovitch observe sarcastically. \"Are you uneasy about your sins? They say he can tell b one's eyes what one has come about. And what a lot you think of thei opinion! you, a Parisian, and so advanced. I'm surprised at you.\""},
{"text":"But Misov had no time to reply to this sarcasm. They were asked t come in. He walked in, somewhat irritated."},
{"text":"\"Now, I know myself, I am annoyed, I shall lose my temper and begin t quarrel--and lower myself and my ideas,\" he reflected."},
{"text":" II"},
{"text":"The Old Buffoon"},
{"text":"They entered the room almost at the same moment that the elder came i from his bedroom. There were already in the cell, awaiting the elder two monks of the hermitage, one the Father Librarian, and the othe Father Passy, a very learned man, so they said, in delicate health though not old. There was also a tall young man, who looked about tw and twenty, standing in the corner throughout the interview. He had  broad, fresh face, and clever, observant, narrow brown eyes, and wa wearing ordinary dress. He was a divinity student, living under th protection of the monastery. His expression was one of unquestioning but self-respecting, reverence. Being in a subordinate and dependen position, and so not on an equality with the guests, he did not gree them with a bow."},
{"text":"Father Zossima was accompanied by a novice, and by Alyosha. The tw monks rose and greeted him with a very deep bow, touching the groun with their fingers; then kissed his hand. Blessing them, the elde replied with as deep a reverence to them, and asked their blessing. Th whole ceremony was performed very seriously and with an appearance o feeling, not like an everyday rite. But Misov fancied that it was al done with intentional impressiveness. He stood in front of the othe visitors. He ought--he had reflected upon it the evening before--fro simple politeness, since it was the custom here, to have gone up t receive the elder's blessing, even if he did not kiss his hand. Bu when he saw all this bowing and kissing on the part of the monks h instantly changed his mind. With dignified gravity he made a rathe deep, conventional bow, and moved away to a chair. Fyodor Pavlovitc did the same, mimicking Misov like an ape. Ivan bowed with grea dignity and courtesy, but he too kept his hands at his sides, whil Kalganov was so confused that he did not bow at all. The elder let fal the hand raised to bless them, and bowing to them again, asked them al to sit down. The blood rushed to Alyosha's cheeks. He was ashamed. Hi forebodings were coming true."},
{"text":"Father Zossima sat down on a very old-fashioned mahogany sofa, covere with leather, and made his visitors sit down in a row along th opposite wall on four mahogany chairs, covered with shabby blac leather. The monks sat, one at the door and the other at the window The divinity student, the novice, and Alyosha remained standing. Th cell was not very large and had a faded look. It contained nothing bu the most necessary furniture, of coarse and poor quality. There wer two pots of flowers in the window, and a number of holy pictures in th corner. Before one huge ancient icon of the Virgin a lamp was burning Near it were two other holy pictures in shining settings, and, nex them, carved cherubims, china eggs, a Catholic cross of ivory, with  Mater Dolorosa embracing it, and several foreign engravings from th great Italian artists of past centuries. Next to these costly an artistic engravings were several of the roughest Russian prints o saints and martyrs, such as are sold for a few farthings at all th fairs. On the other walls were portraits of Russian bishops, past an present."},
{"text":"Misov took a cursory glance at all these \"conventional\" surrounding and bent an intent look upon the elder. He had a high opinion of hi own insight, a weakness excusable in him as he was fifty, an age a which a clever man of the world of established position can hardly hel taking himself rather seriously. At the first moment he did not lik Zossima. There was, indeed, something in the elder's face which man people besides Misov might not have liked. He was a short, bent little man, with very weak legs, and though he was only sixty-five, h looked at least ten years older. His face was very thin and covere with a network of fine wrinkles, particularly numerous about his eyes which were small, light-colored, quick, and shining like two brigh points. He had a sprinkling of gray hair about his temples. His pointe beard was small and scanty, and his lips, which smiled frequently, wer as thin as two threads. His nose was not long, but sharp, like a bird' beak."},
{"text":"\"To all appearances a malicious soul, full of petty pride,\" though Misov. He felt altogether dissatisfied with his position."},
{"text":"A cheap little clock on the wall struck twelve hurriedly, and served t begin the conversation."},
{"text":"\"Precisely to our time,\" cried Fyodor Pavlovitch, \"but no sign of m son, Dmitri. I apologize for him, sacred elder!\" (Alyosha shuddered al over at \"sacred elder.\") \"I am always punctual myself, minute fo minute, remembering that punctuality is the courtesy of kings. ...\""},
{"text":"\"But you are not a king, anyway,\" Misov muttered, losing hi self-restraint at once."},
{"text":"\"Yes; that's true. I'm not a king, and, would you believe it, Pyot Alexandrovitch, I was aware of that myself. But, there! I always sa the wrong thing. Your reverence,\" he cried, with sudden pathos, \"yo behold before you a buffoon in earnest! I introduce myself as such It's an old habit, alas! And if I sometimes talk nonsense out of plac it's with an object, with the object of amusing people and makin myself agreeable. One must be agreeable, mustn't one? I was seven year ago in a little town where I had business, and I made friends with som merchants there. We went to the captain of police because we had to se him about something, and to ask him to dine with us. He was a tall fat, fair, sulky man, the most dangerous type in such cases. It's thei liver. I went straight up to him, and with the ease of a man of th world, you know, `Mr. Ispravnik,' said I, `be our Napravnik.' `What d you mean by Napravnik?' said he. I saw, at the first half-second, tha it had missed fire. He stood there so glum. `I wanted to make a joke, said I, `for the general diversion, as Mr. Napravnik is our well-know Russian orchestra conductor and what we need for the harmony of ou undertaking is someone of that sort.' And I explained my compariso very reasonably, didn't I? `Excuse me,' said he, `I am an Ispravnik and I do not allow puns to be made on my calling.' He turned and walke away. I followed him, shouting, `Yes, yes, you are an Ispravnik, not  Napravnik.' `No,' he said, `since you called me a Napravnik I am one. And would you believe it, it ruined our business! And I'm always lik that, always like that. Always injuring myself with my politeness Once, many years ago, I said to an influential person: `Your wife is  ticklish lady,' in an honorable sense, of the moral qualities, so t speak. But he asked me, `Why, have you tickled her?' I thought I'd b polite, so I couldn't help saying, `Yes,' and he gave me a fin tickling on the spot. Only that happened long ago, so I'm not ashame to tell the story. I'm always injuring myself like that.\""},
{"text":"\"You're doing it now,\" muttered Misov, with disgust."},
{"text":"Father Zossima scrutinized them both in silence."},
{"text":"\"Am I? Would you believe it, I was aware of that, too, Pyot Alexandrovitch, and let me tell you, indeed, I foresaw I should as soo as I began to speak. And do you know I foresaw, too, that you'd be th first to remark on it. The minute I see my joke isn't coming off, you reverence, both my cheeks feel as though they were drawn down to th lower jaw and there is almost a spasm in them. That's been so since  was young, when I had to make jokes for my living in noblemen' families. I am an inveterate buffoon, and have been from birth up, you reverence, it's as though it were a craze in me. I dare say it's  devil within me. But only a little one. A more serious one would hav chosen another lodging. But not your soul, Pyotr Alexandrovitch; you'r not a lodging worth having either. But I do believe--I believe in God though I have had doubts of late. But now I sit and await words o wisdom. I'm like the philosopher, Diderot, your reverence. Did you eve hear, most Holy Father, how Diderot went to see the Metropolita Platon, in the time of the Empress Catherine? He went in and sai straight out, `There is no God.' To which the great bishop lifted u his finger and answered, `The fool hath said in his heart there is n God.' And he fell down at his feet on the spot. `I believe,' he cried `and will be christened.' And so he was. Princess Dashkov was hi godmother, and Potyomkin his godfather.\""},
{"text":"\"Fyodor Pavlovitch, this is unbearable! You know you're telling lie and that that stupid anecdote isn't true. Why are you playing th fool?\" cried Misov in a shaking voice."},
{"text":"\"I suspected all my life that it wasn't true,\" Fyodor Pavlovitch crie with conviction. \"But I'll tell you the whole truth, gentlemen. Grea elder! Forgive me, the last thing about Diderot's christening I made u just now. I never thought of it before. I made it up to add piquancy.  play the fool, Pyotr Alexandrovitch, to make myself agreeable. Though  really don't know myself, sometimes, what I do it for. And as fo Diderot, I heard as far as `the fool hath said in his heart' twent times from the gentry about here when I was young. I heard your aunt Pyotr Alexandrovitch, tell the story. They all believe to this day tha the infidel Diderot came to dispute about God with the Metropolita Platon. ...\""},
{"text":"Misov got up, forgetting himself in his impatience. He was furious and conscious of being ridiculous."},
{"text":"What was taking place in the cell was really incredible. For forty o fifty years past, from the times of former elders, no visitors ha entered that cell without feelings of the profoundest veneration Almost everyone admitted to the cell felt that a great favor was bein shown him. Many remained kneeling during the whole visit. Of thos visitors, many had been men of high rank and learning, some eve freethinkers, attracted by curiosity, but all without exception ha shown the profoundest reverence and delicacy, for here there was n question of money, but only, on the one side love and kindness, and o the other penitence and eager desire to decide some spiritual proble or crisis. So that such buffoonery amazed and bewildered th spectators, or at least some of them. The monks, with unchange countenances, waited, with earnest attention, to hear what the elde would say, but seemed on the point of standing up, like Misov. Alyosh stood, with hanging head, on the verge of tears. What seemed to hi strangest of all was that his brother Ivan, on whom alone he had reste his hopes, and who alone had such influence on his father that he coul have stopped him, sat now quite unmoved, with downcast eyes, apparentl waiting with interest to see how it would end, as though he had nothin to do with it. Alyosha did not dare to look at Rakitin, the divinit student, whom he knew almost intimately. He alone in the monastery kne Rakitin's thoughts."},
{"text":"\"Forgive me,\" began Misov, addressing Father Zossima, \"for perhaps  seem to be taking part in this shameful foolery. I made a mistake i believing that even a man like Fyodor Pavlovitch would understand wha was due on a visit to so honored a personage. I did not suppose  should have to apologize simply for having come with him. ...\""},
{"text":"Pyotr Alexandrovitch could say no more, and was about to leave th room, overwhelmed with confusion."},
{"text":"\"Don't distress yourself, I beg.\" The elder got on to his feeble legs and taking Pyotr Alexandrovitch by both hands, made him sit down again \"I beg you not to disturb yourself. I particularly beg you to be m guest.\" And with a bow he went back and sat down again on his littl sofa."},
{"text":"\"Great elder, speak! Do I annoy you by my vivacity?\" Fyodor Pavlovitc cried suddenly, clutching the arms of his chair in both hands, a though ready to leap up from it if the answer were unfavorable."},
{"text":"\"I earnestly beg you, too, not to disturb yourself, and not to b uneasy,\" the elder said impressively. \"Do not trouble. Make yoursel quite at home. And, above all, do not be so ashamed of yourself, fo that is at the root of it all.\""},
{"text":"\"Quite at home? To be my natural self? Oh, that is much too much, but  accept it with grateful joy. Do you know, blessed Father, you'd bette not invite me to be my natural self. Don't risk it. ... I will not g so far as that myself. I warn you for your own sake. Well, the rest i still plunged in the mists of uncertainty, though there are peopl who'd be pleased to describe me for you. I mean that for you, Pyot Alexandrovitch. But as for you, holy being, let me tell you, I a brimming over with ecstasy.\""},
{"text":"He got up, and throwing up his hands, declaimed, \"Blessed be the wom that bare thee, and the paps that gave thee suck--the paps especially When you said just now, `Don't be so ashamed of yourself, for that i at the root of it all,' you pierced right through me by that remark and read me to the core. Indeed, I always feel when I meet people tha I am lower than all, and that they all take me for a buffoon. So I say `Let me really play the buffoon. I am not afraid of your opinion, fo you are every one of you worse than I am.' That is why I am a buffoon It is from shame, great elder, from shame; it's simpl oversensitiveness that makes me rowdy. If I had only been sure tha everyone would accept me as the kindest and wisest of men, oh, Lord what a good man I should have been then! Teacher!\" he fell suddenly o his knees, \"what must I do to gain eternal life?\""},
{"text":"It was difficult even now to decide whether he was joking or reall moved."},
{"text":"Father Zossima, lifting his eyes, looked at him, and said with a smile:"},
{"text":"\"You have known for a long time what you must do. You have sens enough: don't give way to drunkenness and incontinence of speech; don' give way to sensual lust; and, above all, to the love of money. An close your taverns. If you can't close all, at least two or three. And above all--don't lie.\""},
{"text":"\"You mean about Diderot?\""},
{"text":"\"No, not about Diderot. Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man wh lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that h cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so lose all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he cease to love, and in order to occupy and distract himself without love h gives way to passions and coarse pleasures, and sinks to bestiality i his vices, all from continual lying to other men and to himself. Th man who lies to himself can be more easily offended than anyone. Yo know it is sometimes very pleasant to take offense, isn't it? A man ma know that nobody has insulted him, but that he has invented the insul for himself, has lied and exaggerated to make it picturesque, ha caught at a word and made a mountain out of a molehill--he knows tha himself, yet he will be the first to take offense, and will revel i his resentment till he feels great pleasure in it, and so pass t genuine vindictiveness. But get up, sit down, I beg you. All this, too is deceitful posturing. ...\""},
{"text":"\"Blessed man! Give me your hand to kiss.\""},
{"text":"Fyodor Pavlovitch skipped up, and imprinted a rapid kiss on the elder' thin hand. \"It is, it is pleasant to take offense. You said that s well, as I never heard it before. Yes, I have been all my life takin offense, to please myself, taking offense on esthetic grounds, for i is not so much pleasant as distinguished sometimes to b insulted--that you had forgotten, great elder, it is distinguished!  shall make a note of that. But I have been lying, lying positively m whole life long, every day and hour of it. Of a truth, I am a lie, an the father of lies. Though I believe I am not the father of lies. I a getting mixed in my texts. Say, the son of lies, and that will b enough. Only ... my angel ... I may sometimes talk about Diderot Diderot will do no harm, though sometimes a word will do harm. Grea elder, by the way, I was forgetting, though I had been meaning for th last two years to come here on purpose to ask and to find ou something. Only do tell Pyotr Alexandrovitch not to interrupt me. Her is my question: Is it true, great Father, that the story is tol somewhere in the Lives of the Saints of a holy saint martyred for hi faith who, when his head was cut off at last, stood up, picked up hi head, and, `courteously kissing it,' walked a long way, carrying it i his hands. Is that true or not, honored Father?\""},
{"text":"\"No, it is untrue,\" said the elder."},
{"text":"\"There is nothing of the kind in all the lives of the saints. Wha saint do you say the story is told of?\" asked the Father Librarian."},
{"text":"\"I do not know what saint. I do not know, and can't tell. I wa deceived. I was told the story. I had heard it, and do you know wh told it? Pyotr Alexandrovitch Misov here, who was so angry just no about Diderot. He it was who told the story.\""},
{"text":"\"I have never told it you, I never speak to you at all.\""},
{"text":"\"It is true you did not tell me, but you told it when I was present. I was three years ago. I mentioned it because by that ridiculous stor you shook my faith, Pyotr Alexandrovitch. You knew nothing of it, but  went home with my faith shaken, and I have been getting more and mor shaken ever since. Yes, Pyotr Alexandrovitch, you were the cause of  great fall. That was not a Diderot!\""},
{"text":"Fyodor Pavlovitch got excited and pathetic, though it was perfectl clear to everyone by now that he was playing a part again. Yet Miso was stung by his words."},
{"text":"\"What nonsense, and it is all nonsense,\" he muttered. \"I may reall have told it, some time or other ... but not to you. I was told i myself. I heard it in Paris from a Frenchman. He told me it was read a our mass from the Lives of the Saints ... he was a very learned ma who had made a special study of Russian statistics and had lived a lon time in Russia. ... I have not read the Lives of the Saints myself and I am not going to read them ... all sorts of things are said a dinner--we were dining then.\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, you were dining then, and so I lost my faith!\" said Fyodo Pavlovitch, mimicking him."},
{"text":"\"What do I care for your faith?\" Misov was on the point of shouting but he suddenly checked himself, and said with contempt, \"You defil everything you touch.\""},
{"text":"The elder suddenly rose from his seat. \"Excuse me, gentlemen, fo leaving you a few minutes,\" he said, addressing all his guests. \"I hav visitors awaiting me who arrived before you. But don't you tell lie all the same,\" he added, turning to Fyodor Pavlovitch with  good-humored face. He went out of the cell. Alyosha and the novice fle to escort him down the steps. Alyosha was breathless: he was glad t get away, but he was glad, too, that the elder was good-humored and no offended. Father Zossima was going towards the portico to bless th people waiting for him there. But Fyodor Pavlovitch persisted i stopping him at the door of the cell."},
{"text":"\"Blessed man!\" he cried, with feeling. \"Allow me to kiss your hand onc more. Yes, with you I could still talk, I could still get on. Do yo think I always lie and play the fool like this? Believe me, I have bee acting like this all the time on purpose to try you. I have bee testing you all the time to see whether I could get on with you. I there room for my humility beside your pride? I am ready to give you  testimonial that one can get on with you! But now, I'll be quiet;  will keep quiet all the time. I'll sit in a chair and hold my tongue Now it is for you to speak, Pyotr Alexandrovitch. You are the principa person left now--for ten minutes.\""},
{"text":" III"},
{"text":"Peasant Women Who Have Faith"},
{"text":"Near the wooden portico below, built on to the outer wall of th precinct, there was a crowd of about twenty peasant women. They ha been told that the elder was at last coming out, and they had gathere together in anticipation. Two ladies, Madame Hohlakov and her daughter had also come out into the portico to wait for the elder, but in  separate part of it set aside for women of rank."},
{"text":"Madame Hohlakov was a wealthy lady, still young and attractive, an always dressed with taste. She was rather pale, and had lively blac eyes. She was not more than thirty-three, and had been five years  widow. Her daughter, a girl of fourteen, was partially paralyzed. Th poor child had not been able to walk for the last six months, and wa wheeled about in a long reclining chair. She had a charming littl face, rather thin from illness, but full of gayety. There was a glea of mischief in her big dark eyes with their long lashes. Her mother ha been intending to take her abroad ever since the spring, but they ha been detained all the summer by business connected with their estate They had been staying a week in our town, where they had come more fo purposes of business than devotion, but had visited Father Zossima onc already, three days before. Though they knew that the elder scarcel saw anyone, they had now suddenly turned up again, and urgentl entreated \"the happiness of looking once again on the great healer.\""},
{"text":"The mother was sitting on a chair by the side of her daughter's invali carriage, and two paces from her stood an old monk, not one of ou monastery, but a visitor from an obscure religious house in the fa north. He too sought the elder's blessing."},
{"text":"But Father Zossima, on entering the portico, went first straight to th peasants who were crowded at the foot of the three steps that led u into the portico. Father Zossima stood on the top step, put on hi stole, and began blessing the women who thronged about him. One craz woman was led up to him. As soon as she caught sight of the elder sh began shrieking and writhing as though in the pains of childbirth Laying the stole on her forehead, he read a short prayer over her, an she was at once soothed and quieted."},
{"text":"I do not know how it may be now, but in my childhood I often happene to see and hear these \"possessed\" women in the villages an monasteries. They used to be brought to mass; they would squeal an bark like a dog so that they were heard all over the church. But whe the sacrament was carried in and they were led up to it, at once th \"possession\" ceased, and the sick women were always soothed for a time I was greatly impressed and amazed at this as a child; but then I hear from country neighbors and from my town teachers that the whole illnes was simulated to avoid work, and that it could always be cured b suitable severity; various anecdotes were told to confirm this. Bu later on I learnt with astonishment from medical specialists that ther is no pretense about it, that it is a terrible illness to which wome are subject, specially prevalent among us in Russia, and that it is du to the hard lot of the peasant women. It is a disease, I was told arising from exhausting toil too soon after hard, abnormal an unassisted labor in childbirth, and from the hopeless misery, fro beatings, and so on, which some women were not able to endure lik others. The strange and instant healing of the frantic and strugglin woman as soon as she was led up to the holy sacrament, which had bee explained to me as due to malingering and the trickery of th \"clericals,\" arose probably in the most natural manner. Both the wome who supported her and the invalid herself fully believed as a trut beyond question that the evil spirit in possession of her could no hold out if the sick woman were brought to the sacrament and made t bow down before it. And so, with a nervous and psychically derange woman, a sort of convulsion of the whole organism always took place and was bound to take place, at the moment of bowing down to th sacrament, aroused by the expectation of the miracle of healing and th implicit belief that it would come to pass; and it did come to pass though only for a moment. It was exactly the same now as soon as th elder touched the sick woman with the stole."},
{"text":"Many of the women in the crowd were moved to tears of ecstasy by th effect of the moment: some strove to kiss the hem of his garment others cried out in singsong voices."},
{"text":"He blessed them all and talked with some of them. The \"possessed\" woma he knew already. She came from a village only six versts from th monastery, and had been brought to him before."},
{"text":"\"But here is one from afar.\" He pointed to a woman by no means old bu very thin and wasted, with a face not merely sunburnt but almos blackened by exposure. She was kneeling and gazing with a fixed star at the elder; there was something almost frenzied in her eyes."},
{"text":"\"From afar off, Father, from afar off! From two hundred miles fro here. From afar off, Father, from afar off!\" the woman began in  singsong voice as though she were chanting a dirge, swaying her hea from side to side with her cheek resting in her hand."},
{"text":"There is silent and long-suffering sorrow to be met with among th peasantry. It withdraws into itself and is still. But there is a grie that breaks out, and from that minute it bursts into tears and find vent in wailing. This is particularly common with women. But it is n lighter a grief than the silent. Lamentations comfort only b lacerating the heart still more. Such grief does not desir consolation. It feeds on the sense of its hopelessness. Lamentation spring only from the constant craving to reopen the wound."},
{"text":"\"You are of the tradesman class?\" said Father Zossima, lookin curiously at her."},
{"text":"\"Townfolk we are, Father, townfolk. Yet we are peasants though we liv in the town. I have come to see you, O Father! We heard of you, Father we heard of you. I have buried my little son, and I have come on  pilgrimage. I have been in three monasteries, but they told me, `Go Nastasya, go to them'--that is to you. I have come; I was yesterday a the service, and today I have come to you.\""},
{"text":"\"What are you weeping for?\""},
{"text":"\"It's my little son I'm grieving for, Father. He was three year old--three years all but three months. For my little boy, Father, I' in anguish, for my little boy. He was the last one left. We had four my Nikita and I, and now we've no children, our dear ones have al gone. I buried the first three without grieving overmuch, and now  have buried the last I can't forget him. He seems always standin before me. He never leaves me. He has withered my heart. I look at hi little clothes, his little shirt, his little boots, and I wail. I la out all that is left of him, all his little things. I look at them an wail. I say to Nikita, my husband, `Let me go on a pilgrimage, master. He is a driver. We're not poor people, Father, not poor; he drives ou own horse. It's all our own, the horse and the carriage. And what goo is it all to us now? My Nikita has begun drinking while I am away. He' sure to. It used to be so before. As soon as I turn my back he give way to it. But now I don't think about him. It's three months since  left home. I've forgotten him. I've forgotten everything. I don't wan to remember. And what would our life be now together? I've done wit him, I've done. I've done with them all. I don't care to look upon m house and my goods. I don't care to see anything at all!\""},
{"text":"\"Listen, mother,\" said the elder. \"Once in olden times a holy saint sa in the Temple a mother like you weeping for her little one, her onl one, whom God had taken. `Knowest thou not,' said the saint to her `how bold these little ones are before the throne of God? Verily ther are none bolder than they in the Kingdom of Heaven. \"Thou didst give u life, O Lord,\" they say, \"and scarcely had we looked upon it when Tho didst take it back again.\" And so boldly they ask and ask again tha God gives them at once the rank of angels. Therefore,' said the saint `thou, too, O mother, rejoice and weep not, for thy little son is wit the Lord in the fellowship of the angels.' That's what the saint sai to the weeping mother of old. He was a great saint and he could no have spoken falsely. Therefore you too, mother, know that your littl one is surely before the throne of God, is rejoicing and happy, an praying to God for you, and therefore weep not, but rejoice.\""},
{"text":"The woman listened to him, looking down with her cheek in her hand. Sh sighed deeply."},
{"text":"\"My Nikita tried to comfort me with the same words as you. `Foolis one,' he said, `why weep? Our son is no doubt singing with the angel before God.' He says that to me, but he weeps himself. I see that h cries like me. `I know, Nikita,' said I. `Where could he be if not wit the Lord God? Only, here with us now he is not as he used to sit besid us before.' And if only I could look upon him one little time, if onl I could peep at him one little time, without going up to him, withou speaking, if I could be hidden in a corner and only see him for on little minute, hear him playing in the yard, calling in his littl voice, `Mammy, where are you?' If only I could hear him pattering wit his little feet about the room just once, only once; for so often, s often I remember how he used to run to me and shout and laugh, if onl I could hear his little feet I should know him! But he's gone, Father he's gone, and I shall never hear him again. Here's his little sash but him I shall never see or hear now.\""},
{"text":"She drew out of her bosom her boy's little embroidered sash, and a soon as she looked at it she began shaking with sobs, hiding her eye with her fingers through which the tears flowed in a sudden stream."},
{"text":"\"It is Rachel of old,\" said the elder, \"weeping for her children, an will not be comforted because they are not. Such is the lot set o earth for you mothers. Be not comforted. Consolation is not what yo need. Weep and be not consoled, but weep. Only every time that you wee be sure to remember that your little son is one of the angels of God that he looks down from there at you and sees you, and rejoices at you tears, and points at them to the Lord God; and a long while yet wil you keep that great mother's grief. But it will turn in the end int quiet joy, and your bitter tears will be only tears of tender sorro that purifies the heart and delivers it from sin. And I shall pray fo the peace of your child's soul. What was his name?\""},
{"text":"\"Alexey, Father.\""},
{"text":"\"A sweet name. After Alexey, the man of God?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, Father.\""},
{"text":"\"What a saint he was! I will remember him, mother, and your grief in m prayers, and I will pray for your husband's health. It is a sin for yo to leave him. Your little one will see from heaven that you hav forsaken his father, and will weep over you. Why do you trouble hi happiness? He is living, for the soul lives forever, and though he i not in the house he is near you, unseen. How can he go into the hous when you say that the house is hateful to you? To whom is he to go i he find you not together, his father and mother? He comes to you i dreams now, and you grieve. But then he will send you gentle dreams. G to your husband, mother; go this very day.\""},
{"text":"\"I will go, Father, at your word. I will go. You've gone straight to m heart. My Nikita, my Nikita, you are waiting for me,\" the woman bega in a singsong voice; but the elder had already turned away to a ver old woman, dressed like a dweller in the town, not like a pilgrim. He eyes showed that she had come with an object, and in order to sa something. She said she was the widow of a noncommissioned officer, an lived close by in the town. Her son Vasenka was in the commissaria service, and had gone to Irkutsk in Siberia. He had written twice fro there, but now a year had passed since he had written. She did inquir about him, but she did not know the proper place to inquire."},
{"text":"\"Only the other day Stepanida Ilyinishna--she's a rich merchant' wife--said to me, `You go, Prohorovna, and put your son's name dow for prayer in the church, and pray for the peace of his soul as thoug he were dead. His soul will be troubled,' she said, `and he will writ you a letter.' And Stepanida Ilyinishna told me it was a certain thin which had been many times tried. Only I am in doubt. ... Oh, yo light of ours! is it true or false, and would it be right?\""},
{"text":"\"Don't think of it. It's shameful to ask the question. How is i possible to pray for the peace of a living soul? And his own mothe too! It's a great sin, akin to sorcery. Only for your ignorance it i forgiven you. Better pray to the Queen of Heaven, our swift defense an help, for his good health, and that she may forgive you for your error And another thing I will tell you, Prohorovna. Either he will soon com back to you, your son, or he will be sure to send a letter. Go, an henceforward be in peace. Your son is alive, I tell you.\""},
{"text":"\"Dear Father, God reward you, our benefactor, who prays for all of u and for our sins!\""},
{"text":"But the elder had already noticed in the crowd two glowing eyes fixe upon him. An exhausted, consumptive-looking, though young peasant woma was gazing at him in silence. Her eyes besought him, but she seeme afraid to approach."},
{"text":"\"What is it, my child?\""},
{"text":"\"Absolve my soul, Father,\" she articulated softly, and slowly sank o her knees and bowed down at his feet. \"I have sinned, Father. I a afraid of my sin.\""},
{"text":"The elder sat down on the lower step. The woman crept closer to him still on her knees."},
{"text":"\"I am a widow these three years,\" she began in a half-whisper, with  sort of shudder. \"I had a hard life with my husband. He was an old man He used to beat me cruelly. He lay ill; I thought looking at him, if h were to get well, if he were to get up again, what then? And then th thought came to me--\""},
{"text":"\"Stay!\" said the elder, and he put his ear close to her lips."},
{"text":"The woman went on in a low whisper, so that it was almost impossible t catch anything. She had soon done."},
{"text":"\"Three years ago?\" asked the elder."},
{"text":"\"Three years. At first I didn't think about it, but now I've begun t be ill, and the thought never leaves me.\""},
{"text":"\"Have you come from far?\""},
{"text":"\"Over three hundred miles away.\""},
{"text":"\"Have you told it in confession?\""},
{"text":"\"I have confessed it. Twice I have confessed it.\""},
{"text":"\"Have you been admitted to Communion?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes. I am afraid. I am afraid to die.\""},
{"text":"\"Fear nothing and never be afraid; and don't fret. If only you penitence fail not, God will forgive all. There is no sin, and ther can be no sin on all the earth, which the Lord will not forgive to th truly repentant! Man cannot commit a sin so great as to exhaust th infinite love of God. Can there be a sin which could exceed the love o God? Think only of repentance, continual repentance, but dismiss fea altogether. Believe that God loves you as you cannot conceive; that H loves you with your sin, in your sin. It has been said of old that ove one repentant sinner there is more joy in heaven than over te righteous men. Go, and fear not. Be not bitter against men. Be no angry if you are wronged. Forgive the dead man in your heart what wron he did you. Be reconciled with him in truth. If you are penitent, yo love. And if you love you are of God. All things are atoned for, al things are saved by love. If I, a sinner, even as you are, am tende with you and have pity on you, how much more will God. Love is such  priceless treasure that you can redeem the whole world by it, an expiate not only your own sins but the sins of others.\""},
{"text":"He signed her three times with the cross, took from his own neck  little icon and put it upon her. She bowed down to the earth withou speaking."},
{"text":"He got up and looked cheerfully at a healthy peasant woman with a tin baby in her arms."},
{"text":"\"From Vyshegorye, dear Father.\""},
{"text":"\"Five miles you have dragged yourself with the baby. What do you want?\""},
{"text":"\"I've come to look at you. I have been to you before--or have yo forgotten? You've no great memory if you've forgotten me. They told u you were ill. Thinks I, I'll go and see him for myself. Now I see you and you're not ill! You'll live another twenty years. God bless you There are plenty to pray for you; how should you be ill?\""},
{"text":"\"I thank you for all, daughter.\""},
{"text":"\"By the way, I have a thing to ask, not a great one. Here are sixt copecks. Give them, dear Father, to someone poorer than me. I though as I came along, better give through him. He'll know whom to give to.\""},
{"text":"\"Thanks, my dear, thanks! You are a good woman. I love you. I will d so certainly. Is that your little girl?\""},
{"text":"\"My little girl, Father, Lizaveta.\""},
{"text":"\"May the Lord bless you both, you and your babe Lizaveta! You hav gladdened my heart, mother. Farewell, dear children, farewell, dea ones.\""},
{"text":"He blessed them all and bowed low to them."},
{"text":" IV"},
{"text":"A Lady of Little Faith"},
{"text":"A visitor looking on the scene of his conversation with the peasant and his blessing them shed silent tears and wiped them away with he handkerchief. She was a sentimental society lady of genuinely goo disposition in many respects. When the elder went up to her at last sh met him enthusiastically."},
{"text":"\"Ah, what I have been feeling, looking on at this touching scene! ...\" She could not go on for emotion. \"Oh, I understand the people' love for you. I love the people myself. I want to love them. And wh could help loving them, our splendid Russian people, so simple in thei greatness!\""},
{"text":"\"How is your daughter's health? You wanted to talk to me again?\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, I have been urgently begging for it, I have prayed for it! I wa ready to fall on my knees and kneel for three days at your window until you let me in. We have come, great healer, to express our arden gratitude. You have healed my Lise, healed her completely, merely b praying over her last Thursday and laying your hands upon her. We hav hastened here to kiss those hands, to pour out our feelings and ou homage.\""},
{"text":"\"What do you mean by healed? But she is still lying down in her chair.\""},
{"text":"\"But her night fevers have entirely ceased ever since Thursday,\" sai the lady with nervous haste. \"And that's not all. Her legs ar stronger. This morning she got up well; she had slept all night. Loo at her rosy cheeks, her bright eyes! She used to be always crying, bu now she laughs and is gay and happy. This morning she insisted on m letting her stand up, and she stood up for a whole minute without an support. She wagers that in a fortnight she'll be dancing a quadrille I've called in Doctor Herzenstube. He shrugged his shoulders and said `I am amazed; I can make nothing of it.' And would you have us not com here to disturb you, not fly here to thank you? Lise, thank him--than him!\""},
{"text":"Lise's pretty little laughing face became suddenly serious. She rose i her chair as far as she could and, looking at the elder, clasped he hands before him, but could not restrain herself and broke int laughter."},
{"text":"\"It's at him,\" she said, pointing to Alyosha, with childish vexation a herself for not being able to repress her mirth."},
{"text":"If anyone had looked at Alyosha standing a step behind the elder, h would have caught a quick flush crimsoning his cheeks in an instant His eyes shone and he looked down."},
{"text":"\"She has a message for you, Alexey Fyodorovitch. How are you?\" th mother went on, holding out her exquisitely gloved hand to Alyosha."},
{"text":"The elder turned round and all at once looked attentively at Alyosha The latter went nearer to Lise and, smiling in a strangely awkward way held out his hand to her too. Lise assumed an important air."},
{"text":"\"Katerina Ivanovna has sent you this through me.\" She handed him  little note. \"She particularly begs you to go and see her as soon a possible; that you will not fail her, but will be sure to come.\""},
{"text":"\"She asks me to go and see her? Me? What for?\" Alyosha muttered i great astonishment. His face at once looked anxious. \"Oh, it's all t do with Dmitri Fyodorovitch and--what has happened lately,\" the mothe explained hurriedly. \"Katerina Ivanovna has made up her mind, but sh must see you about it. ... Why, of course, I can't say. But she want to see you at once. And you will go to her, of course. It is  Christian duty.\""},
{"text":"\"I have only seen her once,\" Alyosha protested with the sam perplexity."},
{"text":"\"Oh, she is such a lofty, incomparable creature! If only for he suffering. ... Think what she has gone through, what she is endurin now! Think what awaits her! It's all terrible, terrible!\""},
{"text":"\"Very well, I will come,\" Alyosha decided, after rapidly scanning th brief, enigmatic note, which consisted of an urgent entreaty that h would come, without any sort of explanation."},
{"text":"\"Oh, how sweet and generous that would be of you!\" cried Lise wit sudden animation. \"I told mamma you'd be sure not to go. I said yo were saving your soul. How splendid you are! I've always thought yo were splendid. How glad I am to tell you so!\""},
{"text":"\"Lise!\" said her mother impressively, though she smiled after she ha said it."},
{"text":"\"You have quite forgotten us, Alexey Fyodorovitch,\" she said; \"yo never come to see us. Yet Lise has told me twice that she is neve happy except with you.\""},
{"text":"Alyosha raised his downcast eyes and again flushed, and again smile without knowing why. But the elder was no longer watching him. He ha begun talking to a monk who, as mentioned before, had been awaiting hi entrance by Lise's chair. He was evidently a monk of the humblest, tha is of the peasant, class, of a narrow outlook, but a true believer and, in his own way, a stubborn one. He announced that he had come fro the far north, from Obdorsk, from Saint Sylvester, and was a member o a poor monastery, consisting of only ten monks. The elder gave him hi blessing and invited him to come to his cell whenever he liked."},
{"text":"\"How can you presume to do such deeds?\" the monk asked suddenly pointing solemnly and significantly at Lise. He was referring to he \"healing.\""},
{"text":"\"It's too early, of course, to speak of that. Relief is not complet cure, and may proceed from different causes. But if there has been an healing, it is by no power but God's will. It's all from God. Visit me Father,\" he added to the monk. \"It's not often I can see visitors. I a ill, and I know that my days are numbered.\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, no, no! God will not take you from us. You will live a long, lon time yet,\" cried the lady. \"And in what way are you ill? You look s well, so gay and happy.\""},
{"text":"\"I am extraordinarily better today. But I know that it's only for  moment. I understand my disease now thoroughly. If I seem so happy t you, you could never say anything that would please me so much. For me are made for happiness, and anyone who is completely happy has a righ to say to himself, `I am doing God's will on earth.' All the righteous all the saints, all the holy martyrs were happy.\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, how you speak! What bold and lofty words!\" cried the lady. \"Yo seem to pierce with your words. And yet--happiness, happiness--wher is it? Who can say of himself that he is happy? Oh, since you have bee so good as to let us see you once more today, let me tell you what  could not utter last time, what I dared not say, all I am suffering an have been for so long! I am suffering! Forgive me! I am suffering!\""},
{"text":"And in a rush of fervent feeling she clasped her hands before him."},
{"text":"\"From what specially?\""},
{"text":"\"I suffer ... from lack of faith.\""},
{"text":"\"Lack of faith in God?\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, no, no! I dare not even think of that. But the future life--it i such an enigma! And no one, no one can solve it. Listen! You are  healer, you are deeply versed in the human soul, and of course I dar not expect you to believe me entirely, but I assure you on my word o honor that I am not speaking lightly now. The thought of the lif beyond the grave distracts me to anguish, to terror. And I don't kno to whom to appeal, and have not dared to all my life. And now I am s bold as to ask you. Oh, God! What will you think of me now?\""},
{"text":"She clasped her hands."},
{"text":"\"Don't distress yourself about my opinion of you,\" said the elder. \" quite believe in the sincerity of your suffering.\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, how thankful I am to you! You see, I shut my eyes and ask mysel if everyone has faith, where did it come from? And then they do sa that it all comes from terror at the menacing phenomena of nature, an that none of it's real. And I say to myself, `What if I've bee believing all my life, and when I come to die there's nothing but th burdocks growing on my grave?' as I read in some author. It's awful How--how can I get back my faith? But I only believed when I was  little child, mechanically, without thinking of anything. How, how i one to prove it? I have come now to lay my soul before you and to as you about it. If I let this chance slip, no one all my life will answe me. How can I prove it? How can I convince myself? Oh, how unhappy  am! I stand and look about me and see that scarcely anyone else cares no one troubles his head about it, and I'm the only one who can't stan it. It's deadly--deadly!\""},
{"text":"\"No doubt. But there's no proving it, though you can be convinced o it.\""},
{"text":"\"How?\""},
{"text":"\"By the experience of active love. Strive to love your neighbo actively and indefatigably. In as far as you advance in love you wil grow surer of the reality of God and of the immortality of your soul If you attain to perfect self-forgetfulness in the love of you neighbor, then you will believe without doubt, and no doubt ca possibly enter your soul. This has been tried. This is certain.\""},
{"text":"\"In active love? There's another question--and such a question! Yo see, I so love humanity that--would you believe it?--I often dream o forsaking all that I have, leaving Lise, and becoming a sister o mercy. I close my eyes and think and dream, and at that moment I fee full of strength to overcome all obstacles. No wounds, no festerin sores could at that moment frighten me. I would bind them up and was them with my own hands. I would nurse the afflicted. I would be read to kiss such wounds.\""},
{"text":"\"It is much, and well that your mind is full of such dreams and no others. Sometime, unawares, you may do a good deed in reality.\""},
{"text":"\"Yes. But could I endure such a life for long?\" the lady went o fervently, almost frantically. \"That's the chief question--that's m most agonizing question. I shut my eyes and ask myself, `Would yo persevere long on that path? And if the patient whose wounds you ar washing did not meet you with gratitude, but worried you with hi whims, without valuing or remarking your charitable services, bega abusing you and rudely commanding you, and complaining to the superio authorities of you (which often happens when people are in grea suffering)--what then? Would you persevere in your love, or not?' An do you know, I came with horror to the conclusion that, if anythin could dissipate my love to humanity, it would be ingratitude. In short I am a hired servant, I expect my payment at once--that is, praise and the repayment of love with love. Otherwise I am incapable of lovin anyone.\""},
{"text":"She was in a very paroxysm of self-castigation, and, concluding, sh looked with defiant resolution at the elder."},
{"text":"\"It's just the same story as a doctor once told me,\" observed th elder. \"He was a man getting on in years, and undoubtedly clever. H spoke as frankly as you, though in jest, in bitter jest. `I lov humanity,' he said, `but I wonder at myself. The more I love humanit in general, the less I love man in particular. In my dreams,' he said `I have often come to making enthusiastic schemes for the service o humanity, and perhaps I might actually have faced crucifixion if it ha been suddenly necessary; and yet I am incapable of living in the sam room with anyone for two days together, as I know by experience. A soon as anyone is near me, his personality disturbs my self-complacenc and restricts my freedom. In twenty-four hours I begin to hate the bes of men: one because he's too long over his dinner; another because h has a cold and keeps on blowing his nose. I become hostile to peopl the moment they come close to me. But it has always happened that th more I detest men individually the more ardent becomes my love fo humanity.' \""},
{"text":"\"But what's to be done? What can one do in such a case? Must on despair?\""},
{"text":"\"No. It is enough that you are distressed at it. Do what you can, an it will be reckoned unto you. Much is done already in you since you ca so deeply and sincerely know yourself. If you have been talking to m so sincerely, simply to gain approbation for your frankness, as you di from me just now, then of course you will not attain to anything in th achievement of real love; it will all get no further than dreams, an your whole life will slip away like a phantom. In that case you wil naturally cease to think of the future life too, and will of yoursel grow calmer after a fashion in the end.\""},
{"text":"\"You have crushed me! Only now, as you speak, I understand that I wa really only seeking your approbation for my sincerity when I told you  could not endure ingratitude. You have revealed me to myself. You hav seen through me and explained me to myself!\""},
{"text":"\"Are you speaking the truth? Well, now, after such a confession,  believe that you are sincere and good at heart. If you do not attai happiness, always remember that you are on the right road, and try no to leave it. Above all, avoid falsehood, every kind of falsehood especially falseness to yourself. Watch over your own deceitfulness an look into it every hour, every minute. Avoid being scornful, both t others and to yourself. What seems to you bad within you will gro purer from the very fact of your observing it in yourself. Avoid fear too, though fear is only the consequence of every sort of falsehood Never be frightened at your own faint-heartedness in attaining love Don't be frightened overmuch even at your evil actions. I am sorry  can say nothing more consoling to you, for love in action is a hars and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams. Love in dreams i greedy for immediate action, rapidly performed and in the sight of all Men will even give their lives if only the ordeal does not last lon but is soon over, with all looking on and applauding as though on th stage. But active love is labor and fortitude, and for some people too perhaps, a complete science. But I predict that just when you see wit horror that in spite of all your efforts you are getting farther fro your goal instead of nearer to it--at that very moment I predict tha you will reach it and behold clearly the miraculous power of the Lor who has been all the time loving and mysteriously guiding you. Forgiv me for not being able to stay longer with you. They are waiting for me Goodbye.\""},
{"text":"The lady was weeping."},
{"text":"\"Lise, Lise! Bless her--bless her!\" she cried, starting up suddenly."},
{"text":"\"She does not deserve to be loved. I have seen her naughtiness al along,\" the elder said jestingly. \"Why have you been laughing a Alexey?\""},
{"text":"Lise had in fact been occupied in mocking at him all the time. She ha noticed before that Alyosha was shy and tried not to look at her, an she found this extremely amusing. She waited intently to catch his eye Alyosha, unable to endure her persistent stare, was irresistibly an suddenly drawn to glance at her, and at once she smiled triumphantly i his face. Alyosha was even more disconcerted and vexed. At last h turned away from her altogether and hid behind the elder's back. Afte a few minutes, drawn by the same irresistible force, he turned again t see whether he was being looked at or not, and found Lise almos hanging out of her chair to peep sideways at him, eagerly waiting fo him to look. Catching his eye, she laughed so that the elder could no help saying, \"Why do you make fun of him like that, naughty girl?\""},
{"text":"Lise suddenly and quite unexpectedly blushed. Her eyes flashed and he face became quite serious. She began speaking quickly and nervously i a warm and resentful voice:"},
{"text":"\"Why has he forgotten everything, then? He used to carry me about whe I was little. We used to play together. He used to come to teach me t read, do you know. Two years ago, when he went away, he said that h would never forget me, that we were friends forever, forever, forever And now he's afraid of me all at once. Am I going to eat him? Wh doesn't he want to come near me? Why doesn't he talk? Why won't he com and see us? It's not that you won't let him. We know that he goe everywhere. It's not good manners for me to invite him. He ought t have thought of it first, if he hasn't forgotten me. No, now he' saving his soul! Why have you put that long gown on him? If he run he'll fall.\""},
{"text":"And suddenly she hid her face in her hand and went off int irresistible, prolonged, nervous, inaudible laughter. The elde listened to her with a smile, and blessed her tenderly. As she kisse his hand she suddenly pressed it to her eyes and began crying."},
{"text":"\"Don't be angry with me. I'm silly and good for nothing ... an perhaps Alyosha's right, quite right, in not wanting to come and se such a ridiculous girl.\""},
{"text":"\"I will certainly send him,\" said the elder."},
{"text":" V"},
{"text":"So Be It! So Be It!"},
{"text":"The elder's absence from his cell had lasted for about twenty-fiv minutes. It was more than half-past twelve, but Dmitri, on whos account they had all met there, had still not appeared. But he seeme almost to be forgotten, and when the elder entered the cell again, h found his guests engaged in eager conversation. Ivan and the two monk took the leading share in it. Misov, too, was trying to take a part and apparently very eagerly, in the conversation. But he wa unsuccessful in this also. He was evidently in the background, and hi remarks were treated with neglect, which increased his irritability. H had had intellectual encounters with Ivan before and he could no endure a certain carelessness Ivan showed him."},
{"text":"\"Hitherto at least I have stood in the front ranks of all that i progressive in Europe, and here the new generation positively ignore us,\" he thought."},
{"text":"Fyodor Pavlovitch, who had given his word to sit still and be quiet had actually been quiet for some time, but he watched his neighbo Misov with an ironical little smile, obviously enjoying hi discomfiture. He had been waiting for some time to pay off old scores and now he could not let the opportunity slip. Bending over hi shoulder he began teasing him again in a whisper."},
{"text":"\"Why didn't you go away just now, after the `courteously kissing'? Wh did you consent to remain in such unseemly company? It was because yo felt insulted and aggrieved, and you remained to vindicate yourself b showing off your intelligence. Now you won't go till you've displaye your intellect to them.\""},
{"text":"\"You again? ... On the contrary, I'm just going.\""},
{"text":"\"You'll be the last, the last of all to go!\" Fyodor Pavlovitc delivered him another thrust, almost at the moment of Father Zossima' return."},
{"text":"The discussion died down for a moment, but the elder, seating himsel in his former place, looked at them all as though cordially invitin them to go on. Alyosha, who knew every expression of his face, saw tha he was fearfully exhausted and making a great effort. Of late he ha been liable to fainting fits from exhaustion. His face had the pallo that was common before such attacks, and his lips were white. But h evidently did not want to break up the party. He seemed to have som special object of his own in keeping them. What object? Alyosha watche him intently."},
{"text":"\"We are discussing this gentleman's most interesting article,\" sai Father Iosif, the librarian, addressing the elder, and indicating Ivan \"He brings forward much that is new, but I think the argument cuts bot ways. It is an article written in answer to a book by an ecclesiastica authority on the question of the ecclesiastical court, and the scope o its jurisdiction.\""},
{"text":"\"I'm sorry I have not read your article, but I've heard of it,\" sai the elder, looking keenly and intently at Ivan."},
{"text":"\"He takes up a most interesting position,\" continued the Fathe Librarian. \"As far as Church jurisdiction is concerned he is apparentl quite opposed to the separation of Church from State.\""},
{"text":"\"That's interesting. But in what sense?\" Father Zossima asked Ivan."},
{"text":"The latter, at last, answered him, not condescendingly, as Alyosha ha feared, but with modesty and reserve, with evident goodwill an apparently without the slightest arrire-pense."},
{"text":"\"I start from the position that this confusion of elements, that is, o the essential principles of Church and State, will, of course, go o forever, in spite of the fact that it is impossible for them to mingle and that the confusion of these elements cannot lead to any consisten or even normal results, for there is falsity at the very foundation o it. Compromise between the Church and State in such questions as, fo instance, jurisdiction, is, to my thinking, impossible in any rea sense. My clerical opponent maintains that the Church holds a precis and defined position in the State. I maintain, on the contrary, tha the Church ought to include the whole State, and not simply to occupy  corner in it, and, if this is, for some reason, impossible at present then it ought, in reality, to be set up as the direct and chief aim o the future development of Christian society!\""},
{"text":"\"Perfectly true,\" Father Passy, the silent and learned monk, assente with fervor and decision."},
{"text":"\"The purest Ultramontanism!\" cried Misov impatiently, crossing an recrossing his legs."},
{"text":"\"Oh, well, we have no mountains,\" cried Father Iosif, and turning t the elder he continued: \"Observe the answer he makes to the followin `fundamental and essential' propositions of his opponent, who is, yo must note, an ecclesiastic. First, that `no social organization can o ought to arrogate to itself power to dispose of the civic and politica rights of its members.' Secondly, that `criminal and civil jurisdictio ought not to belong to the Church, and is inconsistent with its nature both as a divine institution and as an organization of men fo religious objects,' and, finally, in the third place, `the Church is  kingdom not of this world.' \""},
{"text":"\"A most unworthy play upon words for an ecclesiastic!\" Father Pass could not refrain from breaking in again. \"I have read the book whic you have answered,\" he added, addressing Ivan, \"and was astounded a the words `the Church is a kingdom not of this world.' If it is not o this world, then it cannot exist on earth at all. In the Gospel, th words `not of this world' are not used in that sense. To play with suc words is indefensible. Our Lord Jesus Christ came to set up the Churc upon earth. The Kingdom of Heaven, of course, is not of this world, bu in Heaven; but it is only entered through the Church which has bee founded and established upon earth. And so a frivolous play upon word in such a connection is unpardonable and improper. The Church is, i truth, a kingdom and ordained to rule, and in the end must undoubtedl become the kingdom ruling over all the earth. For that we have th divine promise.\""},
{"text":"He ceased speaking suddenly, as though checking himself. Afte listening attentively and respectfully Ivan went on, addressing th elder with perfect composure and as before with ready cordiality:"},
{"text":"\"The whole point of my article lies in the fact that during the firs three centuries Christianity only existed on earth in the Church an was nothing but the Church. When the pagan Roman Empire desired t become Christian, it inevitably happened that, by becoming Christian it included the Church but remained a pagan State in very many of it departments. In reality this was bound to happen. But Rome as a Stat retained too much of the pagan civilization and culture, as, fo example, in the very objects and fundamental principles of the State The Christian Church entering into the State could, of course surrender no part of its fundamental principles--the rock on which i stands--and could pursue no other aims than those which have bee ordained and revealed by God Himself, and among them that of drawin the whole world, and therefore the ancient pagan State itself, into th Church. In that way (that is, with a view to the future) it is not th Church that should seek a definite position in the State, like `ever social organization,' or as `an organization of men for religiou purposes' (as my opponent calls the Church), but, on the contrary every earthly State should be, in the end, completely transformed int the Church and should become nothing else but a Church, rejecting ever purpose incongruous with the aims of the Church. All this will no degrade it in any way or take from its honor and glory as a grea State, nor from the glory of its rulers, but only turns it from  false, still pagan, and mistaken path to the true and rightful path which alone leads to the eternal goal. This is why the author of th book On the Foundations of Church Jurisdiction would have judge correctly if, in seeking and laying down those foundations, he ha looked upon them as a temporary compromise inevitable in our sinful an imperfect days. But as soon as the author ventures to declare that th foundations which he predicates now, part of which Father Iosif jus enumerated, are the permanent, essential, and eternal foundations, h is going directly against the Church and its sacred and eterna vocation. That is the gist of my article.\""},
{"text":"\"That is, in brief,\" Father Passy began again, laying stress on eac word, \"according to certain theories only too clearly formulated in th nineteenth century, the Church ought to be transformed into the State as though this would be an advance from a lower to a higher form, so a to disappear into it, making way for science, for the spirit of th age, and civilization. And if the Church resists and is unwilling, som corner will be set apart for her in the State, and even that unde control--and this will be so everywhere in all modern Europea countries. But Russian hopes and conceptions demand not that the Churc should pass as from a lower into a higher type into the State, but, o the contrary, that the State should end by being worthy to become onl the Church and nothing else. So be it! So be it!\""},
{"text":"\"Well, I confess you've reassured me somewhat,\" Misov said smiling again crossing his legs. \"So far as I understand, then, the realizatio of such an ideal is infinitely remote, at the second coming of Christ That's as you please. It's a beautiful Utopian dream of the abolitio of war, diplomacy, banks, and so on--something after the fashion o socialism, indeed. But I imagined that it was all meant seriously, an that the Church might be now going to try criminals, and sentence the to beating, prison, and even death.\""},
{"text":"\"But if there were none but the ecclesiastical court, the Church woul not even now sentence a criminal to prison or to death. Crime and th way of regarding it would inevitably change, not all at once of course but fairly soon,\" Ivan replied calmly, without flinching."},
{"text":"\"Are you serious?\" Misov glanced keenly at him."},
{"text":"\"If everything became the Church, the Church would exclude all th criminal and disobedient, and would not cut off their heads,\" Ivan wen on. \"I ask you, what would become of the excluded? He would be cut of then not only from men, as now, but from Christ. By his crime he woul have transgressed not only against men but against the Church o Christ. This is so even now, of course, strictly speaking, but it i not clearly enunciated, and very, very often the criminal of toda compromises with his conscience: `I steal,' he says, `but I don't g against the Church. I'm not an enemy of Christ.' That's what th criminal of today is continually saying to himself, but when the Churc takes the place of the State it will be difficult for him, i opposition to the Church all over the world, to say: `All men ar mistaken, all in error, all mankind are the false Church. I, a thie and murderer, am the only true Christian Church.' It will be ver difficult to say this to himself; it requires a rare combination o unusual circumstances. Now, on the other side, take the Church's ow view of crime: is it not bound to renounce the present almost paga attitude, and to change from a mechanical cutting off of its tainte member for the preservation of society, as at present, into completel and honestly adopting the idea of the regeneration of the man, of hi reformation and salvation?\""},
{"text":"\"What do you mean? I fail to understand again,\" Misov interrupted \"Some sort of dream again. Something shapeless and eve incomprehensible. What is excommunication? What sort of exclusion?  suspect you are simply amusing yourself, Ivan Fyodorovitch.\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, but you know, in reality it is so now,\" said the elder suddenly and all turned to him at once. \"If it were not for the Church of Chris there would be nothing to restrain the criminal from evildoing, no rea chastisement for it afterwards; none, that is, but the mechanica punishment spoken of just now, which in the majority of cases onl embitters the heart; and not the real punishment, the only effectua one, the only deterrent and softening one, which lies in th recognition of sin by conscience.\""},
{"text":"\"How is that, may one inquire?\" asked Misov, with lively curiosity."},
{"text":"\"Why,\" began the elder, \"all these sentences to exile with hard labor and formerly with flogging also, reform no one, and what's more, dete hardly a single criminal, and the number of crimes does not diminis but is continually on the increase. You must admit that. Consequentl the security of society is not preserved, for, although the obnoxiou member is mechanically cut off and sent far away out of sight, anothe criminal always comes to take his place at once, and often two of them If anything does preserve society, even in our time, and doe regenerate and transform the criminal, it is only the law of Chris speaking in his conscience. It is only by recognizing his wrongdoing a a son of a Christian society--that is, of the Church--that h recognizes his sin against society--that is, against the Church. S that it is only against the Church, and not against the State, that th criminal of today can recognize that he has sinned. If society, as  Church, had jurisdiction, then it would know when to bring back fro exclusion and to reunite to itself. Now the Church having no rea jurisdiction, but only the power of moral condemnation, withdraws o her own accord from punishing the criminal actively. She does no excommunicate him but simply persists in motherly exhortation of him What is more, the Church even tries to preserve all Christian communio with the criminal. She admits him to church services, to the hol sacrament, gives him alms, and treats him more as a captive than as  convict. And what would become of the criminal, O Lord, if even th Christian society--that is, the Church--were to reject him even a the civil law rejects him and cuts him off? What would become of him i the Church punished him with her excommunication as the direc consequence of the secular law? There could be no more terribl despair, at least for a Russian criminal, for Russian criminals stil have faith. Though, who knows, perhaps then a fearful thing woul happen, perhaps the despairing heart of the criminal would lose it faith and then what would become of him? But the Church, like a tender loving mother, holds aloof from active punishment herself, as th sinner is too severely punished already by the civil law, and ther must be at least someone to have pity on him. The Church holds aloof above all, because its judgment is the only one that contains th truth, and therefore cannot practically and morally be united to an other judgment even as a temporary compromise. She can enter into n compact about that. The foreign criminal, they say, rarely repents, fo the very doctrines of today confirm him in the idea that his crime i not a crime, but only a reaction against an unjustly oppressive force Society cuts him off completely by a force that triumphs over hi mechanically and (so at least they say of themselves in Europe accompanies this exclusion with hatred, forgetfulness, and the mos profound indifference as to the ultimate fate of the erring brother. I this way, it all takes place without the compassionate intervention o the Church, for in many cases there are no churches there at all, fo though ecclesiastics and splendid church buildings remain, the churche themselves have long ago striven to pass from Church into State and t disappear in it completely. So it seems at least in Lutheran countries As for Rome, it was proclaimed a State instead of a Church a thousan years ago. And so the criminal is no longer conscious of being a membe of the Church and sinks into despair. If he returns to society, ofte it is with such hatred that society itself instinctively cuts him off You can judge for yourself how it must end. In many cases it would see to be the same with us, but the difference is that besides th established law courts we have the Church too, which always keeps u relations with the criminal as a dear and still precious son. An besides that, there is still preserved, though only in thought, th judgment of the Church, which though no longer existing in practice i still living as a dream for the future, and is, no doubt, instinctivel recognized by the criminal in his soul. What was said here just now i true too, that is, that if the jurisdiction of the Church wer introduced in practice in its full force, that is, if the whole of th society were changed into the Church, not only the judgment of th Church would have influence on the reformation of the criminal such a it never has now, but possibly also the crimes themselves would b incredibly diminished. And there can be no doubt that the Church woul look upon the criminal and the crime of the future in many cases quit differently and would succeed in restoring the excluded, in restrainin those who plan evil, and in regenerating the fallen. It is true,\" sai Father Zossima, with a smile, \"the Christian society now is not read and is only resting on some seven righteous men, but as they are neve lacking, it will continue still unshaken in expectation of its complet transformation from a society almost heathen in character into a singl universal and all-powerful Church. So be it, so be it! Even though a the end of the ages, for it is ordained to come to pass! And there i no need to be troubled about times and seasons, for the secret of th times and seasons is in the wisdom of God, in His foresight, and Hi love. And what in human reckoning seems still afar off, may by th Divine ordinance be close at hand, on the eve of its appearance. And s be it, so be it!\""},
{"text":"\"So be it, so be it!\" Father Passy repeated austerely and reverently."},
{"text":"\"Strange, extremely strange!\" Misov pronounced, not so much with hea as with latent indignation."},
{"text":"\"What strikes you as so strange?\" Father Iosif inquired cautiously."},
{"text":"\"Why, it's beyond anything!\" cried Misov, suddenly breaking out; \"th State is eliminated and the Church is raised to the position of th State. It's not simply Ultramontanism, it's arch-Ultramontanism! It' beyond the dreams of Pope Gregory the Seventh!\""},
{"text":"\"You are completely misunderstanding it,\" said Father Passy sternly \"Understand, the Church is not to be transformed into the State. Tha is Rome and its dream. That is the third temptation of the devil. O the contrary, the State is transformed into the Church, will ascend an become a Church over the whole world--which is the complete opposit of Ultramontanism and Rome, and your interpretation, and is only th glorious destiny ordained for the Orthodox Church. This star will aris in the east!\""},
{"text":"Misov was significantly silent. His whole figure expresse extraordinary personal dignity. A supercilious and condescending smil played on his lips. Alyosha watched it all with a throbbing heart. Th whole conversation stirred him profoundly. He glanced casually a Rakitin, who was standing immovable in his place by the door listenin and watching intently though with downcast eyes. But from the color i his cheeks Alyosha guessed that Rakitin was probably no less excited and he knew what caused his excitement."},
{"text":"\"Allow me to tell you one little anecdote, gentlemen,\" Misov sai impressively, with a peculiarly majestic air. \"Some years ago, soo after the coup d'tat of December, I happened to be calling in Paris o an extremely influential personage in the Government, and I met a ver interesting man in his house. This individual was not precisely  detective but was a sort of superintendent of a whole regiment o political detectives--a rather powerful position in its own way. I wa prompted by curiosity to seize the opportunity of conversation wit him. And as he had not come as a visitor but as a subordinate officia bringing a special report, and as he saw the reception given me by hi chief, he deigned to speak with some openness, to a certain exten only, of course. He was rather courteous than open, as Frenchmen kno how to be courteous, especially to a foreigner. But I thoroughl understood him. The subject was the socialist revolutionaries who wer at that time persecuted. I will quote only one most curious remar dropped by this person. `We are not particularly afraid,' said he, `o all these socialists, anarchists, infidels, and revolutionists; we kee watch on them and know all their goings on. But there are a fe peculiar men among them who believe in God and are Christians, but a the same time are socialists. These are the people we are most afrai of. They are dreadful people! The socialist who is a Christian is mor to be dreaded than a socialist who is an atheist.' The words struck m at the time, and now they have suddenly come back to me here gentlemen.\""},
{"text":"\"You apply them to us, and look upon us as socialists?\" Father Pass asked directly, without beating about the bush."},
{"text":"But before Pyotr Alexandrovitch could think what to answer, the doo opened, and the guest so long expected, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, came in They had, in fact, given up expecting him, and his sudden appearanc caused some surprise for a moment."},
{"text":" VI"},
{"text":"Why Is Such a Man Alive?"},
{"text":"Dmitri Fyodorovitch, a young man of eight and twenty, of medium heigh and agreeable countenance, looked older than his years. He wa muscular, and showed signs of considerable physical strength. Yet ther was something not healthy in his face. It was rather thin, his cheek were hollow, and there was an unhealthy sallowness in their color. Hi rather large, prominent, dark eyes had an expression of fir determination, and yet there was a vague look in them, too. Even whe he was excited and talking irritably, his eyes somehow did not follo his mood, but betrayed something else, sometimes quite incongruous wit what was passing. \"It's hard to tell what he's thinking,\" those wh talked to him sometimes declared. People who saw something pensive an sullen in his eyes were startled by his sudden laugh, which bor witness to mirthful and lighthearted thoughts at the very time when hi eyes were so gloomy. A certain strained look in his face was easy t understand at this moment. Everyone knew, or had heard of, th extremely restless and dissipated life which he had been leading o late, as well as of the violent anger to which he had been roused i his quarrels with his father. There were several stories current in th town about it. It is true that he was irascible by nature, \"of a unstable and unbalanced mind,\" as our justice of the peace Katchalnikov, happily described him."},
{"text":"He was stylishly and irreproachably dressed in a carefully buttone frock-coat. He wore black gloves and carried a top-hat. Having onl lately left the army, he still had mustaches and no beard. His dar brown hair was cropped short, and combed forward on his temples. He ha the long, determined stride of a military man. He stood still for  moment on the threshold, and glancing at the whole party went straigh up to the elder, guessing him to be their host. He made him a low bow and asked his blessing. Father Zossima, rising in his chair, blesse him. Dmitri kissed his hand respectfully, and with intense feeling almost anger, he said:"},
{"text":"\"Be so generous as to forgive me for having kept you waiting so long but Smerdyakov, the valet sent me by my father, in reply to m inquiries, told me twice over that the appointment was for one. Now  suddenly learn--\""},
{"text":"\"Don't disturb yourself,\" interposed the elder. \"No matter. You are  little late. It's of no consequence. ...\""},
{"text":"\"I'm extremely obliged to you, and expected no less from you goodness.\""},
{"text":"Saying this, Dmitri bowed once more. Then, turning suddenly towards hi father, made him, too, a similarly low and respectful bow. He ha evidently considered it beforehand, and made this bow in al seriousness, thinking it his duty to show his respect and goo intentions."},
{"text":"Although Fyodor Pavlovitch was taken unawares, he was equal to th occasion. In response to Dmitri's bow he jumped up from his chair an made his son a bow as low in return. His face was suddenly solemn an impressive, which gave him a positively malignant look. Dmitri bowe generally to all present, and without a word walked to the window wit his long, resolute stride, sat down on the only empty chair, nea Father Passy, and, bending forward, prepared to listen to th conversation he had interrupted."},
{"text":"Dmitri's entrance had taken no more than two minutes, and th conversation was resumed. But this time Misov thought it unnecessar to reply to Father Passy's persistent and almost irritable question."},
{"text":"\"Allow me to withdraw from this discussion,\" he observed with a certai well-bred nonchalance. \"It's a subtle question, too. Here Iva Fyodorovitch is smiling at us. He must have something interesting t say about that also. Ask him.\""},
{"text":"\"Nothing special, except one little remark,\" Ivan replied at once \"European Liberals in general, and even our liberal dilettanti, ofte mix up the final results of socialism with those of Christianity. Thi wild notion is, of course, a characteristic feature. But it's not onl Liberals and dilettanti who mix up socialism and Christianity, but, i many cases, it appears, the police--the foreign police, of course--d the same. Your Paris anecdote is rather to the point, Pyot Alexandrovitch.\""},
{"text":"\"I ask your permission to drop this subject altogether,\" Miso repeated. \"I will tell you instead, gentlemen, another interesting an rather characteristic anecdote of Ivan Fyodorovitch himself. Only fiv days ago, in a gathering here, principally of ladies, he solemnl declared in argument that there was nothing in the whole world to mak men love their neighbors. That there was no law of nature that ma should love mankind, and that, if there had been any love on eart hitherto, it was not owing to a natural law, but simply because me have believed in immortality. Ivan Fyodorovitch added in parenthesi that the whole natural law lies in that faith, and that if you were t destroy in mankind the belief in immortality, not only love but ever living force maintaining the life of the world would at once be drie up. Moreover, nothing then would be immoral, everything would b lawful, even cannibalism. That's not all. He ended by asserting tha for every individual, like ourselves, who does not believe in God o immortality, the moral law of nature must immediately be changed int the exact contrary of the former religious law, and that egoism, eve to crime, must become not only lawful but even recognized as th inevitable, the most rational, even honorable outcome of his position From this paradox, gentlemen, you can judge of the rest of ou eccentric and paradoxical friend Ivan Fyodorovitch's theories.\""},
{"text":"\"Excuse me,\" Dmitri cried suddenly; \"if I've heard aright, crime mus not only be permitted but even recognized as the inevitable and th most rational outcome of his position for every infidel! Is that so o not?\""},
{"text":"\"Quite so,\" said Father Passy."},
{"text":"\"I'll remember it.\""},
{"text":"Having uttered these words Dmitri ceased speaking as suddenly as he ha begun. Everyone looked at him with curiosity."},
{"text":"\"Is that really your conviction as to the consequences of th disappearance of the faith in immortality?\" the elder asked Iva suddenly."},
{"text":"\"Yes. That was my contention. There is no virtue if there is n immortality.\""},
{"text":"\"You are blessed in believing that, or else most unhappy.\""},
{"text":"\"Why unhappy?\" Ivan asked smiling."},
{"text":"\"Because, in all probability you don't believe yourself in th immortality of your soul, nor in what you have written yourself in you article on Church jurisdiction.\""},
{"text":"\"Perhaps you are right! ... But I wasn't altogether joking,\" Iva suddenly and strangely confessed, flushing quickly."},
{"text":"\"You were not altogether joking. That's true. The question is stil fretting your heart, and not answered. But the martyr likes sometime to divert himself with his despair, as it were driven to it by despai itself. Meanwhile, in your despair, you, too, divert yourself wit magazine articles, and discussions in society, though you don't believ your own arguments, and with an aching heart mock at them inwardly. ... That question you have not answered, and it is your great grief for it clamors for an answer.\""},
{"text":"\"But can it be answered by me? Answered in the affirmative?\" Ivan wen on asking strangely, still looking at the elder with the sam inexplicable smile."},
{"text":"\"If it can't be decided in the affirmative, it will never be decided i the negative. You know that that is the peculiarity of your heart, an all its suffering is due to it. But thank the Creator who has given yo a lofty heart capable of such suffering; of thinking and seeking highe things, for our dwelling is in the heavens. God grant that your hear will attain the answer on earth, and may God bless your path.\""},
{"text":"The elder raised his hand and would have made the sign of the cros over Ivan from where he stood. But the latter rose from his seat, wen up to him, received his blessing, and kissing his hand went back to hi place in silence. His face looked firm and earnest. This action and al the preceding conversation, which was so surprising from Ivan impressed everyone by its strangeness and a certain solemnity, so tha all were silent for a moment, and there was a look almost o apprehension in Alyosha's face. But Misov suddenly shrugged hi shoulders. And at the same moment Fyodor Pavlovitch jumped up from hi seat."},
{"text":"\"Most pious and holy elder,\" he cried, pointing to Ivan, \"that is m son, flesh of my flesh, the dearest of my flesh! He is my most dutifu Karl Moor, so to speak, while this son who has just come in, Dmitri against whom I am seeking justice from you, is the undutiful Fran Moor--they are both out of Schiller's Robbers, and so I am th reigning Count von Moor! Judge and save us! We need not only you prayers but your prophecies!\""},
{"text":"\"Speak without buffoonery, and don't begin by insulting the members o your family,\" answered the elder, in a faint, exhausted voice. He wa obviously getting more and more fatigued, and his strength was failing."},
{"text":"\"An unseemly farce which I foresaw when I came here!\" cried Dmitr indignantly. He too leapt up. \"Forgive it, reverend Father,\" he added addressing the elder. \"I am not a cultivated man, and I don't even kno how to address you properly, but you have been deceived and you hav been too good-natured in letting us meet here. All my father wants is  scandal. Why he wants it only he can tell. He always has some motive But I believe I know why--\""},
{"text":"\"They all blame me, all of them!\" cried Fyodor Pavlovitch in his turn \"Pyotr Alexandrovitch here blames me too. You have been blaming me Pyotr Alexandrovitch, you have!\" he turned suddenly to Misov, althoug the latter was not dreaming of interrupting him. \"They all accuse me o having hidden the children's money in my boots, and cheated them, bu isn't there a court of law? There they will reckon out for you, Dmitr Fyodorovitch, from your notes, your letters, and your agreements, ho much money you had, how much you have spent, and how much you hav left. Why does Pyotr Alexandrovitch refuse to pass judgment? Dmitri i not a stranger to him. Because they are all against me, while Dmitr Fyodorovitch is in debt to me, and not a little, but some thousands o which I have documentary proof. The whole town is echoing with hi debaucheries. And where he was stationed before, he several times spen a thousand or two for the seduction of some respectable girl; we kno all about that, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, in its most secret details. I'l prove it. ... Would you believe it, holy Father, he has captivate the heart of the most honorable of young ladies of good family an fortune, daughter of a gallant colonel, formerly his superior officer who had received many honors and had the Anna Order on his breast. H compromised the girl by his promise of marriage, now she is an orpha and here; she is betrothed to him, yet before her very eyes he i dancing attendance on a certain enchantress. And although thi enchantress has lived in, so to speak, civil marriage with  respectable man, yet she is of an independent character, a unapproachable fortress for everybody, just like a legal wife--for sh is virtuous, yes, holy Fathers, she is virtuous. Dmitri Fyodorovitc wants to open this fortress with a golden key, and that's why he i insolent to me now, trying to get money from me, though he has waste thousands on this enchantress already. He's continually borrowing mone for the purpose. From whom do you think? Shall I say, Mitya?\""},
{"text":"\"Be silent!\" cried Dmitri, \"wait till I'm gone. Don't dare in m presence to asperse the good name of an honorable girl! That you shoul utter a word about her is an outrage, and I won't permit it!\""},
{"text":"He was breathless."},
{"text":"\"Mitya! Mitya!\" cried Fyodor Pavlovitch hysterically, squeezing out  tear. \"And is your father's blessing nothing to you? If I curse you what then?\""},
{"text":"\"Shameless hypocrite!\" exclaimed Dmitri furiously."},
{"text":"\"He says that to his father! his father! What would he be with others Gentlemen, only fancy; there's a poor but honorable man living here burdened with a numerous family, a captain who got into trouble and wa discharged from the army, but not publicly, not by court-martial, wit no slur on his honor. And three weeks ago, Dmitri seized him by th beard in a tavern, dragged him out into the street and beat hi publicly, and all because he is an agent in a little business of mine.\""},
{"text":"\"It's all a lie! Outwardly it's the truth, but inwardly a lie!\" Dmitr was trembling with rage. \"Father, I don't justify my action. Yes,  confess it publicly, I behaved like a brute to that captain, and  regret it now, and I'm disgusted with myself for my brutal rage. Bu this captain, this agent of yours, went to that lady whom you call a enchantress, and suggested to her from you, that she should tak I.O.U.s of mine which were in your possession, and should sue me fo the money so as to get me into prison by means of them, if I persiste in claiming an account from you of my property. Now you reproach me fo having a weakness for that lady when you yourself incited her t captivate me! She told me so to my face. ... She told me the stor and laughed at you. ... You wanted to put me in prison because yo are jealous of me with her, because you'd begun to force you attentions upon her; and I know all about that, too; she laughed at yo for that as well--you hear--she laughed at you as she described it So here you have this man, this father who reproaches his profligat son! Gentlemen, forgive my anger, but I foresaw that this crafty ol man would only bring you together to create a scandal. I had come t forgive him if he held out his hand; to forgive him, and as forgiveness! But as he has just this minute insulted not only me, bu an honorable young lady, for whom I feel such reverence that I dare no take her name in vain, I have made up my mind to show up his game though he is my father. ...\""},
{"text":"He could not go on. His eyes were glittering and he breathed wit difficulty. But everyone in the cell was stirred. All except Fathe Zossima got up from their seats uneasily. The monks looked austere bu waited for guidance from the elder. He sat still, pale, not fro excitement but from the weakness of disease. An imploring smile lighte up his face; from time to time he raised his hand, as though to chec the storm, and, of course, a gesture from him would have been enough t end the scene; but he seemed to be waiting for something and watche them intently as though trying to make out something which was no perfectly clear to him. At last Misov felt completely humiliated an disgraced."},
{"text":"\"We are all to blame for this scandalous scene,\" he said hotly. \"But  did not foresee it when I came, though I knew with whom I had to deal This must be stopped at once! Believe me, your reverence, I had n precise knowledge of the details that have just come to light, I wa unwilling to believe them, and I learn for the first time. ...  father is jealous of his son's relations with a woman of loose behavio and intrigues with the creature to get his son into prison! This is th company in which I have been forced to be present! I was deceived.  declare to you all that I was as much deceived as anyone.\""},
{"text":"\"Dmitri Fyodorovitch,\" yelled Fyodor Pavlovitch suddenly, in a unnatural voice, \"if you were not my son I would challenge you thi instant to a duel ... with pistols, at three paces ... across  handkerchief,\" he ended, stamping with both feet."},
{"text":"With old liars who have been acting all their lives there are moment when they enter so completely into their part that they tremble or she tears of emotion in earnest, although at that very moment, or a secon later, they are able to whisper to themselves, \"You know you are lying you shameless old sinner! You're acting now, in spite of your `holy wrath.\""},
{"text":"Dmitri frowned painfully, and looked with unutterable contempt at hi father."},
{"text":"\"I thought ... I thought,\" he said, in a soft and, as it were controlled voice, \"that I was coming to my native place with the ange of my heart, my betrothed, to cherish his old age, and I find nothin but a depraved profligate, a despicable clown!\""},
{"text":"\"A duel!\" yelled the old wretch again, breathless and spluttering a each syllable. \"And you, Pyotr Alexandrovitch Misov, let me tell yo that there has never been in all your family a loftier, and mor honest--you hear--more honest woman than this `creature,' as you hav dared to call her! And you, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, have abandoned you betrothed for that `creature,' so you must yourself have thought tha your betrothed couldn't hold a candle to her. That's the woman called  `creature'!\""},
{"text":"\"Shameful!\" broke from Father Iosif."},
{"text":"\"Shameful and disgraceful!\" Kalganov, flushing crimson, cried in  boyish voice, trembling with emotion. He had been silent till tha moment."},
{"text":"\"Why is such a man alive?\" Dmitri, beside himself with rage, growled i a hollow voice, hunching up his shoulders till he looked almos deformed. \"Tell me, can he be allowed to go on defiling the earth?\" H looked round at everyone and pointed at the old man. He spoke evenl and deliberately."},
{"text":"\"Listen, listen, monks, to the parricide!\" cried Fyodor Pavlovitch rushing up to Father Iosif. \"That's the answer to your `shameful!' Wha is shameful? That `creature,' that `woman of loose behavior' is perhap holier than you are yourselves, you monks who are seeking salvation She fell perhaps in her youth, ruined by her environment. But she love much, and Christ himself forgave the woman `who loved much.' \""},
{"text":"\"It was not for such love Christ forgave her,\" broke impatiently fro the gentle Father Iosif."},
{"text":"\"Yes, it was for such, monks, it was! You save your souls here, eatin cabbage, and think you are the righteous. You eat a gudgeon a day, an you think you bribe God with gudgeon.\""},
{"text":"\"This is unendurable!\" was heard on all sides in the cell."},
{"text":"But this unseemly scene was cut short in a most unexpected way. Fathe Zossima rose suddenly from his seat. Almost distracted with anxiety fo the elder and everyone else, Alyosha succeeded, however, in supportin him by the arm. Father Zossima moved towards Dmitri and reaching hi sank on his knees before him. Alyosha thought that he had fallen fro weakness, but this was not so. The elder distinctly and deliberatel bowed down at Dmitri's feet till his forehead touched the floor Alyosha was so astounded that he failed to assist him when he got u again. There was a faint smile on his lips."},
{"text":"\"Goodbye! Forgive me, all of you!\" he said, bowing on all sides to hi guests."},
{"text":"Dmitri stood for a few moments in amazement. Bowing down to him--wha did it mean? Suddenly he cried aloud, \"Oh, God!\" hid his face in hi hands, and rushed out of the room. All the guests flocked out afte him, in their confusion not saying goodbye, or bowing to their host Only the monks went up to him again for a blessing."},
{"text":"\"What did it mean, falling at his feet like that? Was it symbolic o what?\" said Fyodor Pavlovitch, suddenly quieted and trying to reope conversation without venturing to address anybody in particular. The were all passing out of the precincts of the hermitage at the moment."},
{"text":"\"I can't answer for a madhouse and for madmen,\" Misov answered at onc ill-humoredly, \"but I will spare myself your company, Fyodo Pavlovitch, and, trust me, forever. Where's that monk?\""},
{"text":"\"That monk,\" that is, the monk who had invited them to dine with th Superior, did not keep them waiting. He met them as soon as they cam down the steps from the elder's cell, as though he had been waiting fo them all the time."},
{"text":"\"Reverend Father, kindly do me a favor. Convey my deepest respect t the Father Superior, apologize for me, personally, Misov, to hi reverence, telling him that I deeply regret that owing to unforesee circumstances I am unable to have the honor of being present at hi table, greatly as I should desire to do so,\" Misov said irritably t the monk."},
{"text":"\"And that unforeseen circumstance, of course, is myself,\" Fyodo Pavlovitch cut in immediately. \"Do you hear, Father; this gentlema doesn't want to remain in my company or else he'd come at once. And yo shall go, Pyotr Alexandrovitch, pray go to the Father Superior and goo appetite to you. I will decline, and not you. Home, home, I'll eat a home, I don't feel equal to it here, Pyotr Alexandrovitch, my amiabl relative.\""},
{"text":"\"I am not your relative and never have been, you contemptible man!\""},
{"text":"\"I said it on purpose to madden you, because you always disclaim th relationship, though you really are a relation in spite of you shuffling. I'll prove it by the church calendar. As for you, Ivan, sta if you like. I'll send the horses for you later. Propriety requires yo to go to the Father Superior, Pyotr Alexandrovitch, to apologize fo the disturbance we've been making. ...\""},
{"text":"\"Is it true that you are going home? Aren't you lying?\""},
{"text":"\"Pyotr Alexandrovitch! How could I dare after what's happened! Forgiv me, gentlemen, I was carried away! And upset besides! And, indeed, I a ashamed. Gentlemen, one man has the heart of Alexander of Macedon an another the heart of the little dog Fido. Mine is that of the littl dog Fido. I am ashamed! After such an escapade how can I go to dinner to gobble up the monastery's sauces? I am ashamed, I can't. You mus excuse me!\""},
{"text":"\"The devil only knows, what if he deceives us?\" thought Misov, stil hesitating, and watching the retreating buffoon with distrustful eyes The latter turned round, and noticing that Misov was watching him waved him a kiss."},
{"text":"\"Well, are you coming to the Superior?\" Misov asked Ivan abruptly."},
{"text":"\"Why not? I was especially invited yesterday.\""},
{"text":"\"Unfortunately I feel myself compelled to go to this confounde dinner,\" said Misov with the same irritability, regardless of the fac that the monk was listening. \"We ought, at least, to apologize for th disturbance, and explain that it was not our doing. What do you think?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, we must explain that it wasn't our doing. Besides, father won' be there,\" observed Ivan."},
{"text":"\"Well, I should hope not! Confound this dinner!\""},
{"text":"They all walked on, however. The monk listened in silence. On the roa through the copse he made one observation however--that the Fathe Superior had been waiting a long time, and that they were more tha half an hour late. He received no answer. Misov looked with hatred a Ivan."},
{"text":"\"Here he is, going to the dinner as though nothing had happened,\" h thought. \"A brazen face, and the conscience of a Karamazov!\""},
{"text":" VII"},
{"text":"A Young Man Bent on a Career"},
{"text":"Alyosha helped Father Zossima to his bedroom and seated him on his bed It was a little room furnished with the bare necessities. There was  narrow iron bedstead, with a strip of felt for a mattress. In th corner, under the icons, was a reading-desk with a cross and the Gospe lying on it. The elder sank exhausted on the bed. His eyes glittere and he breathed hard. He looked intently at Alyosha, as thoug considering something."},
{"text":"\"Go, my dear boy, go. Porfiry is enough for me. Make haste, you ar needed there, go and wait at the Father Superior's table.\""},
{"text":"\"Let me stay here,\" Alyosha entreated."},
{"text":"\"You are more needed there. There is no peace there. You will wait, an be of service. If evil spirits rise up, repeat a prayer. And remember my son\"--the elder liked to call him that--\"this is not the place fo you in the future. When it is God's will to call me, leave th monastery. Go away for good.\""},
{"text":"Alyosha started."},
{"text":"\"What is it? This is not your place for the time. I bless you for grea service in the world. Yours will be a long pilgrimage. And you wil have to take a wife, too. You will have to bear all before you com back. There will be much to do. But I don't doubt of you, and so I sen you forth. Christ is with you. Do not abandon Him and He will no abandon you. You will see great sorrow, and in that sorrow you will b happy. This is my last message to you: in sorrow seek happiness. Work work unceasingly. Remember my words, for although I shall talk with yo again, not only my days but my hours are numbered.\""},
{"text":"Alyosha's face again betrayed strong emotion. The corners of his mout quivered."},
{"text":"\"What is it again?\" Father Zossima asked, smiling gently. \"The worldl may follow the dead with tears, but here we rejoice over the father wh is departing. We rejoice and pray for him. Leave me, I must pray. Go and make haste. Be near your brothers. And not near one only, but nea both.\""},
{"text":"Father Zossima raised his hand to bless him. Alyosha could make n protest, though he had a great longing to remain. He longed, moreover to ask the significance of his bowing to Dmitri, the question was o the tip of his tongue, but he dared not ask it. He knew that the elde would have explained it unasked if he had thought fit. But evidently i was not his will. That action had made a terrible impression o Alyosha; he believed blindly in its mysterious significance Mysterious, and perhaps awful."},
{"text":"As he hastened out of the hermitage precincts to reach the monastery i time to serve at the Father Superior's dinner, he felt a sudden pang a his heart, and stopped short. He seemed to hear again Father Zossima' words, foretelling his approaching end. What he had foretold so exactl must infallibly come to pass. Alyosha believed that implicitly. But ho could he be left without him? How could he live without seeing an hearing him? Where should he go? He had told him not to weep, and t leave the monastery. Good God! It was long since Alyosha had known suc anguish. He hurried through the copse that divided the monastery fro the hermitage, and unable to bear the burden of his thoughts, he gaze at the ancient pines beside the path. He had not far to go--about fiv hundred paces. He expected to meet no one at that hour, but at th first turn of the path he noticed Rakitin. He was waiting for someone."},
{"text":"\"Are you waiting for me?\" asked Alyosha, overtaking him."},
{"text":"\"Yes,\" grinned Rakitin. \"You are hurrying to the Father Superior,  know; he has a banquet. There's not been such a banquet since th Superior entertained the Bishop and General Pahatov, do you remember?  shan't be there, but you go and hand the sauces. Tell me one thing Alexey, what does that vision mean? That's what I want to ask you.\""},
{"text":"\"What vision?\""},
{"text":"\"That bowing to your brother, Dmitri. And didn't he tap the ground wit his forehead, too!\""},
{"text":"\"You speak of Father Zossima?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, of Father Zossima.\""},
{"text":"\"Tapped the ground?\""},
{"text":"\"Ah, an irreverent expression! Well, what of it? Anyway, what does tha vision mean?\""},
{"text":"\"I don't know what it means, Misha.\""},
{"text":"\"I knew he wouldn't explain it to you! There's nothing wonderful abou it, of course, only the usual holy mummery. But there was an object i the performance. All the pious people in the town will talk about i and spread the story through the province, wondering what it meant. T my thinking the old man really has a keen nose; he sniffed a crime Your house stinks of it.\""},
{"text":"\"What crime?\""},
{"text":"Rakitin evidently had something he was eager to speak of."},
{"text":"\"It'll be in your family, this crime. Between your brothers and you rich old father. So Father Zossima flopped down to be ready for wha may turn up. If something happens later on, it'll be: `Ah, the holy ma foresaw it, prophesied it!' though it's a poor sort of prophecy flopping like that. `Ah, but it was symbolic,' they'll say, `a allegory,' and the devil knows what all! It'll be remembered to hi glory: `He predicted the crime and marked the criminal!' That's alway the way with these crazy fanatics; they cross themselves at the taver and throw stones at the temple. Like your elder, he takes a stick to  just man and falls at the feet of a murderer.\""},
{"text":"\"What crime? What murderer? What do you mean?\""},
{"text":"Alyosha stopped dead. Rakitin stopped, too."},
{"text":"\"What murderer? As though you didn't know! I'll bet you've thought o it before. That's interesting, too, by the way. Listen, Alyosha, yo always speak the truth, though you're always between two stools. Hav you thought of it or not? Answer.\""},
{"text":"\"I have,\" answered Alyosha in a low voice. Even Rakitin was take aback."},
{"text":"\"What? Have you really?\" he cried."},
{"text":"\"I ... I've not exactly thought it,\" muttered Alyosha, \"but directl you began speaking so strangely, I fancied I had thought of it myself.\""},
{"text":"\"You see? (And how well you expressed it!) Looking at your father an your brother Mitya today you thought of a crime. Then I'm no mistaken?\""},
{"text":"\"But wait, wait a minute,\" Alyosha broke in uneasily. \"What has led yo to see all this? Why does it interest you? That's the first question.\""},
{"text":"\"Two questions, disconnected, but natural. I'll deal with the separately. What led me to see it? I shouldn't have seen it, if  hadn't suddenly understood your brother Dmitri, seen right into th very heart of him all at once. I caught the whole man from one trait These very honest but passionate people have a line which mustn't b crossed. If it were, he'd run at your father with a knife. But you father's a drunken and abandoned old sinner, who can never draw th line--if they both let themselves go, they'll both come to grief.\""},
{"text":"\"No, Misha, no. If that's all, you've reassured me. It won't come t that.\""},
{"text":"\"But why are you trembling? Let me tell you; he may be honest, ou Mitya (he is stupid, but honest), but he's--a sensualist. That's th very definition and inner essence of him. It's your father has hande him on his low sensuality. Do you know, I simply wonder at you Alyosha, how you can have kept your purity. You're a Karamazov too, yo know! In your family sensuality is carried to a disease. But now, thes three sensualists are watching one another, with their knives in thei belts. The three of them are knocking their heads together, and you ma be the fourth.\""},
{"text":"\"You are mistaken about that woman. Dmitri--despises her,\" sai Alyosha, with a sort of shudder."},
{"text":"\"Grushenka? No, brother, he doesn't despise her. Since he has openl abandoned his betrothed for her, he doesn't despise her. There' something here, my dear boy, that you don't understand yet. A man wil fall in love with some beauty, with a woman's body, or even with a par of a woman's body (a sensualist can understand that), and he'll abando his own children for her, sell his father and mother, and his country Russia, too. If he's honest, he'll steal; if he's humane, he'll murder if he's faithful, he'll deceive. Pushkin, the poet of women's feet sung of their feet in his verse. Others don't sing their praises, bu they can't look at their feet without a thrill--and it's not onl their feet. Contempt's no help here, brother, even if he did despis Grushenka. He does, but he can't tear himself away.\""},
{"text":"\"I understand that,\" Alyosha jerked out suddenly."},
{"text":"\"Really? Well, I dare say you do understand, since you blurt it out a the first word,\" said Rakitin, malignantly. \"That escaped you unawares and the confession's the more precious. So it's a familiar subject you've thought about it already, about sensuality, I mean! Oh, yo virgin soul! You're a quiet one, Alyosha, you're a saint, I know, bu the devil only knows what you've thought about, and what you kno already! You are pure, but you've been down into the depths. ... I'v been watching you a long time. You're a Karamazov yourself; you're  thorough Karamazov--no doubt birth and selection have something t answer for. You're a sensualist from your father, a crazy saint fro your mother. Why do you tremble? Is it true, then? Do you know Grushenka has been begging me to bring you along. `I'll pull off hi cassock,' she says. You can't think how she keeps begging me to brin you. I wondered why she took such an interest in you. Do you know she's an extraordinary woman, too!\""},
{"text":"\"Thank her and say I'm not coming,\" said Alyosha, with a straine smile. \"Finish what you were saying, Misha. I'll tell you my ide after.\""},
{"text":"\"There's nothing to finish. It's all clear. It's the same old tune brother. If even you are a sensualist at heart, what of your brother Ivan? He's a Karamazov, too. What is at the root of all you Karamazov is that you're all sensual, grasping and crazy! Your brother Iva writes theological articles in joke, for some idiotic, unknown motiv of his own, though he's an atheist, and he admits it's a frau himself--that's your brother Ivan. He's trying to get Mitya' betrothed for himself, and I fancy he'll succeed, too. And what's more it's with Mitya's consent. For Mitya will surrender his betrothed t him to be rid of her, and escape to Grushenka. And he's ready to d that in spite of all his nobility and disinterestedness. Observe that Those are the most fatal people! Who the devil can make you out? H recognizes his vileness and goes on with it! Let me tell you, too, th old man, your father, is standing in Mitya's way now. He has suddenl gone crazy over Grushenka. His mouth waters at the sight of her. It' simply on her account he made that scene in the cell just now, simpl because Misov called her an `abandoned creature.' He's worse than  tomcat in love. At first she was only employed by him in connectio with his taverns and in some other shady business, but now he ha suddenly realized all she is and has gone wild about her. He keep pestering her with his offers, not honorable ones, of course. An they'll come into collision, the precious father and son, on that path But Grushenka favors neither of them, she's still playing with them and teasing them both, considering which she can get most out of. Fo though she could filch a lot of money from the papa he wouldn't marr her, and maybe he'll turn stingy in the end, and keep his purse shut That's where Mitya's value comes in; he has no money, but he's ready t marry her. Yes, ready to marry her! to abandon his betrothed, a rar beauty, Katerina Ivanovna, who's rich, and the daughter of a colonel and to marry Grushenka, who has been the mistress of a dissolute ol merchant, Samsonov, a coarse, uneducated, provincial mayor. Som murderous conflict may well come to pass from all this, and that's wha your brother Ivan is waiting for. It would suit him down to the ground He'll carry off Katerina Ivanovna, for whom he is languishing, an pocket her dowry of sixty thousand. That's very alluring to start with for a man of no consequence and a beggar. And, take note, he won't b wronging Mitya, but doing him the greatest service. For I know as  fact that Mitya only last week, when he was with some gypsy girls drun in a tavern, cried out aloud that he was unworthy of his betrothed Katya, but that his brother Ivan, he was the man who deserved her. An Katerina Ivanovna will not in the end refuse such a fascinating man a Ivan. She's hesitating between the two of them already. And how ha that Ivan won you all, so that you all worship him? He is laughing a you, and enjoying himself at your expense.\""},
{"text":"\"How do you know? How can you speak so confidently?\" Alyosha aske sharply, frowning."},
{"text":"\"Why do you ask, and are frightened at my answer? It shows that yo know I'm speaking the truth.\""},
{"text":"\"You don't like Ivan. Ivan wouldn't be tempted by money.\""},
{"text":"\"Really? And the beauty of Katerina Ivanovna? It's not only the money though a fortune of sixty thousand is an attraction.\""},
{"text":"\"Ivan is above that. He wouldn't make up to anyone for thousands. It i not money, it's not comfort Ivan is seeking. Perhaps it's suffering h is seeking.\""},
{"text":"\"What wild dream now? Oh, you--aristocrats!\""},
{"text":"\"Ah, Misha, he has a stormy spirit. His mind is in bondage. He i haunted by a great, unsolved doubt. He is one of those who don't wan millions, but an answer to their questions.\""},
{"text":"\"That's plagiarism, Alyosha. You're quoting your elder's phrases. Ah Ivan has set you a problem!\" cried Rakitin, with undisguised malice His face changed, and his lips twitched. \"And the problem's a stupi one. It is no good guessing it. Rack your brains--you'll understan it. His article is absurd and ridiculous. And did you hear his stupi theory just now: if there's no immortality of the soul, then there's n virtue, and everything is lawful. (And by the way, do you remember ho your brother Mitya cried out: `I will remember!') An attractive theor for scoundrels!--(I'm being abusive, that's stupid.) Not fo scoundrels, but for pedantic poseurs, `haunted by profound, unsolve doubts.' He's showing off, and what it all comes to is, `on the on hand we cannot but admit' and `on the other it must be confessed!' Hi whole theory is a fraud! Humanity will find in itself the power to liv for virtue even without believing in immortality. It will find it i love for freedom, for equality, for fraternity.\""},
{"text":"Rakitin could hardly restrain himself in his heat, but, suddenly, a though remembering something, he stopped short."},
{"text":"\"Well, that's enough,\" he said, with a still more crooked smile. \"Wh are you laughing? Do you think I'm a vulgar fool?\""},
{"text":"\"No, I never dreamed of thinking you a vulgar fool. You are clever but ... never mind, I was silly to smile. I understand your getting ho about it, Misha. I guess from your warmth that you are not indifferen to Katerina Ivanovna yourself; I've suspected that for a long time brother, that's why you don't like my brother Ivan. Are you jealous o him?\""},
{"text":"\"And jealous of her money, too? Won't you add that?\""},
{"text":"\"I'll say nothing about money. I am not going to insult you.\""},
{"text":"\"I believe it, since you say so, but confound you, and your brothe Ivan with you. Don't you understand that one might very well dislik him, apart from Katerina Ivanovna. And why the devil should I like him He condescends to abuse me, you know. Why haven't I a right to abus him?\""},
{"text":"\"I never heard of his saying anything about you, good or bad. H doesn't speak of you at all.\""},
{"text":"\"But I heard that the day before yesterday at Katerina Ivanovna's h was abusing me for all he was worth--you see what an interest he take in your humble servant. And which is the jealous one after that brother, I can't say. He was so good as to express the opinion that, i I don't go in for the career of an archimandrite in the immediat future and don't become a monk, I shall be sure to go to Petersburg an get on to some solid magazine as a reviewer, that I shall write for th next ten years, and in the end become the owner of the magazine, an bring it out on the liberal and atheistic side, with a socialisti tinge, with a tiny gloss of socialism, but keeping a sharp look out al the time, that is, keeping in with both sides and hoodwinking th fools. According to your brother's account, the tinge of socialis won't hinder me from laying by the proceeds and investing them unde the guidance of some Jew, till at the end of my career I build a grea house in Petersburg and move my publishing offices to it, and let ou the upper stories to lodgers. He has even chosen the place for it, nea the new stone bridge across the Neva, which they say is to be built i Petersburg.\""},
{"text":"\"Ah, Misha, that's just what will really happen, every word of it,\"cried Alyosha, unable to restrain a good-humored smile."},
{"text":"\"You are pleased to be sarcastic, too, Alexey Fyodorovitch.\""},
{"text":"\"No, no, I'm joking, forgive me. I've something quite different in m mind. But, excuse me, who can have told you all this? You can't hav been at Katerina Ivanovna's yourself when he was talking about you?\""},
{"text":"\"I wasn't there, but Dmitri Fyodorovitch was; and I heard him tell i with my own ears; if you want to know, he didn't tell me, but  overheard him, unintentionally, of course, for I was sitting i Grushenka's bedroom and I couldn't go away because Dmitri Fyodorovitc was in the next room.\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, yes, I'd forgotten she was a relation of yours.\""},
{"text":"\"A relation! That Grushenka a relation of mine!\" cried Rakitin, turnin crimson. \"Are you mad? You're out of your mind!\""},
{"text":"\"Why, isn't she a relation of yours? I heard so.\""},
{"text":"\"Where can you have heard it? You Karamazovs brag of being an ancient noble family, though your father used to run about playing the buffoo at other men's tables, and was only admitted to the kitchen as a favor I may be only a priest's son, and dirt in the eyes of noblemen lik you, but don't insult me so lightly and wantonly. I have a sense o honor, too, Alexey Fyodorovitch, I couldn't be a relation of Grushenka a common harlot. I beg you to understand that!\""},
{"text":"Rakitin was intensely irritated."},
{"text":"\"Forgive me, for goodness' sake, I had no idea ... besides ... ho can you call her a harlot? Is she ... that sort of woman?\" Alyosh flushed suddenly. \"I tell you again, I heard that she was a relation o yours. You often go to see her, and you told me yourself you're not he lover. I never dreamed that you of all people had such contempt fo her! Does she really deserve it?\""},
{"text":"\"I may have reasons of my own for visiting her. That's not you business. But as for relationship, your brother, or even your father is more likely to make her yours than mine. Well, here we are. You' better go to the kitchen. Hullo! what's wrong, what is it? Are we late They can't have finished dinner so soon! Have the Karamazovs bee making trouble again? No doubt they have. Here's your father and you brother Ivan after him. They've broken out from the Father Superior's And look, Father Isidor's shouting out something after them from th steps. And your father's shouting and waving his arms. I expect he' swearing. Bah, and there goes Misov driving away in his carriage. Yo see, he's going. And there's old Maximov running!--there must hav been a row. There can't have been any dinner. Surely they've not bee beating the Father Superior! Or have they, perhaps, been beaten? I would serve them right!\""},
{"text":"There was reason for Rakitin's exclamations. There had been  scandalous, an unprecedented scene. It had all come from the impulse o a moment."},
{"text":" VIII"},
{"text":"The Scandalous Scene"},
{"text":"Misov, as a man of breeding and delicacy, could not but feel som inward qualms, when he reached the Father Superior's with Ivan: he fel ashamed of having lost his temper. He felt that he ought to hav disdained that despicable wretch, Fyodor Pavlovitch, too much to hav been upset by him in Father Zossima's cell, and so to have forgotte himself. \"The monks were not to blame, in any case,\" he reflected, o the steps. \"And if they're decent people here (and the Father Superior I understand, is a nobleman) why not be friendly and courteous wit them? I won't argue, I'll fall in with everything, I'll win them b politeness, and ... and ... show them that I've nothing to do wit that Aesop, that buffoon, that Pierrot, and have merely been taken i over this affair, just as they have.\""},
{"text":"He determined to drop his litigation with the monastery, and relinquis his claims to the wood-cutting and fishery rights at once. He was th more ready to do this because the rights had become much less valuable and he had indeed the vaguest idea where the wood and river in questio were."},
{"text":"These excellent intentions were strengthened when he entered the Fathe Superior's dining-room, though, strictly speaking, it was not  dining-room, for the Father Superior had only two rooms altogether they were, however, much larger and more comfortable than Fathe Zossima's. But there was no great luxury about the furnishing of thes rooms either. The furniture was of mahogany, covered with leather, i the old-fashioned style of 1820; the floor was not even stained, bu everything was shining with cleanliness, and there were many choic flowers in the windows; the most sumptuous thing in the room at th moment was, of course, the beautifully decorated table. The cloth wa clean, the service shone; there were three kinds of well-baked bread two bottles of wine, two of excellent mead, and a large glass jug o kvass--both the latter made in the monastery, and famous in th neighborhood. There was no vodka. Rakitin related afterwards that ther were five dishes: fish-soup made of sterlets, served with little fis patties; then boiled fish served in a special way; then salmon cutlets ice pudding and compote, and finally, blancmange. Rakitin found ou about all these good things, for he could not resist peeping into th kitchen, where he already had a footing. He had a footing everywhere and got information about everything. He was of an uneasy and enviou temper. He was well aware of his own considerable abilities, an nervously exaggerated them in his self-conceit. He knew he would play  prominent part of some sort, but Alyosha, who was attached to him, wa distressed to see that his friend Rakitin was dishonorable, and quit unconscious of being so himself, considering, on the contrary, tha because he would not steal money left on the table he was a man of th highest integrity. Neither Alyosha nor anyone else could hav influenced him in that."},
{"text":"Rakitin, of course, was a person of too little consequence to b invited to the dinner, to which Father Iosif, Father Passy, and on other monk were the only inmates of the monastery invited. They wer already waiting when Misov, Kalganov, and Ivan arrived. The othe guest, Maximov, stood a little aside, waiting also. The Father Superio stepped into the middle of the room to receive his guests. He was  tall, thin, but still vigorous old man, with black hair streaked wit gray, and a long, grave, ascetic face. He bowed to his guests i silence. But this time they approached to receive his blessing. Miso even tried to kiss his hand, but the Father Superior drew it back i time to avoid the salute. But Ivan and Kalganov went through th ceremony in the most simple-hearted and complete manner, kissing hi hand as peasants do."},
{"text":"\"We must apologize most humbly, your reverence,\" began Misov simpering affably, and speaking in a dignified and respectful tone \"Pardon us for having come alone without the gentleman you invited Fyodor Pavlovitch. He felt obliged to decline the honor of you hospitality, and not without reason. In the reverend Father Zossima' cell he was carried away by the unhappy dissension with his son, an let fall words which were quite out of keeping ... in fact, quit unseemly ... as\"--he glanced at the monks--\"your reverence is, n doubt, already aware. And therefore, recognizing that he had been t blame, he felt sincere regret and shame, and begged me, and his so Ivan Fyodorovitch, to convey to you his apologies and regrets. I brief, he hopes and desires to make amends later. He asks you blessing, and begs you to forget what has taken place.\""},
{"text":"As he uttered the last word of his tirade, Misov completely recovere his self-complacency, and all traces of his former irritatio disappeared. He fully and sincerely loved humanity again."},
{"text":"The Father Superior listened to him with dignity, and, with a sligh bend of the head, replied:"},
{"text":"\"I sincerely deplore his absence. Perhaps at our table he might hav learnt to like us, and we him. Pray be seated, gentlemen.\""},
{"text":"He stood before the holy image, and began to say grace, aloud. All ben their heads reverently, and Maximov clasped his hands before him, wit peculiar fervor."},
{"text":"It was at this moment that Fyodor Pavlovitch played his last prank. I must be noted that he really had meant to go home, and really had fel the impossibility of going to dine with the Father Superior as thoug nothing had happened, after his disgraceful behavior in the elder' cell. Not that he was so very much ashamed of himself--quite th contrary perhaps. But still he felt it would be unseemly to go t dinner. Yet his creaking carriage had hardly been brought to the step of the hotel, and he had hardly got into it, when he suddenly stoppe short. He remembered his own words at the elder's: \"I always feel whe I meet people that I am lower than all, and that they all take me for  buffoon; so I say let me play the buffoon, for you are, every one o you, stupider and lower than I.\" He longed to revenge himself o everyone for his own unseemliness. He suddenly recalled how he had onc in the past been asked, \"Why do you hate so-and-so, so much?\" And h had answered them, with his shameless impudence, \"I'll tell you. He ha done me no harm. But I played him a dirty trick, and ever since I hav hated him.\""},
{"text":"Remembering that now, he smiled quietly and malignantly, hesitating fo a moment. His eyes gleamed, and his lips positively quivered. \"Well since I have begun, I may as well go on,\" he decided. His predominan sensation at that moment might be expressed in the following words \"Well, there is no rehabilitating myself now. So let me shame them fo all I am worth. I will show them I don't care what they think--that' all!\""},
{"text":"He told the coachman to wait, while with rapid steps he returned to th monastery and straight to the Father Superior's. He had no clear ide what he would do, but he knew that he could not control himself, an that a touch might drive him to the utmost limits of obscenity, bu only to obscenity, to nothing criminal, nothing for which he could b legally punished. In the last resort, he could always restrain himself and had marveled indeed at himself, on that score, sometimes. H appeared in the Father Superior's dining-room, at the moment when th prayer was over, and all were moving to the table. Standing in th doorway, he scanned the company, and laughing his prolonged, impudent malicious chuckle, looked them all boldly in the face. \"They thought  had gone, and here I am again,\" he cried to the whole room."},
{"text":"For one moment everyone stared at him without a word; and at onc everyone felt that something revolting, grotesque, positivel scandalous, was about to happen. Misov passed immediately from th most benevolent frame of mind to the most savage. All the feelings tha had subsided and died down in his heart revived instantly."},
{"text":"\"No! this I cannot endure!\" he cried. \"I absolutely cannot! and ...  certainly cannot!\""},
{"text":"The blood rushed to his head. He positively stammered; but he wa beyond thinking of style, and he seized his hat."},
{"text":"\"What is it he cannot?\" cried Fyodor Pavlovitch, \"that he absolutel cannot and certainly cannot? Your reverence, am I to come in or not Will you receive me as your guest?\""},
{"text":"\"You are welcome with all my heart,\" answered the Superior \"Gentlemen!\" he added, \"I venture to beg you most earnestly to la aside your dissensions, and to be united in love and famil harmony--with prayer to the Lord at our humble table.\""},
{"text":"\"No, no, it is impossible!\" cried Misov, beside himself."},
{"text":"\"Well, if it is impossible for Pyotr Alexandrovitch, it is impossibl for me, and I won't stop. That is why I came. I will keep with Pyot Alexandrovitch everywhere now. If you will go away, Pyot Alexandrovitch, I will go away too, if you remain, I will remain. Yo stung him by what you said about family harmony, Father Superior, h does not admit he is my relation. That's right, isn't it, Von Sohn Here's Von Sohn. How are you, Von Sohn?\""},
{"text":"\"Do you mean me?\" muttered Maximov, puzzled."},
{"text":"\"Of course I mean you,\" cried Fyodor Pavlovitch. \"Who else? The Fathe Superior could not be Von Sohn.\""},
{"text":"\"But I am not Von Sohn either. I am Maximov.\""},
{"text":"\"No, you are Von Sohn. Your reverence, do you know who Von Sohn was? I was a famous murder case. He was killed in a house of harlotry-- believe that is what such places are called among you--he was kille and robbed, and in spite of his venerable age, he was nailed up in  box and sent from Petersburg to Moscow in the luggage van, and whil they were nailing him up, the harlots sang songs and played the harp that is to say, the piano. So this is that very Von Sohn. He has rise from the dead, hasn't he, Von Sohn?\""},
{"text":"\"What is happening? What's this?\" voices were heard in the group o monks."},
{"text":"\"Let us go,\" cried Misov, addressing Kalganov."},
{"text":"\"No, excuse me,\" Fyodor Pavlovitch broke in shrilly, taking anothe step into the room. \"Allow me to finish. There in the cell you blame me for behaving disrespectfully just because I spoke of eating gudgeon Pyotr Alexandrovitch. Misov, my relation, prefers to have plus d noblesse que de sincrit in his words, but I prefer in mine plus d sincrit que de noblesse, and--damn the noblesse! That's right, isn' it, Von Sohn? Allow me, Father Superior, though I am a buffoon and pla the buffoon, yet I am the soul of honor, and I want to speak my mind Yes, I am the soul of honor, while in Pyotr Alexandrovitch there i wounded vanity and nothing else. I came here perhaps to have a look an speak my mind. My son, Alexey, is here, being saved. I am his father;  care for his welfare, and it is my duty to care. While I've bee playing the fool, I have been listening and having a look on the sly and now I want to give you the last act of the performance. You kno how things are with us? As a thing falls, so it lies. As a thing onc has fallen, so it must lie forever. Not a bit of it! I want to get u again. Holy Father, I am indignant with you. Confession is a grea sacrament, before which I am ready to bow down reverently; but there i the cell, they all kneel down and confess aloud. Can it be right t confess aloud? It was ordained by the holy Fathers to confess i secret: then only your confession will be a mystery, and so it was o old. But how can I explain to him before everyone that I did this an that ... well, you understand what--sometimes it would not be prope to talk about it--so it is really a scandal! No, Fathers, one might b carried along with you to the Flagellants, I dare say ... at th first opportunity I shall write to the Synod, and I shall take my son Alexey, home.\""},
{"text":"We must note here that Fyodor Pavlovitch knew where to look for th weak spot. There had been at one time malicious rumors which had eve reached the Archbishop (not only regarding our monastery, but in other where the institution of elders existed) that too much respect was pai to the elders, even to the detriment of the authority of the Superior that the elders abused the sacrament of confession and so on and s on--absurd charges which had died away of themselves everywhere. Bu the spirit of folly, which had caught up Fyodor Pavlovitch, and wa bearing him on the current of his own nerves into lower and lowe depths of ignominy, prompted him with this old slander. Fyodo Pavlovitch did not understand a word of it, and he could not even pu it sensibly, for on this occasion no one had been kneeling an confessing aloud in the elder's cell, so that he could not have see anything of the kind. He was only speaking from confused memory of ol slanders. But as soon as he had uttered his foolish tirade, he felt h had been talking absurd nonsense, and at once longed to prove to hi audience, and above all to himself, that he had not been talkin nonsense. And, though he knew perfectly well that with each word h would be adding more and more absurdity, he could not restrain himself and plunged forward blindly."},
{"text":"\"How disgraceful!\" cried Pyotr Alexandrovitch."},
{"text":"\"Pardon me!\" said the Father Superior. \"It was said of old, `Many hav begun to speak against me and have uttered evil sayings about me. An hearing it I have said to myself: it is the correction of the Lord an He has sent it to heal my vain soul.' And so we humbly thank you honored guest!\" and he made Fyodor Pavlovitch a low bow."},
{"text":"\"Tut--tut--tut--sanctimoniousness and stock phrases! Old phrases an old gestures. The old lies and formal prostrations. We know all abou them. A kiss on the lips and a dagger in the heart, as in Schiller' Robbers. I don't like falsehood, Fathers, I want the truth. But th truth is not to be found in eating gudgeon and that I proclaim aloud Father monks, why do you fast? Why do you expect reward in heaven fo that? Why, for reward like that I will come and fast too! No, saintl monk, you try being virtuous in the world, do good to society, withou shutting yourself up in a monastery at other people's expense, an without expecting a reward up aloft for it--you'll find that a bi harder. I can talk sense, too, Father Superior. What have they go here?\" He went up to the table. \"Old port wine, mead brewed by th Eliseyev Brothers. Fie, fie, fathers! That is something beyond gudgeon Look at the bottles the fathers have brought out, he he he! And who ha provided it all? The Russian peasant, the laborer, brings here th farthing earned by his horny hand, wringing it from his family and th tax-gatherer! You bleed the people, you know, holy fathers.\""},
{"text":"\"This is too disgraceful!\" said Father Iosif."},
{"text":"Father Passy kept obstinately silent. Misov rushed from the room, an Kalganov after him."},
{"text":"\"Well, Father, I will follow Pyotr Alexandrovitch! I am not coming t see you again. You may beg me on your knees, I shan't come. I sent yo a thousand roubles, so you have begun to keep your eye on me. He he he No, I'll say no more. I am taking my revenge for my youth, for all th humiliation I endured.\" He thumped the table with his fist in  paroxysm of simulated feeling. \"This monastery has played a great par in my life! It has cost me many bitter tears. You used to set my wife the crazy one, against me. You cursed me with bell and book, you sprea stories about me all over the place. Enough, fathers! This is the ag of Liberalism, the age of steamers and railways. Neither a thousand nor a hundred roubles, no, nor a hundred farthings will you get out o me!\""},
{"text":"It must be noted again that our monastery never had played any grea part in his life, and he never had shed a bitter tear owing to it. Bu he was so carried away by his simulated emotion, that he was for on moment almost believing it himself. He was so touched he was almos weeping. But at that very instant, he felt that it was time to dra back."},
{"text":"The Father Superior bowed his head at his malicious lie, and agai spoke impressively:"},
{"text":"\"It is written again, `Bear circumspectly and gladly dishonor tha cometh upon thee by no act of thine own, be not confounded and hate no him who hath dishonored thee.' And so will we.\""},
{"text":"\"Tut, tut, tut! Bethinking thyself and the rest of the rigmarole Bethink yourselves, Fathers, I will go. But I will take my son, Alexey away from here forever, on my parental authority. Ivan Fyodorovitch, m most dutiful son, permit me to order you to follow me. Von Sohn, wha have you to stay for? Come and see me now in the town. It is fun there It is only one short verst; instead of lenten oil, I will give yo sucking-pig and kasha. We will have dinner with some brandy and liqueu to it. ... I've cloudberry wine. Hey, Von Sohn, don't lose you chance.\" He went out, shouting and gesticulating."},
{"text":"It was at that moment Rakitin saw him and pointed him out to Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"Alexey!\" his father shouted, from far off, catching sight of him. \"Yo come home to me today, for good, and bring your pillow and mattress and leave no trace behind.\""},
{"text":"Alyosha stood rooted to the spot, watching the scene in silence Meanwhile, Fyodor Pavlovitch had got into the carriage, and Ivan wa about to follow him in grim silence without even turning to say goodby to Alyosha. But at this point another almost incredible scene o grotesque buffoonery gave the finishing touch to the episode. Maximo suddenly appeared by the side of the carriage. He ran up, panting afraid of being too late. Rakitin and Alyosha saw him running. He wa in such a hurry that in his impatience he put his foot on the step o which Ivan's left foot was still resting, and clutching the carriage h kept trying to jump in. \"I am going with you!\" he kept shouting laughing a thin mirthful laugh with a look of reckless glee in hi face. \"Take me, too.\""},
{"text":"\"There!\" cried Fyodor Pavlovitch, delighted. \"Did I not say he was Vo Sohn. It is Von Sohn himself, risen from the dead. Why, how did yo tear yourself away? What did you vonsohn there? And how could you ge away from the dinner? You must be a brazen-faced fellow! I am tha myself, but I am surprised at you, brother! Jump in, jump in! Let hi pass, Ivan. It will be fun. He can lie somewhere at our feet. Will yo lie at our feet, Von Sohn? Or perch on the box with the coachman. Ski on to the box, Von Sohn!\""},
{"text":"But Ivan, who had by now taken his seat, without a word gave Maximov  violent punch in the breast and sent him flying. It was quite by chanc he did not fall."},
{"text":"\"Drive on!\" Ivan shouted angrily to the coachman."},
{"text":"\"Why, what are you doing, what are you about? Why did you do that?\"Fyodor Pavlovitch protested."},
{"text":"But the carriage had already driven away. Ivan made no reply."},
{"text":"\"Well, you are a fellow,\" Fyodor Pavlovitch said again."},
{"text":"After a pause of two minutes, looking askance at his son, \"Why, it wa you got up all this monastery business. You urged it, you approved o it. Why are you angry now?\""},
{"text":"\"You've talked rot enough. You might rest a bit now,\" Ivan snappe sullenly."},
{"text":"Fyodor Pavlovitch was silent again for two minutes."},
{"text":"\"A drop of brandy would be nice now,\" he observed sententiously, bu Ivan made no response."},
{"text":"\"You shall have some, too, when we get home.\""},
{"text":"Ivan was still silent."},
{"text":"Fyodor Pavlovitch waited another two minutes."},
{"text":"\"But I shall take Alyosha away from the monastery, though you wil dislike it so much, most honored Karl von Moor.\""},
{"text":"Ivan shrugged his shoulders contemptuously, and turning away stared a the road. And they did not speak again all the way home."},
{"text":"ook III"},
{"text":"The Sensualists"},
{"text":" I"},
{"text":"In the Servants' Quarters"},
{"text":"The Karamazovs' house was far from being in the center of the town, bu it was not quite outside it. It was a pleasant-looking old house of tw stories, painted gray, with a red iron roof. It was roomy and snug, an might still last many years. There were all sorts of unexpected littl cupboards and closets and staircases. There were rats in it, but Fyodo Pavlovitch did not altogether dislike them. \"One doesn't feel s solitary when one's left alone in the evening,\" he used to say. It wa his habit to send the servants away to the lodge for the night and t lock himself up alone. The lodge was a roomy and solid building in th yard. Fyodor Pavlovitch used to have the cooking done there, althoug there was a kitchen in the house; he did not like the smell of cooking and, winter and summer alike, the dishes were carried in across th courtyard. The house was built for a large family; there was room fo five times as many, with their servants. But at the time of our stor there was no one living in the house but Fyodor Pavlovitch and his so Ivan. And in the lodge there were only three servants: old Grigory, an his old wife Marfa, and a young man called Smerdyakov. Of these thre we must say a few words. Of old Grigory we have said something already He was firm and determined and went blindly and obstinately for hi object, if once he had been brought by any reasons (and they were ofte very illogical ones) to believe that it was immutably right. He wa honest and incorruptible. His wife, Marfa Ignatyevna, had obeyed he husband's will implicitly all her life, yet she had pestered hi terribly after the emancipation of the serfs. She was set on leavin Fyodor Pavlovitch and opening a little shop in Moscow with their smal savings. But Grigory decided then, once for all, that \"the woman' talking nonsense, for every woman is dishonest,\" and that they ough not to leave their old master, whatever he might be, for \"that was no their duty.\""},
{"text":"\"Do you understand what duty is?\" he asked Marfa Ignatyevna."},
{"text":"\"I understand what duty means, Grigory Vassilyevitch, but why it's ou duty to stay here I never shall understand,\" Marfa answered firmly."},
{"text":"\"Well, don't understand then. But so it shall be. And you hold you tongue.\""},
{"text":"And so it was. They did not go away, and Fyodor Pavlovitch promise them a small sum for wages, and paid it regularly. Grigory knew, too that he had an indisputable influence over his master. It was true, an he was aware of it. Fyodor Pavlovitch was an obstinate and cunnin buffoon, yet, though his will was strong enough \"in some of the affair of life,\" as he expressed it, he found himself, to his surprise extremely feeble in facing certain other emergencies. He knew hi weaknesses and was afraid of them. There are positions in which one ha to keep a sharp look out. And that's not easy without a trustworth man, and Grigory was a most trustworthy man. Many times in the cours of his life Fyodor Pavlovitch had only just escaped a sound thrashin through Grigory's intervention, and on each occasion the old servan gave him a good lecture. But it wasn't only thrashings that Fyodo Pavlovitch was afraid of. There were graver occasions, and very subtl and complicated ones, when Fyodor Pavlovitch could not have explaine the extraordinary craving for someone faithful and devoted, whic sometimes unaccountably came upon him all in a moment. It was almost  morbid condition. Corrupt and often cruel in his lust, like som noxious insect, Fyodor Pavlovitch was sometimes, in moments o drunkenness, overcome by superstitious terror and a moral convulsio which took an almost physical form. \"My soul's simply quaking in m throat at those times,\" he used to say. At such moments he liked t feel that there was near at hand, in the lodge if not in the room,  strong, faithful man, virtuous and unlike himself, who had seen all hi debauchery and knew all his secrets, but was ready in his devotion t overlook all that, not to oppose him, above all, not to reproach him o threaten him with anything, either in this world or in the next, and in case of need, to defend him--from whom? From somebody unknown, bu terrible and dangerous. What he needed was to feel that there wa another man, an old and tried friend, that he might call him in hi sick moments merely to look at his face, or, perhaps, exchange som quite irrelevant words with him. And if the old servant were not angry he felt comforted, and if he were angry, he was more dejected. I happened even (very rarely however) that Fyodor Pavlovitch went a night to the lodge to wake Grigory and fetch him for a moment. When th old man came, Fyodor Pavlovitch would begin talking about the mos trivial matters, and would soon let him go again, sometimes even with  jest. And after he had gone, Fyodor Pavlovitch would get into bed wit a curse and sleep the sleep of the just. Something of the same sort ha happened to Fyodor Pavlovitch on Alyosha's arrival. Alyosha \"pierce his heart\" by \"living with him, seeing everything and blaming nothing.\"Moreover, Alyosha brought with him something his father had never know before: a complete absence of contempt for him and an invariabl kindness, a perfectly natural unaffected devotion to the old man wh deserved it so little. All this was a complete surprise to the ol profligate, who had dropped all family ties. It was a new an surprising experience for him, who had till then loved nothing bu \"evil.\" When Alyosha had left him, he confessed to himself that he ha learnt something he had not till then been willing to learn."},
{"text":"I have mentioned already that Grigory had detested Adelada Ivanovna the first wife of Fyodor Pavlovitch and the mother of Dmitri, and tha he had, on the contrary, protected Sofya Ivanovna, the poor \"craz woman,\" against his master and anyone who chanced to speak ill o lightly of her. His sympathy for the unhappy wife had become somethin sacred to him, so that even now, twenty years after, he could not bea a slighting allusion to her from anyone, and would at once check th offender. Externally, Grigory was cold, dignified and taciturn, an spoke, weighing his words, without frivolity. It was impossible to tel at first sight whether he loved his meek, obedient wife; but he reall did love her, and she knew it."},
{"text":"Marfa Ignatyevna was by no means foolish; she was probably, indeed cleverer than her husband, or, at least, more prudent than he i worldly affairs, and yet she had given in to him in everything withou question or complaint ever since her marriage, and respected him fo his spiritual superiority. It was remarkable how little they spoke t one another in the course of their lives, and only of the mos necessary daily affairs. The grave and dignified Grigory thought ove all his cares and duties alone, so that Marfa Ignatyevna had long grow used to knowing that he did not need her advice. She felt that he husband respected her silence, and took it as a sign of her good sense He had never beaten her but once, and then only slightly. Once durin the year after Fyodor Pavlovitch's marriage with Adelada Ivanovna, th village girls and women--at that time serfs--were called togethe before the house to sing and dance. They were beginning \"In the Gree Meadows,\" when Marfa, at that time a young woman, skipped forward an danced \"the Russian Dance,\" not in the village fashion, but as she ha danced it when she was a servant in the service of the rich Miso family, in their private theater, where the actors were taught to danc by a dancing master from Moscow. Grigory saw how his wife danced, and an hour later, at home in their cottage he gave her a lesson, pullin her hair a little. But there it ended: the beating was never repeated and Marfa Ignatyevna gave up dancing."},
{"text":"God had not blessed them with children. One child was born but it died Grigory was fond of children, and was not ashamed of showing it. Whe Adelada Ivanovna had run away, Grigory took Dmitri, then a child o three years old, combed his hair and washed him in a tub with his ow hands, and looked after him for almost a year. Afterwards he had looke after Ivan and Alyosha, for which the general's widow had rewarded hi with a slap in the face; but I have already related all that. The onl happiness his own child had brought him had been in the anticipation o its birth. When it was born, he was overwhelmed with grief and horror The baby had six fingers. Grigory was so crushed by this, that he wa not only silent till the day of the christening, but kept away in th garden. It was spring, and he spent three days digging the kitche garden. The third day was fixed for christening the baby: meantim Grigory had reached a conclusion. Going into the cottage where th clergy were assembled and the visitors had arrived, including Fyodo Pavlovitch, who was to stand godfather, he suddenly announced that th baby \"ought not to be christened at all.\" He announced this quietly briefly, forcing out his words, and gazing with dull intentness at th priest."},
{"text":"\"Why not?\" asked the priest with good-humored surprise."},
{"text":"\"Because it's a dragon,\" muttered Grigory."},
{"text":"\"A dragon? What dragon?\""},
{"text":"Grigory did not speak for some time. \"It's a confusion of nature,\" h muttered vaguely, but firmly, and obviously unwilling to say more."},
{"text":"They laughed, and of course christened the poor baby. Grigory praye earnestly at the font, but his opinion of the newborn child remaine unchanged. Yet he did not interfere in any way. As long as the sickl infant lived he scarcely looked at it, tried indeed not to notice it and for the most part kept out of the cottage. But when, at the end o a fortnight, the baby died of thrush, he himself laid the child in it little coffin, looked at it in profound grief, and when they wer filling up the shallow little grave he fell on his knees and bowed dow to the earth. He did not for years afterwards mention his child, no did Marfa speak of the baby before him, and, even if Grigory were no present, she never spoke of it above a whisper. Marfa observed that from the day of the burial, he devoted himself to \"religion,\" and too to reading the Lives of the Saints, for the most part sitting alone an in silence, and always putting on his big, round, silver-rimme spectacles. He rarely read aloud, only perhaps in Lent. He was fond o the Book of Job, and had somehow got hold of a copy of the sayings an sermons of \"the God-fearing Father Isaac the Syrian,\" which he rea persistently for years together, understanding very little of it, bu perhaps prizing and loving it the more for that. Of late he had begu to listen to the doctrines of the sect of Flagellants settled in th neighborhood. He was evidently shaken by them, but judged it unfittin to go over to the new faith. His habit of theological reading gave hi an expression of still greater gravity."},
{"text":"He was perhaps predisposed to mysticism. And the birth of his deforme child, and its death, had, as though by special design, bee accompanied by another strange and marvelous event, which, as he sai later, had left a \"stamp\" upon his soul. It happened that, on the ver night after the burial of his child, Marfa was awakened by the wail o a newborn baby. She was frightened and waked her husband. He listene and said he thought it was more like someone groaning, \"it might be  woman.\" He got up and dressed. It was a rather warm night in May. As h went down the steps, he distinctly heard groans coming from the garden But the gate from the yard into the garden was locked at night, an there was no other way of entering it, for it was enclosed all round b a strong, high fence. Going back into the house, Grigory lighted  lantern, took the garden key, and taking no notice of the hysterica fears of his wife, who was still persuaded that she heard a chil crying, and that it was her own baby crying and calling for her, wen into the garden in silence. There he heard at once that the groans cam from the bathhouse that stood near the garden gate, and that they wer the groans of a woman. Opening the door of the bathhouse, he saw  sight which petrified him. An idiot girl, who wandered about th streets and was known to the whole town by the nickname of Lizavet Smerdyastchaya (Stinking Lizaveta), had got into the bathhouse and ha just given birth to a child. She lay dying with the baby beside her She said nothing, for she had never been able to speak. But her stor needs a chapter to itself."},
{"text":" II"},
{"text":"Lizaveta"},
{"text":"There was one circumstance which struck Grigory particularly, an confirmed a very unpleasant and revolting suspicion. This Lizaveta wa a dwarfish creature, \"not five foot within a wee bit,\" as many of th pious old women said pathetically about her, after her death. He broad, healthy, red face had a look of blank idiocy and the fixed star in her eyes was unpleasant, in spite of their meek expression. Sh wandered about, summer and winter alike, barefooted, wearing nothin but a hempen smock. Her coarse, almost black hair curled like lamb' wool, and formed a sort of huge cap on her head. It was always cruste with mud, and had leaves, bits of stick, and shavings clinging to it as she always slept on the ground and in the dirt. Her father,  homeless, sickly drunkard, called Ilya, had lost everything and live many years as a workman with some well-to-do tradespeople. Her mothe had long been dead. Spiteful and diseased, Ilya used to beat Lizavet inhumanly whenever she returned to him. But she rarely did so, fo everyone in the town was ready to look after her as being an idiot, an so specially dear to God. Ilya's employers, and many others in th town, especially of the tradespeople, tried to clothe her better, an always rigged her out with high boots and sheepskin coat for th winter. But, although she allowed them to dress her up withou resisting, she usually went away, preferably to the cathedral porch and taking off all that had been given her--kerchief, sheepskin, skir or boots--she left them there and walked away barefoot in her smock a before. It happened on one occasion that a new governor of th province, making a tour of inspection in our town, saw Lizaveta, an was wounded in his tenderest susceptibilities. And though he was tol she was an idiot, he pronounced that for a young woman of twenty t wander about in nothing but a smock was a breach of the proprieties and must not occur again. But the governor went his way, and Lizavet was left as she was. At last her father died, which made her even mor acceptable in the eyes of the religious persons of the town, as a orphan. In fact, everyone seemed to like her; even the boys did no tease her, and the boys of our town, especially the schoolboys, are  mischievous set. She would walk into strange houses, and no one drov her away. Everyone was kind to her and gave her something. If she wer given a copper, she would take it, and at once drop it in the alms-ju of the church or prison. If she were given a roll or bun in the market she would hand it to the first child she met. Sometimes she would sto one of the richest ladies in the town and give it to her, and the lad would be pleased to take it. She herself never tasted anything bu black bread and water. If she went into an expensive shop, where ther were costly goods or money lying about, no one kept watch on her, fo they knew that if she saw thousands of roubles overlooked by them, sh would not have touched a farthing. She scarcely ever went to church She slept either in the church porch or climbed over a hurdle (ther are many hurdles instead of fences to this day in our town) into  kitchen garden. She used at least once a week to turn up \"at home,\"that is at the house of her father's former employers, and in th winter went there every night, and slept either in the passage or th cowhouse. People were amazed that she could stand such a life, but sh was accustomed to it, and, although she was so tiny, she was of  robust constitution. Some of the townspeople declared that she did al this only from pride, but that is hardly credible. She could hardl speak, and only from time to time uttered an inarticulate grunt. Ho could she have been proud?"},
{"text":"It happened one clear, warm, moonlight night in September (many year ago) five or six drunken revelers were returning from the club at  very late hour, according to our provincial notions. They passe through the \"back-way,\" which led between the back gardens of th houses, with hurdles on either side. This way leads out on to th bridge over the long, stinking pool which we were accustomed to call  river. Among the nettles and burdocks under the hurdle our revelers sa Lizaveta asleep. They stopped to look at her, laughing, and bega jesting with unbridled licentiousness. It occurred to one youn gentleman to make the whimsical inquiry whether anyone could possibl look upon such an animal as a woman, and so forth. ... They al pronounced with lofty repugnance that it was impossible. But Fyodo Pavlovitch, who was among them, sprang forward and declared that it wa by no means impossible, and that, indeed, there was a certain piquanc about it, and so on. ... It is true that at that time he wa overdoing his part as a buffoon. He liked to put himself forward an entertain the company, ostensibly on equal terms, of course, though i reality he was on a servile footing with them. It was just at the tim when he had received the news of his first wife's death in Petersburg and, with crape upon his hat, was drinking and behaving so shamelessl that even the most reckless among us were shocked at the sight of him The revelers, of course, laughed at this unexpected opinion; and one o them even began challenging him to act upon it. The others repelled th idea even more emphatically, although still with the utmost hilarity and at last they went on their way. Later on, Fyodor Pavlovitch swor that he had gone with them, and perhaps it was so, no one knows fo certain, and no one ever knew. But five or six months later, all th town was talking, with intense and sincere indignation, of Lizaveta' condition, and trying to find out who was the miscreant who had wronge her. Then suddenly a terrible rumor was all over the town that thi miscreant was no other than Fyodor Pavlovitch. Who set the rumor going Of that drunken band five had left the town and the only one stil among us was an elderly and much respected civil councilor, the fathe of grownup daughters, who could hardly have spread the tale, even i there had been any foundation for it. But rumor pointed straight a Fyodor Pavlovitch, and persisted in pointing at him. Of course this wa no great grievance to him: he would not have troubled to contradict  set of tradespeople. In those days he was proud, and did not condescen to talk except in his own circle of the officials and nobles, whom h entertained so well."},
{"text":"At the time, Grigory stood up for his master vigorously. He provoke quarrels and altercations in defense of him and succeeded in bringin some people round to his side. \"It's the wench's own fault,\" h asserted, and the culprit was Karp, a dangerous convict, who ha escaped from prison and whose name was well known to us, as he ha hidden in our town. This conjecture sounded plausible, for it wa remembered that Karp had been in the neighborhood just at that time i the autumn, and had robbed three people. But this affair and all th talk about it did not estrange popular sympathy from the poor idiot She was better looked after than ever. A well-to-do merchant's wido named Kondratyev arranged to take her into her house at the end o April, meaning not to let her go out until after the confinement. The kept a constant watch over her, but in spite of their vigilance sh escaped on the very last day, and made her way into Fyodor Pavlovitch' garden. How, in her condition, she managed to climb over the high strong fence remained a mystery. Some maintained that she must hav been lifted over by somebody; others hinted at something more uncanny The most likely explanation is that it happened naturally--tha Lizaveta, accustomed to clambering over hurdles to sleep in gardens had somehow managed to climb this fence, in spite of her condition, an had leapt down, injuring herself."},
{"text":"Grigory rushed to Marfa and sent her to Lizaveta, while he ran to fetc an old midwife who lived close by. They saved the baby, but Lizavet died at dawn. Grigory took the baby, brought it home, and making hi wife sit down, put it on her lap. \"A child of God--an orphan is aki to all,\" he said, \"and to us above others. Our little lost one has sen us this, who has come from the devil's son and a holy innocent. Nurs him and weep no more.\""},
{"text":"So Marfa brought up the child. He was christened Pavel, to which peopl were not slow in adding Fyodorovitch (son of Fyodor). Fyodor Pavlovitc did not object to any of this, and thought it amusing, though h persisted vigorously in denying his responsibility. The townspeopl were pleased at his adopting the foundling. Later on, Fyodor Pavlovitc invented a surname for the child, calling him Smerdyakov, after hi mother's nickname."},
{"text":"So this Smerdyakov became Fyodor Pavlovitch's second servant, and wa living in the lodge with Grigory and Marfa at the time our stor begins. He was employed as cook. I ought to say something of thi Smerdyakov, but I am ashamed of keeping my readers' attention so lon occupied with these common menials, and I will go back to my story hoping to say more of Smerdyakov in the course of it."},
{"text":" III"},
{"text":"The Confession of a Passionate Heart--In Verse"},
{"text":"Alyosha remained for some time irresolute after hearing the command hi father shouted to him from the carriage. But in spite of his uneasines he did not stand still. That was not his way. He went at once to th kitchen to find out what his father had been doing above. Then he se off, trusting that on the way he would find some answer to the doub tormenting him. I hasten to add that his father's shouts, commandin him to return home \"with his mattress and pillow\" did not frighten hi in the least. He understood perfectly that those peremptory shouts wer merely \"a flourish\" to produce an effect. In the same way a tradesma in our town who was celebrating his name-day with a party of friends getting angry at being refused more vodka, smashed up his own crocker and furniture and tore his own and his wife's clothes, and finall broke his windows, all for the sake of effect. Next day, of course when he was sober, he regretted the broken cups and saucers. Alyosh knew that his father would let him go back to the monastery next day possibly even that evening. Moreover, he was fully persuaded that hi father might hurt anyone else, but would not hurt him. Alyosha wa certain that no one in the whole world ever would want to hurt him and, what is more, he knew that no one could hurt him. This was for hi an axiom, assumed once for all without question, and he went his wa without hesitation, relying on it."},
{"text":"But at that moment an anxiety of a different sort disturbed him, an worried him the more because he could not formulate it. It was the fea of a woman, of Katerina Ivanovna, who had so urgently entreated him i the note handed to him by Madame Hohlakov to come and see her abou something. This request and the necessity of going had at once arouse an uneasy feeling in his heart, and this feeling had grown more an more painful all the morning in spite of the scenes at the hermitag and at the Father Superior's. He was not uneasy because he did not kno what she would speak of and what he must answer. And he was not afrai of her simply as a woman. Though he knew little of women, he had spen his life, from early childhood till he entered the monastery, entirel with women. He was afraid of that woman, Katerina Ivanovna. He had bee afraid of her from the first time he saw her. He had only seen her tw or three times, and had only chanced to say a few words to her. H thought of her as a beautiful, proud, imperious girl. It was not he beauty which troubled him, but something else. And the vagueness of hi apprehension increased the apprehension itself. The girl's aims were o the noblest, he knew that. She was trying to save his brother Dmitr simply through generosity, though he had already behaved badly to her Yet, although Alyosha recognized and did justice to all these fine an generous sentiments, a shiver began to run down his back as soon as h drew near her house."},
{"text":"He reflected that he would not find Ivan, who was so intimate a friend with her, for Ivan was certainly now with his father. Dmitri he wa even more certain not to find there, and he had a foreboding of th reason. And so his conversation would be with her alone. He had a grea longing to run and see his brother Dmitri before that fatefu interview. Without showing him the letter, he could talk to him abou it. But Dmitri lived a long way off, and he was sure to be away fro home too. Standing still for a minute, he reached a final decision Crossing himself with a rapid and accustomed gesture, and at onc smiling, he turned resolutely in the direction of his terrible lady."},
{"text":"He knew her house. If he went by the High Street and then across th marketplace, it was a long way round. Though our town is small, it i scattered, and the houses are far apart. And meanwhile his father wa expecting him, and perhaps had not yet forgotten his command. He migh be unreasonable, and so he had to make haste to get there and back. S he decided to take a shortcut by the back-way, for he knew every inc of the ground. This meant skirting fences, climbing over hurdles, an crossing other people's backyards, where everyone he met knew him an greeted him. In this way he could reach the High Street in half th time."},
{"text":"He had to pass the garden adjoining his father's, and belonging to  little tumbledown house with four windows. The owner of this house, a Alyosha knew, was a bedridden old woman, living with her daughter, wh had been a genteel maidservant in generals' families in Petersburg. No she had been at home a year, looking after her sick mother. She alway dressed up in fine clothes, though her old mother and she had sunk int such poverty that they went every day to Fyodor Pavlovitch's kitche for soup and bread, which Marfa gave readily. Yet, though the youn woman came up for soup, she had never sold any of her dresses, and on of these even had a long train--a fact which Alyosha had learned fro Rakitin, who always knew everything that was going on in the town. H had forgotten it as soon as he heard it, but now, on reaching th garden, he remembered the dress with the train, raised his head, whic had been bowed in thought, and came upon something quite unexpected."},
{"text":"Over the hurdle in the garden, Dmitri, mounted on something, wa leaning forward, gesticulating violently, beckoning to him, obviousl afraid to utter a word for fear of being overheard. Alyosha ran up t the hurdle."},
{"text":"\"It's a good thing you looked up. I was nearly shouting to you,\" Mity said in a joyful, hurried whisper. \"Climb in here quickly! How splendi that you've come! I was just thinking of you!\""},
{"text":"Alyosha was delighted too, but he did not know how to get over th hurdle. Mitya put his powerful hand under his elbow to help him jump Tucking up his cassock, Alyosha leapt over the hurdle with the agilit of a barelegged street urchin."},
{"text":"\"Well done! Now come along,\" said Mitya in an enthusiastic whisper."},
{"text":"\"Where?\" whispered Alyosha, looking about him and finding himself in  deserted garden with no one near but themselves. The garden was small but the house was at least fifty paces away."},
{"text":"\"There's no one here. Why do you whisper?\" asked Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"Why do I whisper? Deuce take it!\" cried Dmitri at the top of hi voice. \"You see what silly tricks nature plays one. I am here i secret, and on the watch. I'll explain later on, but, knowing it's  secret, I began whispering like a fool, when there's no need. Let u go. Over there. Till then be quiet. I want to kiss you."},
{"text":"  Glory to God in the world   Glory to God in me ..."},
{"text":"I was just repeating that, sitting here, before you came.\""},
{"text":"The garden was about three acres in extent, and planted with trees onl along the fence at the four sides. There were apple-trees, maples limes and birch-trees. The middle of the garden was an empty gras space, from which several hundredweight of hay was carried in th summer. The garden was let out for a few roubles for the summer. Ther were also plantations of raspberries and currants and gooseberries lai out along the sides; a kitchen garden had been planted lately near th house."},
{"text":"Dmitri led his brother to the most secluded corner of the garden There, in a thicket of lime-trees and old bushes of black currant elder, snowball-tree, and lilac, there stood a tumble-down gree summerhouse, blackened with age. Its walls were of latticework, bu there was still a roof which could give shelter. God knows when thi summerhouse was built. There was a tradition that it had been put u some fifty years before by a retired colonel called von Schmidt, wh owned the house at that time. It was all in decay, the floor wa rotting, the planks were loose, the woodwork smelled musty. In th summerhouse there was a green wooden table fixed in the ground, an round it were some green benches upon which it was still possible t sit. Alyosha had at once observed his brother's exhilarated condition and on entering the arbor he saw half a bottle of brandy and  wineglass on the table."},
{"text":"\"That's brandy,\" Mitya laughed. \"I see your look: `He's drinkin again!' Distrust the apparition."},
{"text":"  Distrust the worthless, lying crowd   And lay aside thy doubts."},
{"text":"I'm not drinking, I'm only `indulging,' as that pig, your Rakitin says. He'll be a civil councilor one day, but he'll always talk abou `indulging.' Sit down. I could take you in my arms, Alyosha, and pres you to my bosom till I crush you, for in the whole world--i reality--in re-al-i-ty--(can you take it in?) I love no one but you!\""},
{"text":"He uttered the last words in a sort of exaltation."},
{"text":"\"No one but you and one `jade' I have fallen in love with, to my ruin But being in love doesn't mean loving. You may be in love with a woma and yet hate her. Remember that! I can talk about it gayly still. Si down here by the table and I'll sit beside you and look at you, and g on talking. You shall keep quiet and I'll go on talking, for the tim has come. But on reflection, you know, I'd better speak quietly, fo here--here--you can never tell what ears are listening. I wil explain everything; as they say, `the story will be continued.' Wh have I been longing for you? Why have I been thirsting for you al these days, and just now? (It's five days since I've cast anchor here. Because it's only to you I can tell everything; because I must, becaus I need you, because tomorrow I shall fly from the clouds, becaus tomorrow life is ending and beginning. Have you ever felt, have yo ever dreamt of falling down a precipice into a pit? That's just how I' falling, but not in a dream. And I'm not afraid, and don't you b afraid. At least, I am afraid, but I enjoy it. It's not enjoymen though, but ecstasy. Damn it all, whatever it is! A strong spirit,  weak spirit, a womanish spirit--whatever it is! Let us praise nature you see what sunshine, how clear the sky is, the leaves are all green it's still summer; four o'clock in the afternoon and the stillness Where were you going?\""},
{"text":"\"I was going to father's, but I meant to go to Katerina Ivanovna' first.\""},
{"text":"\"To her, and to father! Oo! what a coincidence! Why was I waiting fo you? Hungering and thirsting for you in every cranny of my soul an even in my ribs? Why, to send you to father and to her, Katerin Ivanovna, so as to have done with her and with father. To send a angel. I might have sent anyone, but I wanted to send an angel. An here you are on your way to see father and her.\""},
{"text":"\"Did you really mean to send me?\" cried Alyosha with a distresse expression."},
{"text":"\"Stay! You knew it! And I see you understand it all at once. But b quiet, be quiet for a time. Don't be sorry, and don't cry.\""},
{"text":"Dmitri stood up, thought a moment, and put his finger to his forehead."},
{"text":"\"She's asked you, written to you a letter or something, that's wh you're going to her? You wouldn't be going except for that?\""},
{"text":"\"Here is her note.\" Alyosha took it out of his pocket. Mitya looke through it quickly."},
{"text":"\"And you were going the back-way! Oh, gods, I thank you for sending hi by the back-way, and he came to me like the golden fish to the sill old fishermen in the fable! Listen, Alyosha, listen, brother! Now  mean to tell you everything, for I must tell someone. An angel i heaven I've told already; but I want to tell an angel on earth. You ar an angel on earth. You will hear and judge and forgive. And that's wha I need, that someone above me should forgive. Listen! If two peopl break away from everything on earth and fly off into the unknown, or a least one of them, and before flying off or going to ruin he comes t someone else and says, `Do this for me'--some favor never asked befor that could only be asked on one's deathbed--would that other refuse if he were a friend or a brother?\""},
{"text":"\"I will do it, but tell me what it is, and make haste,\" said Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"Make haste! H'm! ... Don't be in a hurry, Alyosha, you hurry an worry yourself. There's no need to hurry now. Now the world has taken  new turning. Ah, Alyosha, what a pity you can't understand ecstasy. Bu what am I saying to him? As though you didn't understand it. What a ass I am! What am I saying? `Be noble, O man!'--who says that?\""},
{"text":"Alyosha made up his mind to wait. He felt that, perhaps, indeed, hi work lay here. Mitya sank into thought for a moment, with his elbow o the table and his head in his hand. Both were silent."},
{"text":"\"Alyosha,\" said Mitya, \"you're the only one who won't laugh. I shoul like to begin--my confession--with Schiller's Hymn to Joy, An di Freude! I don't know German, I only know it's called that. Don't thin I'm talking nonsense because I'm drunk. I'm not a bit drunk. Brandy' all very well, but I need two bottles to make me drunk:"},
{"text":"  Silenus with his rosy phi   Upon his stumbling ass."},
{"text":"But I've not drunk a quarter of a bottle, and I'm not Silenus. I'm no Silenus, though I am strong,[129]1 for I've made a decision once fo all. Forgive me the pun; you'll have to forgive me a lot more than pun today. Don't be uneasy. I'm not spinning it out. I'm talking sense, an I'll come to the point in a minute. I won't keep you in suspense. Stay how does it go?\""},
{"text":"He raised his head, thought a minute, and began with enthusiasm:"},
{"text":"  \"Wild and fearful in his caver   Hid the naked troglodyte   And the homeless nomad wandere   Laying waste the fertile plain   Menacing with spear and arro   In the woods the hunter strayed. ..   Woe to all poor wretches strande   On those cruel and hostile shores!"},
{"text":"  \"From the peak of high Olympu   Came the mother Ceres down   Seeking in those savage region   Her lost daughter Proserpine   But the Goddess found no refuge   Found no kindly welcome there   And no temple bearing witnes   To the worship of the gods."},
{"text":"  \"From the fields and from the vineyard   Came no fruits to deck the feasts   Only flesh of bloodstained victim   Smoldered on the altar-fires   And where'er the grieving goddes   Turns her melancholy gaze   Sunk in vilest degradatio   Man his loathsomeness displays.\""},
{"text":"Mitya broke into sobs and seized Alyosha's hand."},
{"text":"\"My dear, my dear, in degradation, in degradation now, too. There's  terrible amount of suffering for man on earth, a terrible lot o trouble. Don't think I'm only a brute in an officer's uniform wallowing in dirt and drink. I hardly think of anything but of tha degraded man--if only I'm not lying. I pray God I'm not lying an showing off. I think about that man because I am that man myself."},
{"text":"  Would he purge his soul from vilenes   And attain to light and worth   He must turn and cling foreve   To his ancient Mother Earth."},
{"text":"\"But the difficulty is how am I to cling forever to Mother Earth.  don't kiss her. I don't cleave to her bosom. Am I to become a peasan or a shepherd? I go on and I don't know whether I'm going to shame o to light and joy. That's the trouble, for everything in the world is  riddle! And whenever I've happened to sink into the vilest degradatio (and it's always been happening) I always read that poem about Cere and man. Has it reformed me? Never! For I'm a Karamazov. For when I d leap into the pit, I go headlong with my heels up, and am pleased to b falling in that degrading attitude, and pride myself upon it. And i the very depths of that degradation I begin a hymn of praise. Let me b accursed. Let me be vile and base, only let me kiss the hem of the vei in which my God is shrouded. Though I may be following the devil, I a Thy son, O Lord, and I love Thee, and I feel the joy without which th world cannot stand."},
{"text":"  Joy everlasting fosteret   The soul of all creation   It is her secret ferment fire   The cup of life with flame   'Tis at her beck the grass hath turne   Each blade towards the ligh   And solar systems have evolve   From chaos and dark night   Filling the realms of boundless spac   Beyond the sage's sight   At bounteous Nature's kindly breast   All things that breathe drink Joy   And birds and beasts and creeping thing   All follow where She leads   Her gifts to man are friends in need   The wreath, the foaming must   To angels--vision of God's throne   To insects--sensual lust."},
{"text":"\"But enough poetry! I am in tears; let me cry. It may be foolishnes that everyone would laugh at. But you won't laugh. Your eyes ar shining, too. Enough poetry. I want to tell you now about the insect to whom God gave `sensual lust.'"},
{"text":"  To insects--sensual lust."},
{"text":"\"I am that insect, brother, and it is said of me specially. All w Karamazovs are such insects, and, angel as you are, that insect live in you, too, and will stir up a tempest in your blood. Tempests because sensual lust is a tempest--worse than a tempest! Beauty is  terrible and awful thing! It is terrible because it has not bee fathomed and never can be fathomed, for God sets us nothing bu riddles. Here the boundaries meet and all contradictions exist side b side. I am not a cultivated man, brother, but I've thought a lot abou this. It's terrible what mysteries there are! Too many riddles weig men down on earth. We must solve them as we can, and try to keep a dr skin in the water. Beauty! I can't endure the thought that a man o lofty mind and heart begins with the ideal of the Madonna and ends wit the ideal of Sodom. What's still more awful is that a man with th ideal of Sodom in his soul does not renounce the ideal of the Madonna and his heart may be on fire with that ideal, genuinely on fire, jus as in his days of youth and innocence. Yes, man is broad, too broad indeed. I'd have him narrower. The devil only knows what to make of it What to the mind is shameful is beauty and nothing else to the heart Is there beauty in Sodom? Believe me, that for the immense mass o mankind beauty is found in Sodom. Did you know that secret? The awfu thing is that beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and th devil are fighting there and the battlefield is the heart of man. But  man always talks of his own ache. Listen, now to come to facts.\""},
{"text":" IV"},
{"text":"The Confession of a Passionate Heart--In Anecdote"},
{"text":"\"I was leading a wild life then. Father said just now that I spen several thousand roubles in seducing young girls. That's a swinis invention, and there was nothing of the sort. And if there was,  didn't need money simply for that. With me money is an accessory, th overflow of my heart, the framework. Today she would be my lady tomorrow a wench out of the streets in her place. I entertained the both. I threw away money by the handful on music, rioting, and gypsies Sometimes I gave it to the ladies, too, for they'll take it greedily that must be admitted, and be pleased and thankful for it. Ladies use to be fond of me: not all of them, but it happened, it happened. But  always liked side-paths, little dark back-alleys behind the mai road--there one finds adventures and surprises, and precious metal i the dirt. I am speaking figuratively, brother. In the town I was in there were no such back-alleys in the literal sense, but morally ther were. If you were like me, you'd know what that means. I loved vice,  loved the ignominy of vice. I loved cruelty; am I not a bug, am I not  noxious insect? In fact a Karamazov! Once we went, a whole lot of us for a picnic, in seven sledges. It was dark, it was winter, and I bega squeezing a girl's hand, and forced her to kiss me. She was th daughter of an official, a sweet, gentle, submissive creature. Sh allowed me, she allowed me much in the dark. She thought, poor thing that I should come next day to make her an offer (I was looked upon a a good match, too). But I didn't say a word to her for five months.  used to see her in a corner at dances (we were always having dances) her eyes watching me. I saw how they glowed with fire--a fire o gentle indignation. This game only tickled that insect lust I cherishe in my soul. Five months later she married an official and left th town, still angry, and still, perhaps, in love with me. Now they liv happily. Observe that I told no one. I didn't boast of it. Though I' full of low desires, and love what's low, I'm not dishonorable. You'r blushing; your eyes flashed. Enough of this filth with you. And al this was nothing much--wayside blossoms  la Paul de Kock--though th cruel insect had already grown strong in my soul. I've a perfect albu of reminiscences, brother. God bless them, the darlings. I tried t break it off without quarreling. And I never gave them away. I neve bragged of one of them. But that's enough. You can't suppose I brough you here simply to talk of such nonsense. No, I'm going to tell yo something more curious; and don't be surprised that I'm glad to tel you, instead of being ashamed.\""},
{"text":"\"You say that because I blushed,\" Alyosha said suddenly. \"I wasn' blushing at what you were saying or at what you've done. I blushe because I am the same as you are.\""},
{"text":"\"You? Come, that's going a little too far!\""},
{"text":"\"No, it's not too far,\" said Alyosha warmly (obviously the idea was no a new one). \"The ladder's the same. I'm at the bottom step, and you'r above, somewhere about the thirteenth. That's how I see it. But it' all the same. Absolutely the same in kind. Anyone on the bottom step i bound to go up to the top one.\""},
{"text":"\"Then one ought not to step on at all.\""},
{"text":"\"Anyone who can help it had better not.\""},
{"text":"\"But can you?\""},
{"text":"\"I think not.\""},
{"text":"\"Hush, Alyosha, hush, darling! I could kiss your hand, you touch me so That rogue Grushenka has an eye for men. She told me once that she' devour you one day. There, there, I won't! From this field o corruption fouled by flies, let's pass to my tragedy, also befouled b flies, that is by every sort of vileness. Although the old man tol lies about my seducing innocence, there really was something of th sort in my tragedy, though it was only once, and then it did not com off. The old man who has reproached me with what never happened doe not even know of this fact; I never told anyone about it. You're th first, except Ivan, of course--Ivan knows everything. He knew about i long before you. But Ivan's a tomb.\""},
{"text":"\"Ivan's a tomb?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes.\""},
{"text":"Alyosha listened with great attention."},
{"text":"\"I was lieutenant in a line regiment, but still I was unde supervision, like a kind of convict. Yet I was awfully well received i the little town. I spent money right and left. I was thought to b rich; I thought so myself. But I must have pleased them in other way as well. Although they shook their heads over me, they liked me. M colonel, who was an old man, took a sudden dislike to me. He was alway down upon me, but I had powerful friends, and, moreover, all the tow was on my side, so he couldn't do me much harm. I was in fault mysel for refusing to treat him with proper respect. I was proud. Thi obstinate old fellow, who was really a very good sort, kindhearted an hospitable, had had two wives, both dead. His first wife, who was of  humble family, left a daughter as unpretentious as herself. She was  young woman of four and twenty when I was there, and was living wit her father and an aunt, her mother's sister. The aunt was simple an illiterate; the niece was simple but lively. I like to say nice thing about people. I never knew a woman of more charming character tha Agafya--fancy, her name was Agafya Ivanovna! And she wasn' bad-looking either, in the Russian style: tall, stout, with a ful figure, and beautiful eyes, though a rather coarse face. She had no married, although she had had two suitors. She refused them, but was a cheerful as ever. I was intimate with her, not in `that' way, it wa pure friendship. I have often been friendly with women quit innocently. I used to talk to her with shocking frankness, and she onl laughed. Many women like such freedom, and she was a girl too, whic made it very amusing. Another thing, one could never think of her as  young lady. She and her aunt lived in her father's house with a sort o voluntary humility, not putting themselves on an equality with othe people. She was a general favorite, and of use to everyone, for she wa a clever dressmaker. She had a talent for it. She gave her service freely without asking for payment, but if anyone offered her payment she didn't refuse. The colonel, of course, was a very different matter He was one of the chief personages in the district. He kept open house entertained the whole town, gave suppers and dances. At the time  arrived and joined the battalion, all the town was talking of th expected return of the colonel's second daughter, a great beauty, wh had just left a fashionable school in the capital. This second daughte is Katerina Ivanovna, and she was the child of the second wife, wh belonged to a distinguished general's family; although, as I learnt o good authority, she too brought the colonel no money. She ha connections, and that was all. There may have been expectations, bu they had come to nothing."},
{"text":"\"Yet, when the young lady came from boarding-school on a visit, th whole town revived. Our most distinguished ladies--two `Excellencies and a colonel's wife--and all the rest following their lead, at onc took her up and gave entertainments in her honor. She was the belle o the balls and picnics, and they got up tableaux vivants in aid o distressed governesses. I took no notice, I went on as wildly a before, and one of my exploits at the time set all the town talking.  saw her eyes taking my measure one evening at the battery commander's but I didn't go up to her, as though I disdained her acquaintance.  did go up and speak to her at an evening party not long after. Sh scarcely looked at me, and compressed her lips scornfully. `Wait a bit I'll have my revenge,' thought I. I behaved like an awful fool on man occasions at that time, and I was conscious of it myself. What made i worse was that I felt that `Katenka' was not an innocen boarding-school miss, but a person of character, proud and reall high-principled; above all, she had education and intellect, and I ha neither. You think I meant to make her an offer? No, I simply wanted t revenge myself, because I was such a hero and she didn't seem to fee it."},
{"text":"\"Meanwhile, I spent my time in drink and riot, till th lieutenant-colonel put me under arrest for three days. Just at tha time father sent me six thousand roubles in return for my sending him  deed giving up all claims upon him--settling our accounts, so t speak, and saying that I wouldn't expect anything more. I didn' understand a word of it at the time. Until I came here, Alyosha, til the last few days, indeed, perhaps even now, I haven't been able t make head or tail of my money affairs with father. But never mind that we'll talk of it later."},
{"text":"\"Just as I received the money, I got a letter from a friend telling m something that interested me immensely. The authorities, I learnt, wer dissatisfied with our lieutenant-colonel. He was suspected o irregularities; in fact, his enemies were preparing a surprise for him And then the commander of the division arrived, and kicked up the devi of a shindy. Shortly afterwards he was ordered to retire. I won't tel you how it all happened. He had enemies certainly. Suddenly there was  marked coolness in the town towards him and all his family. His friend all turned their backs on him. Then I took my first step. I met Agafy Ivanovna, with whom I'd always kept up a friendship, and said, `Do yo know there's a deficit of 4,500 roubles of government money in you father's accounts?'"},
{"text":"\" `What do you mean? What makes you say so? The general was here no long ago, and everything was all right.'"},
{"text":"\" `Then it was, but now it isn't.'"},
{"text":"\"She was terribly scared."},
{"text":"\" `Don't frighten me!' she said. `Who told you so?'"},
{"text":"\" `Don't be uneasy,' I said, `I won't tell anyone. You know I'm a silent as the tomb. I only wanted, in view of \"possibilities,\" to add that when they demand that 4,500 roubles from your father, and he can' produce it, he'll be tried, and made to serve as a common soldier i his old age, unless you like to send me your young lady secretly. I'v just had money paid me. I'll give her four thousand, if you like, an keep the secret religiously.'"},
{"text":"\" `Ah, you scoundrel!'--that's what she said. `You wicked scoundrel How dare you!'"},
{"text":"\"She went away furiously indignant, while I shouted after her once mor that the secret should be kept sacred. Those two simple creatures Agafya and her aunt, I may as well say at once, behaved like perfec angels all through this business. They genuinely adored their `Katya, thought her far above them, and waited on her, hand and foot. Bu Agafya told her of our conversation. I found that out afterwards. Sh didn't keep it back, and of course that was all I wanted."},
{"text":"\"Suddenly the new major arrived to take command of the battalion. Th old lieutenant-colonel was taken ill at once, couldn't leave his roo for two days, and didn't hand over the government money. Dr. Kravchenk declared that he really was ill. But I knew for a fact, and had know for a long time, that for the last four years the money had never bee in his hands except when the Commander made his visits of inspection He used to lend it to a trustworthy person, a merchant of our tow called Trifonov, an old widower, with a big beard and gold-rimme spectacles. He used to go to the fair, do a profitable business wit the money, and return the whole sum to the colonel, bringing with it  present from the fair, as well as interest on the loan. But this tim (I heard all about it quite by chance from Trifonov's son and heir,  driveling youth and one of the most vicious in the world)--this time I say, Trifonov brought nothing back from the fair. Th lieutenant-colonel flew to him. `I've never received any money fro you, and couldn't possibly have received any.' That was all the answe he got. So now our lieutenant-colonel is confined to the house, with  towel round his head, while they're all three busy putting ice on it All at once an orderly arrives on the scene with the book and the orde to `hand over the battalion money immediately, within two hours.' H signed the book (I saw the signature in the book afterwards), stood up saying he would put on his uniform, ran to his bedroom, loaded hi double-barreled gun with a service bullet, took the boot off his righ foot, fixed the gun against his chest, and began feeling for th trigger with his foot. But Agafya, remembering what I had told her, ha her suspicions. She stole up and peeped into the room just in time. Sh rushed in, flung herself upon him from behind, threw her arms roun him, and the gun went off, hit the ceiling, but hurt no one. The other ran in, took away the gun, and held him by the arms. I heard all abou this afterwards. I was at home, it was getting dusk, and I was jus preparing to go out. I had dressed, brushed my hair, scented m handkerchief, and taken up my cap, when suddenly the door opened, an facing me in the room stood Katerina Ivanovna."},
{"text":"\"It's strange how things happen sometimes. No one had seen her in th street, so that no one knew of it in the town. I lodged with tw decrepit old ladies, who looked after me. They were most obliging ol things, ready to do anything for me, and at my request were as silen afterwards as two cast-iron posts. Of course I grasped the position a once. She walked in and looked straight at me, her dark eye determined, even defiant, but on her lips and round her mouth I sa uncertainty."},
{"text":"\" `My sister told me,' she began, `that you would give me 4,500 rouble if I came to you for it--myself. I have come ... give me the money!'"},
{"text":"\"She couldn't keep it up. She was breathless, frightened, her voic failed her, and the corners of her mouth and the lines round i quivered. Alyosha, are you listening, or are you asleep?\""},
{"text":"\"Mitya, I know you will tell the whole truth,\" said Alyosha i agitation."},
{"text":"\"I am telling it. If I tell the whole truth just as it happened  shan't spare myself. My first idea was a--Karamazov one. Once I wa bitten by a centipede, brother, and laid up a fortnight with fever fro it. Well, I felt a centipede biting at my heart then--a noxiou insect, you understand? I looked her up and down. You've seen her She's a beauty. But she was beautiful in another way then. At tha moment she was beautiful because she was noble, and I was a scoundrel she in all the grandeur of her generosity and sacrifice for her father and I--a bug! And, scoundrel as I was, she was altogether at my mercy body and soul. She was hemmed in. I tell you frankly, that thought that venomous thought, so possessed my heart that it almost swoone with suspense. It seemed as if there could be no resisting it; a though I should act like a bug, like a venomous spider, without a spar of pity. I could scarcely breathe. Understand, I should have gone nex day to ask for her hand, so that it might end honorably, so to speak and that nobody would or could know. For though I'm a man of bas desires, I'm honest. And at that very second some voice seemed t whisper in my ear, `But when you come tomorrow to make your proposal that girl won't even see you; she'll order her coachman to kick you ou of the yard. \"Publish it through all the town,\" she would say, \"I'm no afraid of you.\" ' I looked at the young lady, my voice had not deceive me. That is how it would be, not a doubt of it. I could see from he face now that I should be turned out of the house. My spite was roused I longed to play her the nastiest swinish cad's trick: to look at he with a sneer, and on the spot where she stood before me to stun he with a tone of voice that only a shopman could use."},
{"text":"\" `Four thousand! What do you mean? I was joking. You've been countin your chickens too easily, madam. Two hundred, if you like, with all m heart. But four thousand is not a sum to throw away on such frivolity You've put yourself out to no purpose.'"},
{"text":"\"I should have lost the game, of course. She'd have run away. But i would have been an infernal revenge. It would have been worth it all I'd have howled with regret all the rest of my life, only to hav played that trick. Would you believe it, it has never happened to m with any other woman, not one, to look at her at such a moment wit hatred. But, on my oath, I looked at her for three seconds, or fiv perhaps, with fearful hatred--that hate which is only a hair's-breadt from love, from the maddest love!"},
{"text":"\"I went to the window, put my forehead against the frozen pane, and  remember the ice burnt my forehead like fire. I did not keep her long don't be afraid. I turned round, went up to the table, opened th drawer and took out a banknote for five thousand roubles (it was lyin in a French dictionary). Then I showed it her in silence, folded it handed it to her, opened the door into the passage, and, stepping back made her a deep bow, a most respectful, a most impressive bow, believ me! She shuddered all over, gazed at me for a second, turned horribl pale--white as a sheet, in fact--and all at once, not impetuously bu softly, gently, bowed down to my feet--not a boarding-school curtsey but a Russian bow, with her forehead to the floor. She jumped up an ran away. I was wearing my sword. I drew it and nearly stabbed mysel with it on the spot; why, I don't know. It would have been frightfull stupid, of course. I suppose it was from delight. Can you understan that one might kill oneself from delight? But I didn't stab myself.  only kissed my sword and put it back in the scabbard--which there wa no need to have told you, by the way. And I fancy that in telling yo about my inner conflict I have laid it on rather thick to glorif myself. But let it pass, and to hell with all who pry into the huma heart! Well, so much for that `adventure' with Katerina Ivanovna. S now Ivan knows of it, and you--no one else.\""},
{"text":"Dmitri got up, took a step or two in his excitement, pulled out hi handkerchief and mopped his forehead, then sat down again, not in th same place as before, but on the opposite side, so that Alyosha had t turn quite round to face him."},
{"text":" V"},
{"text":"The Confession of a Passionate Heart--\"Heels Up\""},
{"text":"\"Now,\" said Alyosha, \"I understand the first half.\""},
{"text":"\"You understand the first half. That half is a drama, and it was playe out there. The second half is a tragedy, and it is being acted here.\""},
{"text":"\"And I understand nothing of that second half so far,\" said Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"And I? Do you suppose I understand it?\""},
{"text":"\"Stop, Dmitri. There's one important question. Tell me, you wer betrothed, you are betrothed still?\""},
{"text":"\"We weren't betrothed at once, not for three months after tha adventure. The next day I told myself that the incident was closed concluded, that there would be no sequel. It seemed to me caddish t make her an offer. On her side she gave no sign of life for the si weeks that she remained in the town; except, indeed, for one action The day after her visit the maidservant slipped round with an envelop addressed to me. I tore it open: it contained the change out of th banknote. Only four thousand five hundred roubles was needed, but ther was a discount of about two hundred on changing it. She only sent m about two hundred and sixty. I don't remember exactly, but not a note not a word of explanation. I searched the packet for a penci mark--n-nothing! Well, I spent the rest of the money on such an org that the new major was obliged to reprimand me."},
{"text":"\"Well, the lieutenant-colonel produced the battalion money, to th astonishment of everyone, for nobody believed that he had the mone untouched. He'd no sooner paid it than he fell ill, took to his bed and, three weeks later, softening of the brain set in, and he died fiv days afterwards. He was buried with military honors, for he had not ha time to receive his discharge. Ten days after his funeral, Katerin Ivanovna, with her aunt and sister, went to Moscow. And, behold, on th very day they went away (I hadn't seen them, didn't see them off o take leave) I received a tiny note, a sheet of thin blue paper, and o it only one line in pencil: `I will write to you. Wait. K.' And tha was all."},
{"text":"\"I'll explain the rest now, in two words. In Moscow their fortune changed with the swiftness of lightning and the unexpectedness of a Arabian fairytale. That general's widow, their nearest relation suddenly lost the two nieces who were her heiresses an next-of-kin--both died in the same week of smallpox. The old lady prostrated with grief, welcomed Katya as a daughter, as her one hope clutched at her, altered her will in Katya's favor. But that concerne the future. Meanwhile she gave her, for present use, eighty thousan roubles, as a marriage portion, to do what she liked with. She was a hysterical woman. I saw something of her in Moscow, later."},
{"text":"\"Well, suddenly I received by post four thousand five hundred roubles I was speechless with surprise, as you may suppose. Three days late came the promised letter. I have it with me now. You must read it. Sh offers to be my wife, offers herself to me. `I love you madly,' sh says, `even if you don't love me, never mind. Be my husband. Don't b afraid. I won't hamper you in any way. I will be your chattel. I wil be the carpet under your feet. I want to love you forever. I want t save you from yourself.' Alyosha, I am not worthy to repeat those line in my vulgar words and in my vulgar tone, my everlastingly vulgar tone that I can never cure myself of. That letter stabs me even now. Do yo think I don't mind--that I don't mind still? I wrote her an answer a once, as it was impossible for me to go to Moscow. I wrote to her wit tears. One thing I shall be ashamed of forever. I referred to her bein rich and having a dowry while I was only a stuck-up beggar! I mentione money! I ought to have borne it in silence, but it slipped from my pen Then I wrote at once to Ivan, and told him all I could about it in  letter of six pages, and sent him to her. Why do you look like that Why are you staring at me? Yes, Ivan fell in love with her; he's i love with her still. I know that. I did a stupid thing, in the world' opinion; but perhaps that one stupid thing may be the saving of us al now. Oo! Don't you see what a lot she thinks of Ivan, how she respect him? When she compares us, do you suppose she can love a man like me especially after all that has happened here?\""},
{"text":"\"But I am convinced that she does love a man like you, and not a ma like him.\""},
{"text":"\"She loves her own virtue, not me.\" The words broke involuntarily, an almost malignantly, from Dmitri. He laughed, but a minute later hi eyes gleamed, he flushed crimson and struck the table violently wit his fist."},
{"text":"\"I swear, Alyosha,\" he cried, with intense and genuine anger a himself; \"you may not believe me, but as God is holy, and as Christ i God, I swear that though I smiled at her lofty sentiments just now,  know that I am a million times baser in soul than she, and that thes lofty sentiments of hers are as sincere as a heavenly angel's. That' the tragedy of it--that I know that for certain. What if anyone doe show off a bit? Don't I do it myself? And yet I'm sincere, I'm sincere As for Ivan, I can understand how he must be cursing nature now--wit his intellect, too! To see the preference given--to whom, to what? T a monster who, though he is betrothed and all eyes are fixed on him can't restrain his debaucheries--and before the very eyes of hi betrothed! And a man like me is preferred, while he is rejected. An why? Because a girl wants to sacrifice her life and destiny out o gratitude. It's ridiculous! I've never said a word of this to Ivan, an Ivan of course has never dropped a hint of the sort to me. But destin will be accomplished, and the best man will hold his ground while th undeserving one will vanish into his back-alley forever--his filth back-alley, his beloved back-alley, where he is at home and where h will sink in filth and stench at his own free will and with enjoyment I've been talking foolishly. I've no words left. I use them at random but it will be as I have said. I shall drown in the back-alley, and sh will marry Ivan.\""},
{"text":"\"Stop, Dmitri,\" Alyosha interrupted again with great anxiety. \"There' one thing you haven't made clear yet: you are still betrothed all th same, aren't you? How can you break off the engagement if she, you betrothed, doesn't want to?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, formally and solemnly betrothed. It was all done on my arrival i Moscow, with great ceremony, with icons, all in fine style. Th general's wife blessed us, and--would you believe it?--congratulate Katya. `You've made a good choice,' she said, `I see right throug him.' And--would you believe it?--she didn't like Ivan, and hardl greeted him. I had a lot of talk with Katya in Moscow. I told her abou myself--sincerely, honorably. She listened to everything."},
{"text":"  There was sweet confusion   There were tender words."},
{"text":"Though there were proud words, too. She wrung out of me a might promise to reform. I gave my promise, and here--\""},
{"text":"\"What?\""},
{"text":"\"Why, I called to you and brought you out here today, this ver day--remember it--to send you--this very day again--to Katerin Ivanovna, and--\""},
{"text":"\"What?\""},
{"text":"\"To tell her that I shall never come to see her again. Say, `He send you his compliments.' \""},
{"text":"\"But is that possible?\""},
{"text":"\"That's just the reason I'm sending you, in my place, because it' impossible. And, how could I tell her myself?\""},
{"text":"\"And where are you going?\""},
{"text":"\"To the back-alley.\""},
{"text":"\"To Grushenka, then!\" Alyosha exclaimed mournfully, clasping his hands \"Can Rakitin really have told the truth? I thought that you had jus visited her, and that was all.\""},
{"text":"\"Can a betrothed man pay such visits? Is such a thing possible and wit such a betrothed, and before the eyes of all the world? Confound it,  have some honor! As soon as I began visiting Grushenka, I ceased to b betrothed, and to be an honest man. I understand that. Why do you loo at me? You see, I went in the first place to beat her. I had heard, an I know for a fact now, that that captain, father's agent, had give Grushenka an I.O.U. of mine for her to sue me for payment, so as to pu an end to me. They wanted to scare me. I went to beat her. I had had  glimpse of her before. She doesn't strike one at first sight. I kne about her old merchant, who's lying ill now, paralyzed; but he' leaving her a decent little sum. I knew, too, that she was fond o money, that she hoarded it, and lent it at a wicked rate of interest that she's a merciless cheat and swindler. I went to beat her, and  stayed. The storm broke--it struck me down like the plague. I' plague-stricken still, and I know that everything is over, that ther will never be anything more for me. The cycle of the ages i accomplished. That's my position. And though I'm a beggar, as fat would have it, I had three thousand just then in my pocket. I drov with Grushenka to Mokroe, a place twenty-five versts from here. I go gypsies there and champagne and made all the peasants there drunk o it, and all the women and girls. I sent the thousands flying. In thre days' time I was stripped bare, but a hero. Do you suppose the hero ha gained his end? Not a sign of it from her. I tell you that rogue Grushenka, has a supple curve all over her body. You can see it in he little foot, even in her little toe. I saw it, and kissed it, but tha was all, I swear! `I'll marry you if you like,' she said, `you're  beggar, you know. Say that you won't beat me, and will let me d anything I choose, and perhaps I will marry you.' She laughed, an she's laughing still!\""},
{"text":"Dmitri leapt up with a sort of fury. He seemed all at once as though h were drunk. His eyes became suddenly bloodshot."},
{"text":"\"And do you really mean to marry her?\""},
{"text":"\"At once, if she will. And if she won't, I shall stay all the same I'll be the porter at her gate. Alyosha!\" he cried. He stopped shor before him, and taking him by the shoulders began shaking hi violently. \"Do you know, you innocent boy, that this is all delirium senseless delirium, for there's a tragedy here. Let me tell you Alexey, that I may be a low man, with low and degraded passions, but  thief and a pickpocket Dmitri Karamazov never can be. Well, then; le me tell you that I am a thief and a pickpocket. That very morning, jus before I went to beat Grushenka, Katerina Ivanovna sent for me, and i strict secrecy (why I don't know, I suppose she had some reason) aske me to go to the chief town of the province and to post three thousan roubles to Agafya Ivanovna in Moscow, so that nothing should be know of it in the town here. So I had that three thousand roubles in m pocket when I went to see Grushenka, and it was that money we spent a Mokroe. Afterwards I pretended I had been to the town, but did not sho her the post office receipt. I said I had sent the money and woul bring the receipt, and so far I haven't brought it. I've forgotten it Now what do you think you're going to her today to say? `He sends hi compliments,' and she'll ask you, `What about the money?' You migh still have said to her, `He's a degraded sensualist, and a lo creature, with uncontrolled passions. He didn't send your money then but wasted it, because, like a low brute, he couldn't control himself. But still you might have added, `He isn't a thief though. Here is you three thousand; he sends it back. Send it yourself to Agafya Ivanovna But he told me to say \"he sends his compliments.\" ' But, as it is, sh will ask, `But where is the money?' \""},
{"text":"\"Mitya, you are unhappy, yes! But not as unhappy as you think. Don' worry yourself to death with despair.\""},
{"text":"\"What, do you suppose I'd shoot myself because I can't get thre thousand to pay back? That's just it. I shan't shoot myself. I haven' the strength now. Afterwards, perhaps. But now I'm going to Grushenka I don't care what happens.\""},
{"text":"\"And what then?\""},
{"text":"\"I'll be her husband if she deigns to have me, and when lovers come I'll go into the next room. I'll clean her friends' goloshes, blow u their samovar, run their errands.\""},
{"text":"\"Katerina Ivanovna will understand it all,\" Alyosha said solemnly \"She'll understand how great this trouble is and will forgive. She ha a lofty mind, and no one could be more unhappy than you. She'll se that for herself.\""},
{"text":"\"She won't forgive everything,\" said Dmitri, with a grin. \"There' something in it, brother, that no woman could forgive. Do you know wha would be the best thing to do?\""},
{"text":"\"What?\""},
{"text":"\"Pay back the three thousand.\""},
{"text":"\"Where can we get it from? I say, I have two thousand. Ivan will giv you another thousand--that makes three. Take it and pay it back.\""},
{"text":"\"And when would you get it, your three thousand? You're not of age besides, and you must--you absolutely must--take my farewell to he today, with the money or without it, for I can't drag on any longer things have come to such a pass. Tomorrow is too late. I shall send yo to father.\""},
{"text":"\"To father?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, to father first. Ask him for three thousand.\""},
{"text":"\"But, Mitya, he won't give it.\""},
{"text":"\"As though he would! I know he won't. Do you know the meaning o despair, Alexey?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes.\""},
{"text":"\"Listen. Legally he owes me nothing. I've had it all from him, I kno that. But morally he owes me something, doesn't he? You know he starte with twenty-eight thousand of my mother's money and made a hundre thousand with it. Let him give me back only three out of th twenty-eight thousand, and he'll draw my soul out of hell, and it wil atone for many of his sins. For that three thousand--I give you m solemn word--I'll make an end of everything, and he shall hear nothin more of me. For the last time I give him the chance to be a father Tell him God Himself sends him this chance.\""},
{"text":"\"Mitya, he won't give it for anything.\""},
{"text":"\"I know he won't. I know it perfectly well. Now, especially. That's no all. I know something more. Now, only a few days ago, perhaps onl yesterday he found out for the first time in earnest (underline i earnest) that Grushenka is really perhaps not joking, and really mean to marry me. He knows her nature; he knows the cat. And do you suppos he's going to give me money to help to bring that about when he's craz about her himself? And that's not all, either. I can tell you more tha that. I know that for the last five days he has had three thousan drawn out of the bank, changed into notes of a hundred roubles, packe into a large envelope, sealed with five seals, and tied across with re tape. You see how well I know all about it! On the envelope is written `To my angel, Grushenka, when she will come to me.' He scrawled i himself in silence and in secret, and no one knows that the money' there except the valet, Smerdyakov, whom he trusts like himself. So no he has been expecting Grushenka for the last three or four days; h hopes she'll come for the money. He has sent her word of it, and sh has sent him word that perhaps she'll come. And if she does go to th old man, can I marry her after that? You understand now why I'm here i secret and what I'm on the watch for.\""},
{"text":"\"For her?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, for her. Foma has a room in the house of these sluts here. Fom comes from our parts; he was a soldier in our regiment. He does job for them. He's watchman at night and goes grouse-shooting in th daytime; and that's how he lives. I've established myself in his room Neither he nor the women of the house know the secret--that is, that  am on the watch here.\""},
{"text":"\"No one but Smerdyakov knows, then?\""},
{"text":"\"No one else. He will let me know if she goes to the old man.\""},
{"text":"\"It was he told you about the money, then?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes. It's a dead secret. Even Ivan doesn't know about the money, o anything. The old man is sending Ivan to Tchermashnya on a two or thre days' journey. A purchaser has turned up for the copse: he'll giv eight thousand for the timber. So the old man keeps asking Ivan to hel him by going to arrange it. It will take him two or three days. That' what the old man wants, so that Grushenka can come while he's away.\""},
{"text":"\"Then he's expecting Grushenka today?\""},
{"text":"\"No, she won't come today; there are signs. She's certain not to come,\"cried Mitya suddenly. \"Smerdyakov thinks so, too. Father's drinkin now. He's sitting at table with Ivan. Go to him, Alyosha, and ask fo the three thousand.\""},
{"text":"\"Mitya, dear, what's the matter with you?\" cried Alyosha, jumping u from his place, and looking keenly at his brother's frenzied face. Fo one moment the thought struck him that Dmitri was mad."},
{"text":"\"What is it? I'm not insane,\" said Dmitri, looking intently an earnestly at him. \"No fear. I am sending you to father, and I know wha I'm saying. I believe in miracles.\""},
{"text":"\"In miracles?\""},
{"text":"\"In a miracle of Divine Providence. God knows my heart. He sees m despair. He sees the whole picture. Surely He won't let something awfu happen. Alyosha, I believe in miracles. Go!\""},
{"text":"\"I am going. Tell me, will you wait for me here?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes. I know it will take some time. You can't go at him point blank He's drunk now. I'll wait three hours--four, five, six, seven. Onl remember you must go to Katerina Ivanovna today, if it has to be a midnight, with the money or without the money, and say, `He sends hi compliments to you.' I want you to say that verse to her: `He sends hi compliments to you.' \""},
{"text":"\"Mitya! And what if Grushenka comes today--if not today, tomorrow, o the next day?\""},
{"text":"\"Grushenka? I shall see her. I shall rush out and prevent it.\""},
{"text":"\"And if--\""},
{"text":"\"If there's an if, it will be murder. I couldn't endure it.\""},
{"text":"\"Who will be murdered?\""},
{"text":"\"The old man. I shan't kill her.\""},
{"text":"\"Brother, what are you saying?\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, I don't know. ... I don't know. Perhaps I shan't kill, an perhaps I shall. I'm afraid that he will suddenly become so loathsom to me with his face at that moment. I hate his ugly throat, his nose his eyes, his shameless snigger. I feel a physical repulsion. That' what I'm afraid of. That's what may be too much for me.\""},
{"text":"\"I'll go, Mitya. I believe that God will order things for the best that nothing awful may happen.\""},
{"text":"\"And I will sit and wait for the miracle. And if it doesn't come t pass--\""},
{"text":"Alyosha went thoughtfully towards his father's house."},
{"text":" VI"},
{"text":"Smerdyakov"},
{"text":"He did in fact find his father still at table. Though there was  dining-room in the house, the table was laid as usual in th drawing-room, which was the largest room, and furnished wit old-fashioned ostentation. The furniture was white and very old upholstered in old, red, silky material. In the spaces between th windows there were mirrors in elaborate white and gilt frames, o old-fashioned carving. On the walls, covered with white paper, whic was torn in many places, there hung two large portraits--one of som prince who had been governor of the district thirty years before, an the other of some bishop, also long since dead. In the corner opposit the door there were several icons, before which a lamp was lighted a nightfall ... not so much for devotional purposes as to light th room. Fyodor Pavlovitch used to go to bed very late, at three or fou o'clock in the morning, and would wander about the room at night or si in an armchair, thinking. This had become a habit with him. He ofte slept quite alone in the house, sending his servants to the lodge; bu usually Smerdyakov remained, sleeping on a bench in the hall."},
{"text":"When Alyosha came in, dinner was over, but coffee and preserves ha been served. Fyodor Pavlovitch liked sweet things with brandy afte dinner. Ivan was also at table, sipping coffee. The servants, Grigor and Smerdyakov, were standing by. Both the gentlemen and the servant seemed in singularly good spirits. Fyodor Pavlovitch was roaring wit laughter. Before he entered the room, Alyosha heard the shrill laugh h knew so well, and could tell from the sound of it that his father ha only reached the good-humored stage, and was far from being completel drunk."},
{"text":"\"Here he is! Here he is!\" yelled Fyodor Pavlovitch, highly delighted a seeing Alyosha. \"Join us. Sit down. Coffee is a lenten dish, but it' hot and good. I don't offer you brandy, you're keeping the fast. Bu would you like some? No; I'd better give you some of our famou liqueur. Smerdyakov, go to the cupboard, the second shelf on the right Here are the keys. Look sharp!\""},
{"text":"Alyosha began refusing the liqueur."},
{"text":"\"Never mind. If you won't have it, we will,\" said Fyodor Pavlovitch beaming. \"But stay--have you dined?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes,\" answered Alyosha, who had in truth only eaten a piece of brea and drunk a glass of kvass in the Father Superior's kitchen. \"Though  should be pleased to have some hot coffee.\""},
{"text":"\"Bravo, my darling! He'll have some coffee. Does it want warming? No it's boiling. It's capital coffee: Smerdyakov's making. My Smerdyakov' an artist at coffee and at fish patties, and at fish soup, too. Yo must come one day and have some fish soup. Let me know beforehand. ... But, stay; didn't I tell you this morning to come home with you mattress and pillow and all? Have you brought your mattress? He he he!\""},
{"text":"\"No, I haven't,\" said Alyosha, smiling, too."},
{"text":"\"Ah, but you were frightened, you were frightened this morning, weren' you? There, my darling, I couldn't do anything to vex you. Do you know Ivan, I can't resist the way he looks one straight in the face an laughs? It makes me laugh all over. I'm so fond of him. Alyosha, let m give you my blessing--a father's blessing.\""},
{"text":"Alyosha rose, but Fyodor Pavlovitch had already changed his mind."},
{"text":"\"No, no,\" he said. \"I'll just make the sign of the cross over you, fo now. Sit still. Now we've a treat for you, in your own line, too. It'l make you laugh. Balaam's ass has begun talking to us here--and how h talks! How he talks!\""},
{"text":"Balaam's ass, it appeared, was the valet, Smerdyakov. He was a youn man of about four and twenty, remarkably unsociable and taciturn. No that he was shy or bashful. On the contrary, he was conceited an seemed to despise everybody."},
{"text":"But we must pause to say a few words about him now. He was brought u by Grigory and Marfa, but the boy grew up \"with no sense of gratitude,\"as Grigory expressed it; he was an unfriendly boy, and seemed to loo at the world mistrustfully. In his childhood he was very fond o hanging cats, and burying them with great ceremony. He used to dress u in a sheet as though it were a surplice, and sang, and waved som object over the dead cat as though it were a censer. All this he did o the sly, with the greatest secrecy. Grigory caught him once at thi diversion and gave him a sound beating. He shrank into a corner an sulked there for a week. \"He doesn't care for you or me, the monster,\"Grigory used to say to Marfa, \"and he doesn't care for anyone. Are yo a human being?\" he said, addressing the boy directly. \"You're not  human being. You grew from the mildew in the bathhouse.[130]2 That' what you are.\" Smerdyakov, it appeared afterwards, could never forgiv him those words. Grigory taught him to read and write, and when he wa twelve years old, began teaching him the Scriptures. But this teachin came to nothing. At the second or third lesson the boy suddenl grinned."},
{"text":"\"What's that for?\" asked Grigory, looking at him threateningly fro under his spectacles."},
{"text":"\"Oh, nothing. God created light on the first day, and the sun, moon and stars on the fourth day. Where did the light come from on the firs day?\""},
{"text":"Grigory was thunderstruck. The boy looked sarcastically at his teacher There was something positively condescending in his expression. Grigor could not restrain himself. \"I'll show you where!\" he cried, and gav the boy a violent slap on the cheek. The boy took the slap without  word, but withdrew into his corner again for some days. A week later h had his first attack of the disease to which he was subject all th rest of his life--epilepsy. When Fyodor Pavlovitch heard of it, hi attitude to the boy seemed changed at once. Till then he had taken n notice of him, though he never scolded him, and always gave him  copeck when he met him. Sometimes, when he was in good humor, he woul send the boy something sweet from his table. But as soon as he heard o his illness, he showed an active interest in him, sent for a doctor and tried remedies, but the disease turned out to be incurable. Th fits occurred, on an average, once a month, but at various intervals The fits varied too, in violence: some were light and some were ver severe. Fyodor Pavlovitch strictly forbade Grigory to use corpora punishment to the boy, and began allowing him to come upstairs to him He forbade him to be taught anything whatever for a time, too. One da when the boy was about fifteen, Fyodor Pavlovitch noticed him lingerin by the bookcase, and reading the titles through the glass. Fyodo Pavlovitch had a fair number of books--over a hundred--but no on ever saw him reading. He at once gave Smerdyakov the key of th bookcase. \"Come, read. You shall be my librarian. You'll be bette sitting reading than hanging about the courtyard. Come, read this,\" an Fyodor Pavlovitch gave him Evenings in a Cottage Near Dikanka."},
{"text":"He read a little but didn't like it. He did not once smile, and ende by frowning."},
{"text":"\"Why? Isn't it funny?\" asked Fyodor Pavlovitch."},
{"text":"Smerdyakov did not speak."},
{"text":"\"Answer, stupid!\""},
{"text":"\"It's all untrue,\" mumbled the boy, with a grin."},
{"text":"\"Then go to the devil! You have the soul of a lackey. Stay, here' Smaragdov's Universal History. That's all true. Read that.\""},
{"text":"But Smerdyakov did not get through ten pages of Smaragdov. He though it dull. So the bookcase was closed again."},
{"text":"Shortly afterwards Marfa and Grigory reported to Fyodor Pavlovitch tha Smerdyakov was gradually beginning to show an extraordinar fastidiousness. He would sit before his soup, take up his spoon an look into the soup, bend over it, examine it, take a spoonful and hol it to the light."},
{"text":"\"What is it? A beetle?\" Grigory would ask."},
{"text":"\"A fly, perhaps,\" observed Marfa."},
{"text":"The squeamish youth never answered, but he did the same with his bread his meat, and everything he ate. He would hold a piece on his fork t the light, scrutinize it microscopically, and only after lon deliberation decide to put it in his mouth."},
{"text":"\"Ach! What fine gentlemen's airs!\" Grigory muttered, looking at him."},
{"text":"When Fyodor Pavlovitch heard of this development in Smerdyakov h determined to make him his cook, and sent him to Moscow to be trained He spent some years there and came back remarkably changed i appearance. He looked extraordinarily old for his age. His face ha grown wrinkled, yellow, and strangely emasculate. In character h seemed almost exactly the same as before he went away. He was just a unsociable, and showed not the slightest inclination for an companionship. In Moscow, too, as we heard afterwards, he had alway been silent. Moscow itself had little interest for him; he saw ver little there, and took scarcely any notice of anything. He went once t the theater, but returned silent and displeased with it. On the othe hand, he came back to us from Moscow well dressed, in a clean coat an clean linen. He brushed his clothes most scrupulously twice a da invariably, and was very fond of cleaning his smart calf boots with  special English polish, so that they shone like mirrors. He turned ou a first-rate cook. Fyodor Pavlovitch paid him a salary, almost th whole of which Smerdyakov spent on clothes, pomade, perfumes, and suc things. But he seemed to have as much contempt for the female sex a for men; he was discreet, almost unapproachable, with them. Fyodo Pavlovitch began to regard him rather differently. His fits wer becoming more frequent, and on the days he was ill Marfa cooked, whic did not suit Fyodor Pavlovitch at all."},
{"text":"\"Why are your fits getting worse?\" asked Fyodor Pavlovitch, lookin askance at his new cook. \"Would you like to get married? Shall I fin you a wife?\""},
{"text":"But Smerdyakov turned pale with anger, and made no reply. Fyodo Pavlovitch left him with an impatient gesture. The great thing was tha he had absolute confidence in his honesty. It happened once, whe Fyodor Pavlovitch was drunk, that he dropped in the muddy courtyar three hundred-rouble notes which he had only just received. He onl missed them next day, and was just hastening to search his pockets whe he saw the notes lying on the table. Where had they come from Smerdyakov had picked them up and brought them in the day before."},
{"text":"\"Well, my lad, I've never met anyone like you,\" Fyodor Pavlovitch sai shortly, and gave him ten roubles. We may add that he not only believe in his honesty, but had, for some reason, a liking for him, althoug the young man looked as morosely at him as at everyone and was alway silent. He rarely spoke. If it had occurred to anyone to wonder at th time what the young man was interested in, and what was in his mind, i would have been impossible to tell by looking at him. Yet he use sometimes to stop suddenly in the house, or even in the yard or street and would stand still for ten minutes, lost in thought. A physiognomis studying his face would have said that there was no thought in it, n reflection, but only a sort of contemplation. There is a remarkabl picture by the painter Kramskoy, called Contemplation. There is  forest in winter, and on a roadway through the forest, in absolut solitude, stands a peasant in a torn kaftan and bark shoes. He stands as it were, lost in thought. Yet he is not thinking; he i \"contemplating.\" If anyone touched him he would start and look at on as though awakening and bewildered. It's true he would come to himsel immediately; but if he were asked what he had been thinking about, h would remember nothing. Yet probably he has, hidden within himself, th impression which had dominated him during the period of contemplation Those impressions are dear to him and no doubt he hoards the imperceptibly, and even unconsciously. How and why, of course, he doe not know either. He may suddenly, after hoarding impressions for man years, abandon everything and go off to Jerusalem on a pilgrimage fo his soul's salvation, or perhaps he will suddenly set fire to hi native village, and perhaps do both. There are a good man \"contemplatives\" among the peasantry. Well, Smerdyakov was probably on of them, and he probably was greedily hoarding up his impressions hardly knowing why."},
{"text":" VII"},
{"text":"The Controversy"},
{"text":"But Balaam's ass had suddenly spoken. The subject was a strange one Grigory had gone in the morning to make purchases, and had heard fro the shopkeeper Lukyanov the story of a Russian soldier which ha appeared in the newspaper of that day. This soldier had been take prisoner in some remote part of Asia, and was threatened with a immediate agonizing death if he did not renounce Christianity an follow Islam. He refused to deny his faith, and was tortured, flaye alive, and died, praising and glorifying Christ. Grigory had relate the story at table. Fyodor Pavlovitch always liked, over the desser after dinner, to laugh and talk, if only with Grigory. This afternoo he was in a particularly good-humored and expansive mood. Sipping hi brandy and listening to the story, he observed that they ought to mak a saint of a soldier like that, and to take his skin to some monastery \"That would make the people flock, and bring the money in.\""},
{"text":"Grigory frowned, seeing that Fyodor Pavlovitch was by no means touched but, as usual, was beginning to scoff. At that moment Smerdyakov, wh was standing by the door, smiled. Smerdyakov often waited at tabl towards the end of dinner, and since Ivan's arrival in our town he ha done so every day."},
{"text":"\"What are you grinning at?\" asked Fyodor Pavlovitch, catching the smil instantly, and knowing that it referred to Grigory."},
{"text":"\"Well, my opinion is,\" Smerdyakov began suddenly and unexpectedly in  loud voice, \"that if that laudable soldier's exploit was so very grea there would have been, to my thinking, no sin in it if he had on suc an emergency renounced, so to speak, the name of Christ and his ow christening, to save by that same his life, for good deeds, by which in the course of years to expiate his cowardice.\""},
{"text":"\"How could it not be a sin? You're talking nonsense. For that you'll g straight to hell and be roasted there like mutton,\" put in Fyodo Pavlovitch."},
{"text":"It was at this point that Alyosha came in, and Fyodor Pavlovitch, as w have seen, was highly delighted at his appearance."},
{"text":"\"We're on your subject, your subject,\" he chuckled gleefully, makin Alyosha sit down to listen."},
{"text":"\"As for mutton, that's not so, and there'll be nothing there for this and there shouldn't be either, if it's according to justice,\"Smerdyakov maintained stoutly."},
{"text":"\"How do you mean `according to justice'?\" Fyodor Pavlovitch cried stil more gayly, nudging Alyosha with his knee."},
{"text":"\"He's a rascal, that's what he is!\" burst from Grigory. He looke Smerdyakov wrathfully in the face."},
{"text":"\"As for being a rascal, wait a little, Grigory Vassilyevitch,\" answere Smerdyakov with perfect composure. \"You'd better consider yoursel that, once I am taken prisoner by the enemies of the Christian race and they demand from me to curse the name of God and to renounce m holy christening, I am fully entitled to act by my own reason, sinc there would be no sin in it.\""},
{"text":"\"But you've said that before. Don't waste words. Prove it,\" crie Fyodor Pavlovitch."},
{"text":"\"Soup-maker!\" muttered Grigory contemptuously."},
{"text":"\"As for being a soup-maker, wait a bit, too, and consider for yourself Grigory Vassilyevitch, without abusing me. For as soon as I say t those enemies, `No, I'm not a Christian, and I curse my true God,' the at once, by God's high judgment, I become immediately and speciall anathema accursed, and am cut off from the Holy Church, exactly a though I were a heathen, so that at that very instant, not only when  say it aloud, but when I think of saying it, before a quarter of  second has passed, I am cut off. Is that so or not, Grigor Vassilyevitch?\""},
{"text":"He addressed Grigory with obvious satisfaction, though he was reall answering Fyodor Pavlovitch's questions, and was well aware of it, an intentionally pretending that Grigory had asked the questions."},
{"text":"\"Ivan,\" cried Fyodor Pavlovitch suddenly, \"stoop down for me t whisper. He's got this all up for your benefit. He wants you to prais him. Praise him.\""},
{"text":"Ivan listened with perfect seriousness to his father's excited whisper."},
{"text":"\"Stay, Smerdyakov, be quiet a minute,\" cried Fyodor Pavlovitch onc more. \"Ivan, your ear again.\""},
{"text":"Ivan bent down again with a perfectly grave face."},
{"text":"\"I love you as I do Alyosha. Don't think I don't love you. Som brandy?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes.--But you're rather drunk yourself,\" thought Ivan, lookin steadily at his father."},
{"text":"He was watching Smerdyakov with great curiosity."},
{"text":"\"You're anathema accursed, as it is,\" Grigory suddenly burst out, \"an how dare you argue, you rascal, after that, if--\""},
{"text":"\"Don't scold him, Grigory, don't scold him,\" Fyodor Pavlovitch cut hi short."},
{"text":"\"You should wait, Grigory Vassilyevitch, if only a short time, an listen, for I haven't finished all I had to say. For at the very momen I become accursed, at that same highest moment, I become exactly like  heathen, and my christening is taken off me and becomes of no avail Isn't that so?\""},
{"text":"\"Make haste and finish, my boy,\" Fyodor Pavlovitch urged him, sippin from his wineglass with relish."},
{"text":"\"And if I've ceased to be a Christian, then I told no lie to the enem when they asked whether I was a Christian or not a Christian, seeing  had already been relieved by God Himself of my Christianity by reaso of the thought alone, before I had time to utter a word to the enemy And if I have already been discharged, in what manner and with wha sort of justice can I be held responsible as a Christian in the othe world for having denied Christ, when, through the very thought alone before denying Him I had been relieved from my christening? If I'm n longer a Christian, then I can't renounce Christ, for I've nothing the to renounce. Who will hold an unclean Tatar responsible, Grigor Vassilyevitch, even in heaven, for not having been born a Christian And who would punish him for that, considering that you can't take tw skins off one ox? For God Almighty Himself, even if He did make th Tatar responsible, when he dies would give him the smallest possibl punishment, I imagine (since he must be punished), judging that he i not to blame if he has come into the world an unclean heathen, fro heathen parents. The Lord God can't surely take a Tatar and say he wa a Christian? That would mean that the Almighty would tell a rea untruth. And can the Lord of Heaven and earth tell a lie, even in on word?\""},
{"text":"Grigory was thunderstruck and looked at the orator, his eyes nearl starting out of his head. Though he did not clearly understand what wa said, he had caught something in this rigmarole, and stood, lookin like a man who has just hit his head against a wall. Fyodor Pavlovitc emptied his glass and went off into his shrill laugh."},
{"text":"\"Alyosha! Alyosha! What do you say to that! Ah, you casuist! He mus have been with the Jesuits, somewhere, Ivan. Oh, you stinking Jesuit who taught you? But you're talking nonsense, you casuist, nonsense nonsense, nonsense. Don't cry, Grigory, we'll reduce him to smoke an ashes in a moment. Tell me this, O ass; you may be right before you enemies, but you have renounced your faith all the same in your ow heart, and you say yourself that in that very hour you became anathem accursed. And if once you're anathema they won't pat you on the hea for it in hell. What do you say to that, my fine Jesuit?\""},
{"text":"\"There is no doubt that I have renounced it in my own heart, but ther was no special sin in that. Or if there was sin, it was the mos ordinary.\""},
{"text":"\"How's that the most ordinary?\""},
{"text":"\"You lie, accursed one!\" hissed Grigory."},
{"text":"\"Consider yourself, Grigory Vassilyevitch,\" Smerdyakov went on, stai and unruffled, conscious of his triumph, but, as it were, generous t the vanquished foe. \"Consider yourself, Grigory Vassilyevitch; it i said in the Scripture that if you have faith, even as a mustard seed and bid a mountain move into the sea, it will move without the leas delay at your bidding. Well, Grigory Vassilyevitch, if I'm withou faith and you have so great a faith that you are continually swearin at me, you try yourself telling this mountain, not to move into the se for that's a long way off, but even to our stinking little river whic runs at the bottom of the garden. You'll see for yourself that it won' budge, but will remain just where it is however much you shout at it and that shows, Grigory Vassilyevitch, that you haven't faith in th proper manner, and only abuse others about it. Again, taking int consideration that no one in our day, not only you, but actually n one, from the highest person to the lowest peasant, can shove mountain into the sea--except perhaps some one man in the world, or, at most two, and they most likely are saving their souls in secret somewhere i the Egyptian desert, so you wouldn't find them--if so it be, if al the rest have no faith, will God curse all the rest? that is, th population of the whole earth, except about two hermits in the desert and in His well-known mercy will He not forgive one of them? And so I' persuaded that though I may once have doubted I shall be forgiven if  shed tears of repentance.\""},
{"text":"\"Stay!\" cried Fyodor Pavlovitch, in a transport of delight. \"So you d suppose there are two who can move mountains? Ivan, make a note of it write it down. There you have the Russian all over!\""},
{"text":"\"You're quite right in saying it's characteristic of the people' faith,\" Ivan assented, with an approving smile."},
{"text":"\"You agree. Then it must be so, if you agree. It's true, isn't it Alyosha? That's the Russian faith all over, isn't it?\""},
{"text":"\"No, Smerdyakov has not the Russian faith at all,\" said Alyosha firml and gravely."},
{"text":"\"I'm not talking about his faith. I mean those two in the desert, onl that idea. Surely that's Russian, isn't it?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, that's purely Russian,\" said Alyosha smiling."},
{"text":"\"Your words are worth a gold piece, O ass, and I'll give it to yo today. But as to the rest you talk nonsense, nonsense, nonsense. Let m tell you, stupid, that we here are all of little faith, only fro carelessness, because we haven't time; things are too much for us, and in the second place, the Lord God has given us so little time, onl twenty-four hours in the day, so that one hasn't even time to get slee enough, much less to repent of one's sins. While you have denied you faith to your enemies when you'd nothing else to think about but t show your faith! So I consider, brother, that it constitutes a sin.\""},
{"text":"\"Constitute a sin it may, but consider yourself, Grigory Vassilyevitch that it only extenuates it, if it does constitute. If I had believe then in very truth, as I ought to have believed, then it really woul have been sinful if I had not faced tortures for my faith, and had gon over to the pagan Mohammedan faith. But, of course, it wouldn't hav come to torture then, because I should only have had to say at tha instant to the mountain, `Move and crush the tormentor,' and it woul have moved and at the very instant have crushed him like  black-beetle, and I should have walked away as though nothing ha happened, praising and glorifying God. But, suppose at that very momen I had tried all that, and cried to that mountain, `Crush thes tormentors,' and it hadn't crushed them, how could I have helpe doubting, pray, at such a time, and at such a dread hour of morta terror? And apart from that, I should know already that I could no attain to the fullness of the Kingdom of Heaven (for since the mountai had not moved at my word, they could not think very much of my faith u aloft, and there could be no very great reward awaiting me in the worl to come). So why should I let them flay the skin off me as well, and t no good purpose? For, even though they had flayed my skin half off m back, even then the mountain would not have moved at my word or at m cry. And at such a moment not only doubt might come over one but on might lose one's reason from fear, so that one would not be able t think at all. And, therefore, how should I be particularly to blame i not seeing my advantage or reward there or here, I should, at least save my skin. And so trusting fully in the grace of the Lord I shoul cherish the hope that I might be altogether forgiven.\""},
{"text":" VIII"},
{"text":"Over the Brandy"},
{"text":"The controversy was over. But, strange to say, Fyodor Pavlovitch, wh had been so gay, suddenly began frowning. He frowned and gulped brandy and it was already a glass too much."},
{"text":"\"Get along with you, Jesuits!\" he cried to the servants. \"Go away Smerdyakov. I'll send you the gold piece I promised you today, but b off! Don't cry, Grigory. Go to Marfa. She'll comfort you and put you t bed. The rascals won't let us sit in peace after dinner,\" he snappe peevishly, as the servants promptly withdrew at his word."},
{"text":"\"Smerdyakov always pokes himself in now, after dinner. It's you he's s interested in. What have you done to fascinate him?\" he added to Ivan."},
{"text":"\"Nothing whatever,\" answered Ivan. \"He's pleased to have a high opinio of me; he's a lackey and a mean soul. Raw material for revolution however, when the time comes.\""},
{"text":"\"For revolution?\""},
{"text":"\"There will be others and better ones. But there will be some like hi as well. His kind will come first, and better ones after.\""},
{"text":"\"And when will the time come?\""},
{"text":"\"The rocket will go off and fizzle out, perhaps. The peasants are no very fond of listening to these soup-makers, so far.\""},
{"text":"\"Ah, brother, but a Balaam's ass like that thinks and thinks, and th devil knows where he gets to.\""},
{"text":"\"He's storing up ideas,\" said Ivan, smiling."},
{"text":"\"You see, I know he can't bear me, nor anyone else, even you, thoug you fancy that he has a high opinion of you. Worse still with Alyosha he despises Alyosha. But he doesn't steal, that's one thing, and he' not a gossip, he holds his tongue, and doesn't wash our dirty linen i public. He makes capital fish pasties too. But, damn him, is he wort talking about so much?\""},
{"text":"\"Of course he isn't.\""},
{"text":"\"And as for the ideas he may be hatching, the Russian peasant generally speaking, needs thrashing. That I've always maintained. Ou peasants are swindlers, and don't deserve to be pitied, and it's a goo thing they're still flogged sometimes. Russia is rich in birches. I they destroyed the forests, it would be the ruin of Russia. I stand u for the clever people. We've left off thrashing the peasants, we'v grown so clever, but they go on thrashing themselves. And a good thin too. `For with what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again, or how does it go? Anyhow, it will be measured. But Russia's al swinishness. My dear, if you only knew how I hate Russia. ... Tha is, not Russia, but all this vice! But maybe I mean Russia. Tout cel c'est de la cochonnerie. ... Do you know what I like? I like wit.\""},
{"text":"\"You've had another glass. That's enough.\""},
{"text":"\"Wait a bit. I'll have one more, and then another, and then I'll stop No, stay, you interrupted me. At Mokroe I was talking to an old man and he told me: `There's nothing we like so much as sentencing girls t be thrashed, and we always give the lads the job of thrashing them. An the girl he has thrashed today, the young man will ask in marriag tomorrow. So it quite suits the girls, too,' he said. There's a set o de Sades for you! But it's clever, anyway. Shall we go over and have  look at it, eh? Alyosha, are you blushing? Don't be bashful, child. I' sorry I didn't stay to dinner at the Superior's and tell the monk about the girls at Mokroe. Alyosha, don't be angry that I offended you Superior this morning. I lost my temper. If there is a God, if H exists, then, of course, I'm to blame, and I shall have to answer fo it. But if there isn't a God at all, what do they deserve, you fathers? It's not enough to cut their heads off, for they keep bac progress. Would you believe it, Ivan, that that lacerates m sentiments? No, you don't believe it as I see from your eyes. Yo believe what people say, that I'm nothing but a buffoon. Alyosha, d you believe that I'm nothing but a buffoon?\""},
{"text":"\"No, I don't believe it.\""},
{"text":"\"And I believe you don't, and that you speak the truth. You loo sincere and you speak sincerely. But not Ivan. Ivan's supercilious. ... I'd make an end of your monks, though, all the same. I'd take al that mystic stuff and suppress it, once for all, all over Russia, so a to bring all the fools to reason. And the gold and the silver tha would flow into the mint!\""},
{"text":"\"But why suppress it?\" asked Ivan."},
{"text":"\"That Truth may prevail. That's why.\""},
{"text":"\"Well, if Truth were to prevail, you know, you'd be the first to b robbed and suppressed.\""},
{"text":"\"Ah! I dare say you're right. Ah, I'm an ass!\" burst out Fyodo Pavlovitch, striking himself lightly on the forehead. \"Well, you monastery may stand then, Alyosha, if that's how it is. And we cleve people will sit snug and enjoy our brandy. You know, Ivan, it must hav been so ordained by the Almighty Himself. Ivan, speak, is there a Go or not? Stay, speak the truth, speak seriously. Why are you laughin again?\""},
{"text":"\"I'm laughing that you should have made a clever remark just now abou Smerdyakov's belief in the existence of two saints who could mov mountains.\""},
{"text":"\"Why, am I like him now, then?\""},
{"text":"\"Very much.\""},
{"text":"\"Well, that shows I'm a Russian, too, and I have a Russia characteristic. And you may be caught in the same way, though you are  philosopher. Shall I catch you? What do you bet that I'll catch yo tomorrow. Speak, all the same, is there a God, or not? Only, b serious. I want you to be serious now.\""},
{"text":"\"No, there is no God.\""},
{"text":"\"Alyosha, is there a God?\""},
{"text":"\"There is.\""},
{"text":"\"Ivan, and is there immortality of some sort, just a little, just  tiny bit?\""},
{"text":"\"There is no immortality either.\""},
{"text":"\"None at all?\""},
{"text":"\"None at all.\""},
{"text":"\"There's absolute nothingness then. Perhaps there is just something Anything is better than nothing!\""},
{"text":"\"Absolute nothingness.\""},
{"text":"\"Alyosha, is there immortality?\""},
{"text":"\"There is.\""},
{"text":"\"God and immortality?\""},
{"text":"\"God and immortality. In God is immortality.\""},
{"text":"\"H'm! It's more likely Ivan's right. Good Lord! to think what faith what force of all kinds, man has lavished for nothing, on that dream and for how many thousand years. Who is it laughing at man? Ivan! Fo the last time, once for all, is there a God or not? I ask for the las time!\""},
{"text":"\"And for the last time there is not.\""},
{"text":"\"Who is laughing at mankind, Ivan?\""},
{"text":"\"It must be the devil,\" said Ivan, smiling."},
{"text":"\"And the devil? Does he exist?\""},
{"text":"\"No, there's no devil either.\""},
{"text":"\"It's a pity. Damn it all, what wouldn't I do to the man who firs invented God! Hanging on a bitter aspen tree would be too good fo him.\""},
{"text":"\"There would have been no civilization if they hadn't invented God.\""},
{"text":"\"Wouldn't there have been? Without God?\""},
{"text":"\"No. And there would have been no brandy either. But I must take you brandy away from you, anyway.\""},
{"text":"\"Stop, stop, stop, dear boy, one more little glass. I've hurt Alyosha' feelings. You're not angry with me, Alyosha? My dear little Alexey!\""},
{"text":"\"No, I am not angry. I know your thoughts. Your heart is better tha your head.\""},
{"text":"\"My heart better than my head, is it? Oh, Lord! And that from you Ivan, do you love Alyosha?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes.\""},
{"text":"\"You must love him\" (Fyodor Pavlovitch was by this time very drunk) \"Listen, Alyosha, I was rude to your elder this morning. But I wa excited. But there's wit in that elder, don't you think, Ivan?\""},
{"text":"\"Very likely.\""},
{"text":"\"There is, there is. Il y a du Piron l dedans. He's a Jesuit,  Russian one, that is. As he's an honorable person there's a hidde indignation boiling within him at having to pretend and affec holiness.\""},
{"text":"\"But, of course, he believes in God.\""},
{"text":"\"Not a bit of it. Didn't you know? Why, he tells everyone so, himself That is, not everyone, but all the clever people who come to him. H said straight out to Governor Schultz not long ago: `Credo, but I don' know in what.' \""},
{"text":"\"Really?\""},
{"text":"\"He really did. But I respect him. There's something of Mephistophele about him, or rather of `The hero of our time' ... Arbenin, or what' his name? ... You see, he's a sensualist. He's such a sensualist tha I should be afraid for my daughter or my wife if she went to confess t him. You know, when he begins telling stories. ... The year befor last he invited us to tea, tea with liqueur (the ladies send hi liqueur), and began telling us about old times till we nearly split ou sides. ... Especially how he once cured a paralyzed woman. `If m legs were not bad I know a dance I could dance you,' he said. What d you say to that? `I've plenty of tricks in my time,' said he. He di Dernidov, the merchant, out of sixty thousand.\""},
{"text":"\"What, he stole it?\""},
{"text":"\"He brought him the money as a man he could trust, saying, `Take car of it for me, friend, there'll be a police search at my plac tomorrow.' And he kept it. `You have given it to the Church,' h declared. I said to him: `You're a scoundrel,' I said. `No,' said he `I'm not a scoundrel, but I'm broad-minded.' But that wasn't he, tha was someone else. I've muddled him with someone else ... withou noticing it. Come, another glass and that's enough. Take away th bottle, Ivan. I've been telling lies. Why didn't you stop me, Ivan, an tell me I was lying?\""},
{"text":"\"I knew you'd stop of yourself.\""},
{"text":"\"That's a lie. You did it from spite, from simple spite against me. Yo despise me. You have come to me and despised me in my own house.\""},
{"text":"\"Well, I'm going away. You've had too much brandy.\""},
{"text":"\"I've begged you for Christ's sake to go to Tchermashnya for a day o two, and you don't go.\""},
{"text":"\"I'll go tomorrow if you're so set upon it.\""},
{"text":"\"You won't go. You want to keep an eye on me. That's what you want spiteful fellow. That's why you won't go.\""},
{"text":"The old man persisted. He had reached that state of drunkenness whe the drunkard who has till then been inoffensive tries to pick a quarre and to assert himself."},
{"text":"\"Why are you looking at me? Why do you look like that? Your eyes loo at me and say, `You ugly drunkard!' Your eyes are mistrustful. They'r contemptuous. ... You've come here with some design. Alyosha, here looks at me and his eyes shine. Alyosha doesn't despise me. Alexey, yo mustn't love Ivan.\""},
{"text":"\"Don't be ill-tempered with my brother. Leave off attacking him,\"Alyosha said emphatically."},
{"text":"\"Oh, all right. Ugh, my head aches. Take away the brandy, Ivan. It' the third time I've told you.\""},
{"text":"He mused, and suddenly a slow, cunning grin spread over his face."},
{"text":"\"Don't be angry with a feeble old man, Ivan. I know you don't love me but don't be angry all the same. You've nothing to love me for. You g to Tchermashnya. I'll come to you myself and bring you a present. I'l show you a little wench there. I've had my eye on her a long time She's still running about barefoot. Don't be afraid of barefoote wenches--don't despise them--they're pearls!\""},
{"text":"And he kissed his hand with a smack."},
{"text":"\"To my thinking,\" he revived at once, seeming to grow sober the instan he touched on his favorite topic. \"To my thinking ... Ah, you boys You children, little sucking-pigs, to my thinking ... I never though a woman ugly in my life--that's been my rule! Can you understand that How could you understand it? You've milk in your veins, not blood You're not out of your shells yet. My rule has been that you can alway find something devilishly interesting in every woman that you wouldn' find in any other. Only, one must know how to find it, that's th point! That's a talent! To my mind there are no ugly women. The ver fact that she is a woman is half the battle ... but how could yo understand that? Even in vieilles filles, even in them you may discove something that makes you simply wonder that men have been such fools a to let them grow old without noticing them. Barefooted girls o unattractive ones, you must take by surprise. Didn't you know that? Yo must astound them till they're fascinated, upset, ashamed that such  gentleman should fall in love with such a little slut. It's a joll good thing that there always are and will be masters and slaves in th world, so there always will be a little maid-of-all-work and he master, and you know, that's all that's needed for happiness. Stay ... listen, Alyosha, I always used to surprise your mother, but in  different way. I paid no attention to her at all, but all at once, whe the minute came, I'd be all devotion to her, crawl on my knees, kis her feet, and I always, always--I remember it as though it wer today--reduced her to that tinkling, quiet, nervous, queer littl laugh. It was peculiar to her. I knew her attacks always used to begi like that. The next day she would begin shrieking hysterically, an this little laugh was not a sign of delight, though it made a very goo counterfeit. That's the great thing, to know how to take everyone. Onc Belyavsky--he was a handsome fellow, and rich--used to like to com here and hang about her--suddenly gave me a slap in the face in he presence. And she--such a mild sheep--why, I thought she would hav knocked me down for that blow. How she set on me! `You're beaten beaten now,' she said. `You've taken a blow from him. You have bee trying to sell me to him,' she said. ... `And how dared he strike yo in my presence! Don't dare come near me again, never, never! Run a once, challenge him to a duel!' ... I took her to the monastery the to bring her to her senses. The holy Fathers prayed her back to reason But I swear, by God, Alyosha, I never insulted the poor crazy girl Only once, perhaps, in the first year; then she was very fond o praying. She used to keep the feasts of Our Lady particularly and use to turn me out of her room then. I'll knock that mysticism out of her thought I! `Here,' said I, `you see your holy image. Here it is. Here  take it down. You believe it's miraculous, but here, I'll spit on i directly and nothing will happen to me for it!' ... When she saw it good Lord! I thought she would kill me. But she only jumped up, wrun her hands, then suddenly hid her face in them, began trembling all ove and fell on the floor ... fell all of a heap. Alyosha, Alyosha what's the matter?\""},
{"text":"The old man jumped up in alarm. From the time he had begun speakin about his mother, a change had gradually come over Alyosha's face. H flushed crimson, his eyes glowed, his lips quivered. The old sot ha gone spluttering on, noticing nothing, till the moment when somethin very strange happened to Alyosha. Precisely what he was describing i the crazy woman was suddenly repeated with Alyosha. He jumped up fro his seat exactly as his mother was said to have done, wrung his hands hid his face in them, and fell back in his chair, shaking all over i an hysterical paroxysm of sudden violent, silent weeping. Hi extraordinary resemblance to his mother particularly impressed the ol man."},
{"text":"\"Ivan, Ivan! Water, quickly! It's like her, exactly as she used to b then, his mother. Spurt some water on him from your mouth, that's wha I used to do to her. He's upset about his mother, his mother,\" h muttered to Ivan."},
{"text":"\"But she was my mother, too, I believe, his mother. Was she not?\" sai Ivan, with uncontrolled anger and contempt. The old man shrank befor his flashing eyes. But something very strange had happened, though onl for a second; it seemed really to have escaped the old man's mind tha Alyosha's mother actually was the mother of Ivan too."},
{"text":"\"Your mother?\" he muttered, not understanding. \"What do you mean? Wha mother are you talking about? Was she? ... Why, damn it! of cours she was yours too! Damn it! My mind has never been so darkened before Excuse me, why, I was thinking, Ivan. ... He he he!\" He stopped.  broad, drunken, half-senseless grin overspread his face."},
{"text":"At that moment a fearful noise and clamor was heard in the hall, ther were violent shouts, the door was flung open, and Dmitri burst into th room. The old man rushed to Ivan in terror."},
{"text":"\"He'll kill me! He'll kill me! Don't let him get at me!\" he screamed clinging to the skirt of Ivan's coat."},
{"text":" IX"},
{"text":"The Sensualists"},
{"text":"Grigory and Smerdyakov ran into the room after Dmitri. They had bee struggling with him in the passage, refusing to admit him, acting o instructions given them by Fyodor Pavlovitch some days before. Takin advantage of the fact that Dmitri stopped a moment on entering the roo to look about him, Grigory ran round the table, closed the double door on the opposite side of the room leading to the inner apartments, an stood before the closed doors, stretching wide his arms, prepared t defend the entrance, so to speak, with the last drop of his blood Seeing this, Dmitri uttered a scream rather than a shout and rushed a Grigory."},
{"text":"\"Then she's there! She's hidden there! Out of the way, scoundrel!\""},
{"text":"He tried to pull Grigory away, but the old servant pushed him back Beside himself with fury, Dmitri struck out, and hit Grigory with al his might. The old man fell like a log, and Dmitri, leaping over him broke in the door. Smerdyakov remained pale and trembling at the othe end of the room, huddling close to Fyodor Pavlovitch."},
{"text":"\"She's here!\" shouted Dmitri. \"I saw her turn towards the house jus now, but I couldn't catch her. Where is she? Where is she?\""},
{"text":"That shout, \"She's here!\" produced an indescribable effect on Fyodo Pavlovitch. All his terror left him."},
{"text":"\"Hold him! Hold him!\" he cried, and dashed after Dmitri. Meanwhil Grigory had got up from the floor, but still seemed stunned. Ivan an Alyosha ran after their father. In the third room something was hear to fall on the floor with a ringing crash: it was a large glas vase--not an expensive one--on a marble pedestal which Dmitri ha upset as he ran past it."},
{"text":"\"At him!\" shouted the old man. \"Help!\""},
{"text":"Ivan and Alyosha caught the old man and were forcibly bringing hi back."},
{"text":"\"Why do you run after him? He'll murder you outright,\" Ivan crie wrathfully at his father."},
{"text":"\"Ivan! Alyosha! She must be here. Grushenka's here. He said he saw he himself, running.\""},
{"text":"He was choking. He was not expecting Grushenka at the time, and th sudden news that she was here made him beside himself. He was tremblin all over. He seemed frantic."},
{"text":"\"But you've seen for yourself that she hasn't come,\" cried Ivan."},
{"text":"\"But she may have come by that other entrance.\""},
{"text":"\"You know that entrance is locked, and you have the key.\""},
{"text":"Dmitri suddenly reappeared in the drawing-room. He had, of course found the other entrance locked, and the key actually was in Fyodo Pavlovitch's pocket. The windows of all the rooms were also closed, s Grushenka could not have come in anywhere nor have run out anywhere."},
{"text":"\"Hold him!\" shrieked Fyodor Pavlovitch, as soon as he saw him again \"He's been stealing money in my bedroom.\" And tearing himself from Iva he rushed again at Dmitri. But Dmitri threw up both hands and suddenl clutched the old man by the two tufts of hair that remained on hi temples, tugged at them, and flung him with a crash on the floor. H kicked him two or three times with his heel in the face. The old ma moaned shrilly. Ivan, though not so strong as Dmitri, threw his arm round him, and with all his might pulled him away. Alyosha helped hi with his slender strength, holding Dmitri in front."},
{"text":"\"Madman! You've killed him!\" cried Ivan."},
{"text":"\"Serve him right!\" shouted Dmitri breathlessly. \"If I haven't kille him, I'll come again and kill him. You can't protect him!\""},
{"text":"\"Dmitri! Go away at once!\" cried Alyosha commandingly."},
{"text":"\"Alexey! You tell me. It's only you I can believe; was she here jus now, or not? I saw her myself creeping this way by the fence from th lane. I shouted, she ran away.\""},
{"text":"\"I swear she's not been here, and no one expected her.\""},
{"text":"\"But I saw her. ... So she must ... I'll find out at once where sh is. ... Goodbye, Alexey! Not a word to Aesop about the money now. Bu go to Katerina Ivanovna at once and be sure to say, `He sends hi compliments to you!' Compliments, his compliments! Just compliments an farewell! Describe the scene to her.\""},
{"text":"Meanwhile Ivan and Grigory had raised the old man and seated him in a armchair. His face was covered with blood, but he was conscious an listened greedily to Dmitri's cries. He was still fancying tha Grushenka really was somewhere in the house. Dmitri looked at him wit hatred as he went out."},
{"text":"\"I don't repent shedding your blood!\" he cried. \"Beware, old man beware of your dream, for I have my dream, too. I curse you, and disow you altogether.\""},
{"text":"He ran out of the room."},
{"text":"\"She's here. She must be here. Smerdyakov! Smerdyakov!\" the old ma wheezed, scarcely audibly, beckoning to him with his finger."},
{"text":"\"No, she's not here, you old lunatic!\" Ivan shouted at him angrily \"Here, he's fainting! Water! A towel! Make haste, Smerdyakov!\""},
{"text":"Smerdyakov ran for water. At last they got the old man undressed, an put him to bed. They wrapped a wet towel round his head. Exhausted b the brandy, by his violent emotion, and the blows he had received, h shut his eyes and fell asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow Ivan and Alyosha went back to the drawing-room. Smerdyakov removed th fragments of the broken vase, while Grigory stood by the table lookin gloomily at the floor."},
{"text":"\"Shouldn't you put a wet bandage on your head and go to bed, too?\"Alyosha said to him. \"We'll look after him. My brother gave you  terrible blow--on the head.\""},
{"text":"\"He's insulted me!\" Grigory articulated gloomily and distinctly."},
{"text":"\"He's `insulted' his father, not only you,\" observed Ivan with a force smile."},
{"text":"\"I used to wash him in his tub. He's insulted me,\" repeated Grigory."},
{"text":"\"Damn it all, if I hadn't pulled him away perhaps he'd have murdere him. It wouldn't take much to do for Aesop, would it?\" whispered Iva to Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"God forbid!\" cried Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"Why should He forbid?\" Ivan went on in the same whisper, with  malignant grimace. \"One reptile will devour the other. And serve the both right, too.\""},
{"text":"Alyosha shuddered."},
{"text":"\"Of course I won't let him be murdered as I didn't just now. Stay here Alyosha, I'll go for a turn in the yard. My head's begun to ache.\""},
{"text":"Alyosha went to his father's bedroom and sat by his bedside behind th screen for about an hour. The old man suddenly opened his eyes an gazed for a long while at Alyosha, evidently remembering an meditating. All at once his face betrayed extraordinary excitement."},
{"text":"\"Alyosha,\" he whispered apprehensively, \"where's Ivan?\""},
{"text":"\"In the yard. He's got a headache. He's on the watch.\""},
{"text":"\"Give me that looking-glass. It stands over there. Give it me.\""},
{"text":"Alyosha gave him a little round folding looking-glass which stood o the chest of drawers. The old man looked at himself in it; his nose wa considerably swollen, and on the left side of his forehead there was  rather large crimson bruise."},
{"text":"\"What does Ivan say? Alyosha, my dear, my only son, I'm afraid of Ivan I'm more afraid of Ivan than the other. You're the only one I'm no afraid of. ...\""},
{"text":"\"Don't be afraid of Ivan either. He is angry, but he'll defend you.\""},
{"text":"\"Alyosha, and what of the other? He's run to Grushenka. My angel, tel me the truth, was she here just now or not?\""},
{"text":"\"No one has seen her. It was a mistake. She has not been here.\""},
{"text":"\"You know Mitya wants to marry her, to marry her.\""},
{"text":"\"She won't marry him.\""},
{"text":"\"She won't. She won't. She won't. She won't on any account!\""},
{"text":"The old man fairly fluttered with joy, as though nothing mor comforting could have been said to him. In his delight he seize Alyosha's hand and pressed it warmly to his heart. Tears positivel glittered in his eyes."},
{"text":"\"That image of the Mother of God of which I was telling you just now,\"he said. \"Take it home and keep it for yourself. And I'll let you g back to the monastery. ... I was joking this morning, don't be angr with me. My head aches, Alyosha. ... Alyosha, comfort my heart. Be a angel and tell me the truth!\""},
{"text":"\"You're still asking whether she has been here or not?\" Alyosha sai sorrowfully."},
{"text":"\"No, no, no. I believe you. I'll tell you what it is: you go t Grushenka yourself, or see her somehow; make haste and ask her; see fo yourself, which she means to choose, him or me. Eh? What? Can you?\""},
{"text":"\"If I see her I'll ask her,\" Alyosha muttered, embarrassed."},
{"text":"\"No, she won't tell you,\" the old man interrupted, \"she's a rogue She'll begin kissing you and say that it's you she wants. She's  deceitful, shameless hussy. You mustn't go to her, you mustn't!\""},
{"text":"\"No, father, and it wouldn't be suitable, it wouldn't be right at all.\""},
{"text":"\"Where was he sending you just now? He shouted `Go' as he ran away.\""},
{"text":"\"To Katerina Ivanovna.\""},
{"text":"\"For money? To ask her for money?\""},
{"text":"\"No. Not for money.\""},
{"text":"\"He's no money; not a farthing. I'll settle down for the night, an think things over, and you can go. Perhaps you'll meet her. ... Onl be sure to come to me tomorrow in the morning. Be sure to. I have  word to say to you tomorrow. Will you come?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes.\""},
{"text":"\"When you come, pretend you've come of your own accord to ask after me Don't tell anyone I told you to. Don't say a word to Ivan.\""},
{"text":"\"Very well.\""},
{"text":"\"Goodbye, my angel. You stood up for me, just now. I shall never forge it. I've a word to say to you tomorrow--but I must think about it.\""},
{"text":"\"And how do you feel now?\""},
{"text":"\"I shall get up tomorrow and go out, perfectly well, perfectly well!\""},
{"text":"Crossing the yard Alyosha found Ivan sitting on the bench at th gateway. He was sitting writing something in pencil in his notebook Alyosha told Ivan that their father had waked up, was conscious, an had let him go back to sleep at the monastery."},
{"text":"\"Alyosha, I should be very glad to meet you tomorrow morning,\" sai Ivan cordially, standing up. His cordiality was a complete surprise t Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"I shall be at the Hohlakovs' tomorrow,\" answered Alyosha, \"I may be a Katerina Ivanovna's, too, if I don't find her now.\""},
{"text":"\"But you're going to her now, anyway? For that `compliments an farewell,' \" said Ivan smiling. Alyosha was disconcerted."},
{"text":"\"I think I quite understand his exclamations just now, and part of wha went before. Dmitri has asked you to go to her and say that he--well in fact--takes his leave of her?\""},
{"text":"\"Brother, how will all this horror end between father and Dmitri?\"exclaimed Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"One can't tell for certain. Perhaps in nothing: it may all fizzle out That woman is a beast. In any case we must keep the old man indoors an not let Dmitri in the house.\""},
{"text":"\"Brother, let me ask one thing more: has any man a right to look a other men and decide which is worthy to live?\""},
{"text":"\"Why bring in the question of worth? The matter is most often decide in men's hearts on other grounds much more natural. And as fo rights--who has not the right to wish?\""},
{"text":"\"Not for another man's death?\""},
{"text":"\"What even if for another man's death? Why lie to oneself since all me live so and perhaps cannot help living so. Are you referring to what  said just now--that one reptile will devour the other? In that cas let me ask you, do you think me like Dmitri capable of shedding Aesop' blood, murdering him, eh?\""},
{"text":"\"What are you saying, Ivan? Such an idea never crossed my mind. I don' think Dmitri is capable of it, either.\""},
{"text":"\"Thanks, if only for that,\" smiled Ivan. \"Be sure, I should alway defend him. But in my wishes I reserve myself full latitude in thi case. Goodbye till tomorrow. Don't condemn me, and don't look on me a a villain,\" he added with a smile."},
{"text":"They shook hands warmly as they had never done before. Alyosha fel that his brother had taken the first step towards him, and that he ha certainly done this with some definite motive."},
{"text":" X"},
{"text":"Both Together"},
{"text":"Alyosha left his father's house feeling even more exhausted an dejected in spirit than when he had entered it. His mind too seeme shattered and unhinged, while he felt that he was afraid to pu together the disjointed fragments and form a general idea from all th agonizing and conflicting experiences of the day. He felt somethin bordering upon despair, which he had never known till then. Towerin like a mountain above all the rest stood the fatal, insoluble question How would things end between his father and his brother Dmitri wit this terrible woman? Now he had himself been a witness of it, he ha been present and seen them face to face. Yet only his brother Dmitr could be made unhappy, terribly, completely unhappy: there was troubl awaiting him. It appeared too that there were other people concerned far more so than Alyosha could have supposed before. There wa something positively mysterious in it, too. Ivan had made a ste towards him, which was what Alyosha had been long desiring. Yet now h felt for some reason that he was frightened at it. And these women Strange to say, that morning he had set out for Katerina Ivanovna's i the greatest embarrassment; now he felt nothing of the kind. On th contrary, he was hastening there as though expecting to find guidanc from her. Yet to give her this message was obviously more difficul than before. The matter of the three thousand was decided irrevocably and Dmitri, feeling himself dishonored and losing his last hope, migh sink to any depth. He had, moreover, told him to describe to Katerin Ivanovna the scene which had just taken place with his father."},
{"text":"It was by now seven o'clock, and it was getting dark as Alyosha entere the very spacious and convenient house in the High Street occupied b Katerina Ivanovna. Alyosha knew that she lived with two aunts. One o them, a woman of little education, was that aunt of her half-siste Agafya Ivanovna who had looked after her in her father's house when sh came from boarding-school. The other aunt was a Moscow lady of styl and consequence, though in straitened circumstances. It was said tha they both gave way in everything to Katerina Ivanovna, and that sh only kept them with her as chaperons. Katerina Ivanovna herself gav way to no one but her benefactress, the general's widow, who had bee kept by illness in Moscow, and to whom she was obliged to write twice  week a full account of all her doings."},
{"text":"When Alyosha entered the hall and asked the maid who opened the door t him to take his name up, it was evident that they were already aware o his arrival. Possibly he had been noticed from the window. At least Alyosha heard a noise, caught the sound of flying footsteps an rustling skirts. Two or three women, perhaps, had run out of the room."},
{"text":"Alyosha thought it strange that his arrival should cause suc excitement. He was conducted however to the drawing-room at once. I was a large room, elegantly and amply furnished, not at all i provincial style. There were many sofas, lounges, settees, big an little tables. There were pictures on the walls, vases and lamps on th tables, masses of flowers, and even an aquarium in the window. It wa twilight and rather dark. Alyosha made out a silk mantle thrown down o the sofa, where people had evidently just been sitting; and on a tabl in front of the sofa were two unfinished cups of chocolate, cakes,  glass saucer with blue raisins, and another with sweetmeats. Alyosh saw that he had interrupted visitors, and frowned. But at that instan the portire was raised, and with rapid, hurrying footsteps Katerin Ivanovna came in, holding out both hands to Alyosha with a radian smile of delight. At the same instant a servant brought in two lighte candles and set them on the table."},
{"text":"\"Thank God! At last you have come too! I've been simply praying for yo all day! Sit down.\""},
{"text":"Alyosha had been struck by Katerina Ivanovna's beauty when, three week before, Dmitri had first brought him, at Katerina Ivanovna's specia request, to be introduced to her. There had been no conversatio between them at that interview, however. Supposing Alyosha to be ver shy, Katerina Ivanovna had talked all the time to Dmitri to spare him Alyosha had been silent, but he had seen a great deal very clearly. H was struck by the imperiousness, proud ease, and self-confidence of th haughty girl. And all that was certain, Alyosha felt that he was no exaggerating it. He thought her great glowing black eyes were ver fine, especially with her pale, even rather sallow, longish face. Bu in those eyes and in the lines of her exquisite lips there wa something with which his brother might well be passionately in love but which perhaps could not be loved for long. He expressed thi thought almost plainly to Dmitri when, after the visit, his brothe besought and insisted that he should not conceal his impressions o seeing his betrothed."},
{"text":"\"You'll be happy with her, but perhaps--not tranquilly happy.\""},
{"text":"\"Quite so, brother. Such people remain always the same. They don' yield to fate. So you think I shan't love her forever.\""},
{"text":"\"No; perhaps you will love her forever. But perhaps you won't always b happy with her.\""},
{"text":"Alyosha had given his opinion at the time, blushing, and angry wit himself for having yielded to his brother's entreaties and put suc \"foolish\" ideas into words. For his opinion had struck him as awfull foolish immediately after he had uttered it. He felt ashamed too o having given so confident an opinion about a woman. It was with th more amazement that he felt now, at the first glance at Katerin Ivanovna as she ran in to him, that he had perhaps been utterl mistaken. This time her face was beaming with spontaneous good-nature kindliness, and direct warmhearted sincerity. The \"pride an haughtiness,\" which had struck Alyosha so much before, was onl betrayed now in a frank, generous energy and a sort of bright, stron faith in herself. Alyosha realized at the first glance, at the firs word, that all the tragedy of her position in relation to the man sh loved so dearly was no secret to her; that she perhaps already kne everything, positively everything. And yet, in spite of that, there wa such brightness in her face, such faith in the future. Alyosha felt a once that he had gravely wronged her in his thoughts. He was conquere and captivated immediately. Besides all this, he noticed at her firs words that she was in great excitement, an excitement perhaps quit exceptional and almost approaching ecstasy."},
{"text":"\"I was so eager to see you, because I can learn from you the whol truth--from you and no one else.\""},
{"text":"\"I have come,\" muttered Alyosha confusedly, \"I--he sent me.\""},
{"text":"\"Ah, he sent you! I foresaw that. Now I know everything--everything!\"cried Katerina Ivanovna, her eyes flashing. \"Wait a moment, Alexe Fyodorovitch, I'll tell you why I've been so longing to see you. Yo see, I know perhaps far more than you do yourself, and there's no nee for you to tell me anything. I'll tell you what I want from you. I wan to know your own last impression of him. I want you to tell me mos directly, plainly, coarsely even (oh, as coarsely as you like!), wha you thought of him just now and of his position after your meeting wit him today. That will perhaps be better than if I had a persona explanation with him, as he does not want to come to me. Do yo understand what I want from you? Now, tell me simply, tell me ever word of the message he sent you with (I knew he would send you).\""},
{"text":"\"He told me to give you his compliments--and to say that he woul never come again--but to give you his compliments.\""},
{"text":"\"His compliments? Was that what he said--his own expression?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes.\""},
{"text":"\"Accidentally perhaps he made a mistake in the word, perhaps he did no use the right word?\""},
{"text":"\"No; he told me precisely to repeat that word. He begged me two o three times not to forget to say so.\""},
{"text":"Katerina Ivanovna flushed hotly."},
{"text":"\"Help me now, Alexey Fyodorovitch. Now I really need your help. I'l tell you what I think, and you must simply say whether it's right o not. Listen! If he had sent me his compliments in passing, withou insisting on your repeating the words, without emphasizing them, tha would be the end of everything! But if he particularly insisted o those words, if he particularly told you not to forget to repeat the to me, then perhaps he was in excitement, beside himself. He had mad his decision and was frightened at it. He wasn't walking away from m with a resolute step, but leaping headlong. The emphasis on that phras may have been simply bravado.\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, yes!\" cried Alyosha warmly. \"I believe that is it.\""},
{"text":"\"And, if so, he's not altogether lost. I can still save him. Stay! Di he not tell you anything about money--about three thousand roubles?\""},
{"text":"\"He did speak about it, and it's that more than anything that' crushing him. He said he had lost his honor and that nothing matter now,\" Alyosha answered warmly, feeling a rush of hope in his heart an believing that there really might be a way of escape and salvation fo his brother. \"But do you know about the money?\" he added, and suddenl broke off."},
{"text":"\"I've known of it a long time; I telegraphed to Moscow to inquire, an heard long ago that the money had not arrived. He hadn't sent th money, but I said nothing. Last week I learnt that he was still in nee of money. My only object in all this was that he should know to whom t turn, and who was his true friend. No, he won't recognize that I am hi truest friend; he won't know me, and looks on me merely as a woman I've been tormented all the week, trying to think how to prevent hi from being ashamed to face me because he spent that three thousand. Le him feel ashamed of himself, let him be ashamed of other people' knowing, but not of my knowing. He can tell God everything withou shame. Why is it he still does not understand how much I am ready t bear for his sake? Why, why doesn't he know me? How dare he not know m after all that has happened? I want to save him forever. Let him forge me as his betrothed. And here he fears that he is dishonored in m eyes. Why, he wasn't afraid to be open with you, Alexey Fyodorovitch How is it that I don't deserve the same?\""},
{"text":"The last words she uttered in tears. Tears gushed from her eyes."},
{"text":"\"I must tell you,\" Alyosha began, his voice trembling too, \"wha happened just now between him and my father.\""},
{"text":"And he described the whole scene, how Dmitri had sent him to get th money, how he had broken in, knocked his father down, and after tha had again specially and emphatically begged him to take his compliment and farewell. \"He went to that woman,\" Alyosha added softly."},
{"text":"\"And do you suppose that I can't put up with that woman? Does he thin I can't? But he won't marry her,\" she suddenly laughed nervously \"Could such a passion last forever in a Karamazov? It's passion, no love. He won't marry her because she won't marry him.\" Again Katerin Ivanovna laughed strangely."},
{"text":"\"He may marry her,\" said Alyosha mournfully, looking down."},
{"text":"\"He won't marry her, I tell you. That girl is an angel. Do you kno that? Do you know that?\" Katerina Ivanovna exclaimed suddenly wit extraordinary warmth. \"She is one of the most fantastic of fantasti creatures. I know how bewitching she is, but I know too that she i kind, firm and noble. Why do you look at me like that, Alexe Fyodorovitch? Perhaps you are wondering at my words, perhaps you don' believe me? Agrafena Alexandrovna, my angel!\" she cried suddenly t someone, peeping into the next room, \"come in to us. This is a friend This is Alyosha. He knows all about our affairs. Show yourself to him.\""},
{"text":"\"I've only been waiting behind the curtain for you to call me,\" said  soft, one might even say sugary, feminine voice."},
{"text":"The portire was raised and Grushenka herself, smiling and beaming came up to the table. A violent revulsion passed over Alyosha. He fixe his eyes on her and could not take them off. Here she was, that awfu woman, the \"beast,\" as Ivan had called her half an hour before. And ye one would have thought the creature standing before him most simple an ordinary, a good-natured, kind woman, handsome certainly, but so lik other handsome ordinary women! It is true she was very, ver good-looking with that Russian beauty so passionately loved by man men. She was a rather tall woman, though a little shorter than Katerin Ivanovna, who was exceptionally tall. She had a full figure, with soft as it were, noiseless, movements, softened to a peculia over-sweetness, like her voice. She moved, not like Katerina Ivanovna with a vigorous, bold step, but noiselessly. Her feet made absolutel no sound on the floor. She sank softly into a low chair, softl rustling her sumptuous black silk dress, and delicately nestling he milk-white neck and broad shoulders in a costly cashmere shawl. She wa twenty-two years old, and her face looked exactly that age. She wa very white in the face, with a pale pink tint on her cheeks. Th modeling of her face might be said to be too broad, and the lower ja was set a trifle forward. Her upper lip was thin, but the slightl prominent lower lip was at least twice as full, and looked pouting. Bu her magnificent, abundant dark brown hair, her sable-colored eyebrow and charming gray-blue eyes with their long lashes would have made th most indifferent person, meeting her casually in a crowd in the street stop at the sight of her face and remember it long after. What struc Alyosha most in that face was its expression of childlike good nature There was a childlike look in her eyes, a look of childish delight. Sh came up to the table, beaming with delight and seeming to expec something with childish, impatient, and confiding curiosity. The ligh in her eyes gladdened the soul--Alyosha felt that. There was somethin else in her which he could not understand, or would not have been abl to define, and which yet perhaps unconsciously affected him. It wa that softness, that voluptuousness of her bodily movements, tha catlike noiselessness. Yet it was a vigorous, ample body. Under th shawl could be seen full broad shoulders, a high, still quite girlis bosom. Her figure suggested the lines of the Venus of Milo, thoug already in somewhat exaggerated proportions. That could be divined Connoisseurs of Russian beauty could have foretold with certainty tha this fresh, still youthful beauty would lose its harmony by the age o thirty, would \"spread\"; that the face would become puffy, and tha wrinkles would very soon appear upon her forehead and round the eyes the complexion would grow coarse and red perhaps--in fact, that it wa the beauty of the moment, the fleeting beauty which is so often me with in Russian women. Alyosha, of course, did not think of this; bu though he was fascinated, yet he wondered with an unpleasant sensation and as it were regretfully, why she drawled in that way and could no speak naturally. She did so evidently feeling there was a charm in th exaggerated, honeyed modulation of the syllables. It was, of course only a bad, underbred habit that showed bad education and a false ide of good manners. And yet this intonation and manner of speakin impressed Alyosha as almost incredibly incongruous with the childishl simple and happy expression of her face, the soft, babyish joy in he eyes. Katerina Ivanovna at once made her sit down in an armchair facin Alyosha, and ecstatically kissed her several times on her smiling lips She seemed quite in love with her."},
{"text":"\"This is the first time we've met, Alexey Fyodorovitch,\" she sai rapturously. \"I wanted to know her, to see her. I wanted to go to her but I'd no sooner expressed the wish than she came to me. I knew w should settle everything together--everything. My heart told me so-- was begged not to take the step, but I foresaw it would be a way out o the difficulty, and I was not mistaken. Grushenka has explaine everything to me, told me all she means to do. She flew here like a angel of goodness and brought us peace and joy.\""},
{"text":"\"You did not disdain me, sweet, excellent young lady,\" drawle Grushenka in her singsong voice, still with the same charming smile o delight."},
{"text":"\"Don't dare to speak to me like that, you sorceress, you witch! Disdai you! Here, I must kiss your lower lip once more. It looks as though i were swollen, and now it will be more so, and more and more. Look ho she laughs, Alexey Fyodorovitch! It does one's heart good to see th angel.\""},
{"text":"Alyosha flushed, and faint, imperceptible shivers kept running dow him."},
{"text":"\"You make so much of me, dear young lady, and perhaps I am not at al worthy of your kindness.\""},
{"text":"\"Not worthy! She's not worthy of it!\" Katerina Ivanovna cried agai with the same warmth. \"You know, Alexey Fyodorovitch, we're fanciful we're self-willed, but proudest of the proud in our little heart. We'r noble, we're generous, Alexey Fyodorovitch, let me tell you. We hav only been unfortunate. We were too ready to make every sacrifice for a unworthy, perhaps, or fickle man. There was one man--one, an office too, we loved him, we sacrificed everything to him. That was long ago five years ago, and he has forgotten us, he has married. Now he is  widower, he has written, he is coming here, and, do you know, we'v loved him, none but him, all this time, and we've loved him all ou life! He will come, and Grushenka will be happy again. For the las five years she's been wretched. But who can reproach her, who can boas of her favor? Only that bedridden old merchant, but he is more like he father, her friend, her protector. He found her then in despair, i agony, deserted by the man she loved. She was ready to drown hersel then, but the old merchant saved her--saved her!\""},
{"text":"\"You defend me very kindly, dear young lady. You are in a great hurr about everything,\" Grushenka drawled again."},
{"text":"\"Defend you! Is it for me to defend you? Should I dare to defend you Grushenka, angel, give me your hand. Look at that charming soft littl hand, Alexey Fyodorovitch! Look at it! It has brought me happiness an has lifted me up, and I'm going to kiss it, outside and inside, here here, here!\""},
{"text":"And three times she kissed the certainly charming, though rather fat hand of Grushenka in a sort of rapture. She held out her hand with  charming musical, nervous little laugh, watched the \"sweet young lady,\"and obviously liked having her hand kissed."},
{"text":"\"Perhaps there's rather too much rapture,\" thought Alyosha. He blushed He felt a peculiar uneasiness at heart the whole time."},
{"text":"\"You won't make me blush, dear young lady, kissing my hand like thi before Alexey Fyodorovitch.\""},
{"text":"\"Do you think I meant to make you blush?\" said Katerina Ivanovna somewhat surprised. \"Ah, my dear, how little you understand me!\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, and you too perhaps quite misunderstand me, dear young lady Maybe I'm not so good as I seem to you. I've a bad heart; I will hav my own way. I fascinated poor Dmitri Fyodorovitch that day simply fo fun.\""},
{"text":"\"But now you'll save him. You've given me your word. You'll explain i all to him. You'll break to him that you have long loved another man who is now offering you his hand.\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, no! I didn't give you my word to do that. It was you kept talkin about that. I didn't give you my word.\""},
{"text":"\"Then I didn't quite understand you,\" said Katerina Ivanovna slowly turning a little pale. \"You promised--\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, no, angel lady, I've promised nothing,\" Grushenka interrupte softly and evenly, still with the same gay and simple expression. \"Yo see at once, dear young lady, what a willful wretch I am compared wit you. If I want to do a thing I do it. I may have made you some promis just now. But now again I'm thinking: I may take to Mitya again.  liked him very much once--liked him for almost a whole hour. Now mayb I shall go and tell him to stay with me from this day forward. You see I'm so changeable.\""},
{"text":"\"Just now you said--something quite different,\" Katerina Ivanovn whispered faintly."},
{"text":"\"Ah, just now! But, you know. I'm such a softhearted, silly creature Only think what he's gone through on my account! What if when I go hom I feel sorry for him? What then?\""},
{"text":"\"I never expected--\""},
{"text":"\"Ah, young lady, how good and generous you are compared with me! No perhaps you won't care for a silly creature like me, now you know m character. Give me your sweet little hand, angelic lady,\" she sai tenderly, and with a sort of reverence took Katerina Ivanovna's hand."},
{"text":"\"Here, dear young lady, I'll take your hand and kiss it as you di mine. You kissed mine three times, but I ought to kiss yours thre hundred times to be even with you. Well, but let that pass. And then i shall be as God wills. Perhaps I shall be your slave entirely and wan to do your bidding like a slave. Let it be as God wills, without an agreements and promises. What a sweet hand--what a sweet hand yo have! You sweet young lady, you incredible beauty!\""},
{"text":"She slowly raised the hands to her lips, with the strange object indee of \"being even\" with her in kisses."},
{"text":"Katerina Ivanovna did not take her hand away. She listened with timi hope to the last words, though Grushenka's promise to do her biddin like a slave was very strangely expressed. She looked intently into he eyes; she still saw in those eyes the same simple-hearted, confidin expression, the same bright gayety."},
{"text":"\"She's perhaps too naive,\" thought Katerina Ivanovna, with a gleam o hope."},
{"text":"Grushenka meanwhile seemed enthusiastic over the \"sweet hand.\" Sh raised it deliberately to her lips. But she held it for two or thre minutes near her lips, as though reconsidering something."},
{"text":"\"Do you know, angel lady,\" she suddenly drawled in an even more sof and sugary voice, \"do you know, after all, I think I won't kiss you hand?\" And she laughed a little merry laugh."},
{"text":"\"As you please. What's the matter with you?\" said Katerina Ivanovna starting suddenly."},
{"text":"\"So that you may be left to remember that you kissed my hand, but  didn't kiss yours.\""},
{"text":"There was a sudden gleam in her eyes. She looked with awful intentnes at Katerina Ivanovna."},
{"text":"\"Insolent creature!\" cried Katerina Ivanovna, as though suddenl grasping something. She flushed all over and leapt up from her seat."},
{"text":"Grushenka too got up, but without haste."},
{"text":"\"So I shall tell Mitya how you kissed my hand, but I didn't kiss your at all. And how he will laugh!\""},
{"text":"\"Vile slut! Go away!\""},
{"text":"\"Ah, for shame, young lady! Ah, for shame! That's unbecoming for you dear young lady, a word like that.\""},
{"text":"\"Go away! You're a creature for sale!\" screamed Katerina Ivanovna Every feature was working in her utterly distorted face."},
{"text":"\"For sale indeed! You used to visit gentlemen in the dusk for mone once; you brought your beauty for sale. You see, I know.\""},
{"text":"Katerina Ivanovna shrieked, and would have rushed at her, but Alyosh held her with all his strength."},
{"text":"\"Not a step, not a word! Don't speak, don't answer her. She'll g away--she'll go at once.\""},
{"text":"At that instant Katerina Ivanovna's two aunts ran in at her cry, an with them a maidservant. All hurried to her."},
{"text":"\"I will go away,\" said Grushenka, taking up her mantle from the sofa \"Alyosha, darling, see me home!\""},
{"text":"\"Go away--go away, make haste!\" cried Alyosha, clasping his hand imploringly."},
{"text":"\"Dear little Alyosha, see me home! I've got a pretty little story t tell you on the way. I got up this scene for your benefit, Alyosha. Se me home, dear, you'll be glad of it afterwards.\""},
{"text":"Alyosha turned away, wringing his hands. Grushenka ran out of th house, laughing musically."},
{"text":"Katerina Ivanovna went into a fit of hysterics. She sobbed, and wa shaken with convulsions. Everyone fussed round her."},
{"text":"\"I warned you,\" said the elder of her aunts. \"I tried to prevent you doing this. You're too impulsive. How could you do such a thing? Yo don't know these creatures, and they say she's worse than any of them You are too self-willed.\""},
{"text":"\"She's a tigress!\" yelled Katerina Ivanovna. \"Why did you hold me Alexey Fyodorovitch? I'd have beaten her--beaten her!\""},
{"text":"She could not control herself before Alyosha; perhaps she did not car to, indeed."},
{"text":"\"She ought to be flogged in public on a scaffold!\""},
{"text":"Alyosha withdrew towards the door."},
{"text":"\"But, my God!\" cried Katerina Ivanovna, clasping her hands. \"He! He! H could be so dishonorable, so inhuman! Why, he told that creature wha happened on that fatal, accursed day! `You brought your beauty fo sale, dear young lady.' She knows it! Your brother's a scoundrel Alexey Fyodorovitch.\""},
{"text":"Alyosha wanted to say something, but he couldn't find a word. His hear ached."},
{"text":"\"Go away, Alexey Fyodorovitch! It's shameful, it's awful for me Tomorrow, I beg you on my knees, come tomorrow. Don't condemn me Forgive me. I don't know what I shall do with myself now!\""},
{"text":"Alyosha walked out into the street reeling. He could have wept as sh did. Suddenly he was overtaken by the maid."},
{"text":"\"The young lady forgot to give you this letter from Madame Hohlakov it's been left with us since dinnertime.\""},
{"text":"Alyosha took the little pink envelope mechanically and put it, almos unconsciously, into his pocket."},
{"text":" XI"},
{"text":"Another Reputation Ruined"},
{"text":"It was not much more than three-quarters of a mile from the town to th monastery. Alyosha walked quickly along the road, at that hou deserted. It was almost night, and too dark to see anything clearly a thirty paces ahead. There were crossroads halfway. A figure came int sight under a solitary willow at the crossroads. As soon as Alyosh reached the crossroads the figure moved out and rushed at him, shoutin savagely:"},
{"text":"\"Your money or your life!\""},
{"text":"\"So it's you, Mitya,\" cried Alyosha, in surprise, violently startle however."},
{"text":"\"Ha ha ha! You didn't expect me? I wondered where to wait for you. B her house? There are three ways from it, and I might have missed you At last I thought of waiting here, for you had to pass here, there's n other way to the monastery. Come, tell me the truth. Crush me like  beetle. But what's the matter?\""},
{"text":"\"Nothing, brother--it's the fright you gave me. Oh, Dmitri! Father' blood just now.\" (Alyosha began to cry, he had been on the verge o tears for a long time, and now something seemed to snap in his soul. \"You almost killed him--cursed him--and now--here--you're makin jokes--`Your money or your life!' \""},
{"text":"\"Well, what of that? It's not seemly--is that it? Not suitable in m position?\""},
{"text":"\"No--I only--\""},
{"text":"\"Stay. Look at the night. You see what a dark night, what clouds, wha a wind has risen. I hid here under the willow waiting for you. And a God's above, I suddenly thought, why go on in misery any longer, wha is there to wait for? Here I have a willow, a handkerchief, a shirt,  can twist them into a rope in a minute, and braces besides, and why g on burdening the earth, dishonoring it with my vile presence? And the I heard you coming--Heavens, it was as though something flew down t me suddenly. So there is a man, then, whom I love. Here he is, tha man, my dear little brother, whom I love more than anyone in the world the only one I love in the world. And I loved you so much, so much a that moment that I thought, `I'll fall on his neck at once.' Then  stupid idea struck me, to have a joke with you and scare you.  shouted, like a fool, `Your money!' Forgive my foolery--it was onl nonsense, and there's nothing unseemly in my soul. ... Damn it all tell me what's happened. What did she say? Strike me, crush me, don' spare me! Was she furious?\""},
{"text":"\"No, not that. ... There was nothing like that, Mitya. There-- found them both there.\""},
{"text":"\"Both? Whom?\""},
{"text":"\"Grushenka at Katerina Ivanovna's.\""},
{"text":"Dmitri was struck dumb."},
{"text":"\"Impossible!\" he cried. \"You're raving! Grushenka with her?\""},
{"text":"Alyosha described all that had happened from the moment he went in t Katerina Ivanovna's. He was ten minutes telling his story. He can't b said to have told it fluently and consecutively, but he seemed to mak it clear, not omitting any word or action of significance, and vividl describing, often in one word, his own sensations. Dmitri listened i silence, gazing at him with a terrible fixed stare, but it was clear t Alyosha that he understood it all, and had grasped every point. But a the story went on, his face became not merely gloomy, but menacing. H scowled, he clenched his teeth, and his fixed stare became still mor rigid, more concentrated, more terrible, when suddenly, with incredibl rapidity, his wrathful, savage face changed, his tightly compresse lips parted, and Dmitri Fyodorovitch broke into uncontrolled spontaneous laughter. He literally shook with laughter. For a long tim he could not speak."},
{"text":"\"So she wouldn't kiss her hand! So she didn't kiss it; so she ra away!\" he kept exclaiming with hysterical delight; insolent delight i might have been called, if it had not been so spontaneous. \"So th other one called her tigress! And a tigress she is! So she ought to b flogged on a scaffold? Yes, yes, so she ought. That's just what  think; she ought to have been long ago. It's like this, brother, le her be punished, but I must get better first. I understand the queen o impudence. That's her all over! You saw her all over in tha hand-kissing, the she-devil! She's magnificent in her own line! So sh ran home? I'll go--ah--I'll run to her! Alyosha, don't blame me,  agree that hanging is too good for her.\""},
{"text":"\"But Katerina Ivanovna!\" exclaimed Alyosha sorrowfully."},
{"text":"\"I see her, too! I see right through her, as I've never done before It's a regular discovery of the four continents of the world, that is of the five! What a thing to do! That's just like Katya, who was no afraid to face a coarse, unmannerly officer and risk a deadly insult o a generous impulse to save her father! But the pride, the recklessness the defiance of fate, the unbounded defiance! You say that aunt trie to stop her? That aunt, you know, is overbearing, herself. She's th sister of the general's widow in Moscow, and even more stuck-up tha she. But her husband was caught stealing government money. He los everything, his estate and all, and the proud wife had to lower he colors, and hasn't raised them since. So she tried to prevent Katya but she wouldn't listen to her! She thinks she can overcome everything that everything will give way to her. She thought she could bewitc Grushenka if she liked, and she believed it herself: she plays a par to herself, and whose fault is it? Do you think she kissed Grushenka' hand first, on purpose, with a motive? No, she really was fascinated b Grushenka, that's to say, not by Grushenka, but by her own dream, he own delusion--because it was her dream, her delusion! Alyosha darling, how did you escape from them, those women? Did you pick u your cassock and run? Ha ha ha!\""},
{"text":"\"Brother, you don't seem to have noticed how you've insulted Katerin Ivanovna by telling Grushenka about that day. And she flung it in he face just now that she had gone to gentlemen in secret to sell he beauty! Brother, what could be worse than that insult?\""},
{"text":"What worried Alyosha more than anything was that, incredible as i seemed, his brother appeared pleased at Katerina Ivanovna' humiliation."},
{"text":"\"Bah!\" Dmitri frowned fiercely, and struck his forehead with his hand He only now realized it, though Alyosha had just told him of th insult, and Katerina Ivanovna's cry: \"Your brother is a scoundrel!\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, perhaps, I really did tell Grushenka about that `fatal day,' a Katya calls it. Yes, I did tell her, I remember! It was that time a Mokroe. I was drunk, the gypsies were singing. ... But I was sobbing I was sobbing then, kneeling and praying to Katya's image, an Grushenka understood it. She understood it all then. I remember, sh cried herself. ... Damn it all! But it's bound to be so now. .. Then she cried, but now `the dagger in the heart'! That's how wome are.\""},
{"text":"He looked down and sank into thought."},
{"text":"\"Yes, I am a scoundrel, a thorough scoundrel!\" he said suddenly, in  gloomy voice. \"It doesn't matter whether I cried or not, I'm  scoundrel! Tell her I accept the name, if that's any comfort. Come that's enough. Goodbye. It's no use talking! It's not amusing. You g your way and I mine. And I don't want to see you again except as a las resource. Goodbye, Alexey!\""},
{"text":"He warmly pressed Alyosha's hand, and still looking down, withou raising his head, as though tearing himself away, turned rapidl towards the town."},
{"text":"Alyosha looked after him, unable to believe he would go away s abruptly."},
{"text":"\"Stay, Alexey, one more confession to you alone!\" cried Dmitri suddenly turning back. \"Look at me. Look at me well. You see here here--there's terrible disgrace in store for me.\" (As he said \"here,\"Dmitri struck his chest with his fist with a strange air, as though th dishonor lay precisely on his chest, in some spot, in a pocket perhaps, or hanging round his neck.) \"You know me now, a scoundrel, a avowed scoundrel, but let me tell you that I've never done anythin before and never shall again, anything that can compare in basenes with the dishonor which I bear now at this very minute on my breast here, here, which will come to pass, though I'm perfectly free to sto it. I can stop it or carry it through, note that. Well, let me tel you, I shall carry it through. I shan't stop it. I told you everythin just now, but I didn't tell you this, because even I had not bras enough for it. I can still pull up; if I do, I can give back the ful half of my lost honor tomorrow. But I shan't pull up. I shall carry ou my base plan, and you can bear witness that I told you so beforehand Darkness and destruction! No need to explain. You'll find out in du time. The filthy back-alley and the she-devil. Goodbye. Don't pray fo me, I'm not worth it. And there's no need, no need at all. ...  don't need it! Away!\""},
{"text":"And he suddenly retreated, this time finally. Alyosha went towards th monastery."},
{"text":"\"What? I shall never see him again! What is he saying?\" he wondere wildly. \"Why, I shall certainly see him tomorrow. I shall look him up I shall make a point of it. What does he mean?\"  __________________________________________________________________"},
{"text":"He went round the monastery, and crossed the pine-wood to th hermitage. The door was opened to him, though no one was admitted a that hour. There was a tremor in his heart as he went into Fathe Zossima's cell."},
{"text":"\"Why, why, had he gone forth? Why had he sent him into the world? Her was peace. Here was holiness. But there was confusion, there wa darkness in which one lost one's way and went astray at once. ...\""},
{"text":"In the cell he found the novice Porfiry and Father Passy, who cam every hour to inquire after Father Zossima. Alyosha learnt with alar that he was getting worse and worse. Even his usual discourse with th brothers could not take place that day. As a rule every evening afte service the monks flocked into Father Zossima's cell, and all confesse aloud their sins of the day, their sinful thoughts and temptations even their disputes, if there had been any. Some confessed kneeling The elder absolved, reconciled, exhorted, imposed penance, blessed, an dismissed them. It was against this general \"confession\" that th opponents of \"elders\" protested, maintaining that it was a profanatio of the sacrament of confession, almost a sacrilege, though this wa quite a different thing. They even represented to the diocesa authorities that such confessions attained no good object, but actuall to a large extent led to sin and temptation. Many of the brother disliked going to the elder, and went against their own will becaus everyone went, and for fear they should be accused of pride an rebellious ideas. People said that some of the monks agreed beforehand saying, \"I'll confess I lost my temper with you this morning, and yo confirm it,\" simply in order to have something to say. Alyosha kne that this actually happened sometimes. He knew, too, that there wer among the monks some who deeply resented the fact that letters fro relations were habitually taken to the elder, to be opened and read b him before those to whom they were addressed."},
{"text":"It was assumed, of course, that all this was done freely, and in goo faith, by way of voluntary submission and salutary guidance. But, i fact, there was sometimes no little insincerity, and much that wa false and strained in this practice. Yet the older and more experience of the monks adhered to their opinion, arguing that \"for those who hav come within these walls sincerely seeking salvation, such obedience an sacrifice will certainly be salutary and of great benefit; those, o the other hand, who find it irksome, and repine, are no true monks, an have made a mistake in entering the monastery--their proper place i in the world. Even in the temple one cannot be safe from sin and th devil. So it was no good taking it too much into account.\""},
{"text":"\"He is weaker, a drowsiness has come over him,\" Father Passy whispere to Alyosha, as he blessed him. \"It's difficult to rouse him. And h must not be roused. He waked up for five minutes, sent his blessing t the brothers, and begged their prayers for him at night. He intends t take the sacrament again in the morning. He remembered you, Alexey. H asked whether you had gone away, and was told that you were in th town. `I blessed him for that work,' he said, `his place is there, no here, for awhile.' Those were his words about you. He remembered yo lovingly, with anxiety; do you understand how he honored you? But ho is it that he has decided that you shall spend some time in the world He must have foreseen something in your destiny! Understand, Alexey that if you return to the world, it must be to do the duty laid upo you by your elder, and not for frivolous vanity and worldly pleasures.\""},
{"text":"Father Passy went out. Alyosha had no doubt that Father Zossima wa dying, though he might live another day or two. Alyosha firmly an ardently resolved that in spite of his promises to his father, th Hohlakovs, and Katerina Ivanovna, he would not leave the monastery nex day, but would remain with his elder to the end. His heart glowed wit love, and he reproached himself bitterly for having been able for on instant to forget him whom he had left in the monastery on hi deathbed, and whom he honored above everyone in the world. He went int Father Zossima's bedroom, knelt down, and bowed to the ground befor the elder, who slept quietly without stirring, with regular, hardl audible breathing and a peaceful face."},
{"text":"Alyosha returned to the other room, where Father Zossima had receive his guests in the morning. Taking off his boots, he lay down on th hard, narrow, leathern sofa, which he had long used as a bed, bringin nothing but a pillow. The mattress, about which his father had shoute to him that morning, he had long forgotten to lie on. He took off hi cassock, which he used as a covering. But before going to bed, he fel on his knees and prayed a long time. In his fervent prayer he did no beseech God to lighten his darkness but only thirsted for the joyou emotion, which always visited his soul after the praise and adoration of which his evening prayer usually consisted. That joy always brough him light untroubled sleep. As he was praying, he suddenly felt in hi pocket the little pink note the servant had handed him as he lef Katerina Ivanovna's. He was disturbed, but finished his prayer. Then after some hesitation, he opened the envelope. In it was a letter t him, signed by Lise, the young daughter of Madame Hohlakov, who ha laughed at him before the elder in the morning."},
{"text":"  \"Alexey Fyodorovitch,\" she wrote, \"I am writing to you withou   anyone's knowledge, even mamma's, and I know how wrong it is. But    cannot live without telling you the feeling that has sprung up in m   heart, and this no one but us two must know for a time. But how am    to say what I want so much to tell you? Paper, they say, does no   blush, but I assure you it's not true and that it's blushing just a   I am now, all over. Dear Alyosha, I love you, I've loved you from m   childhood, since our Moscow days, when you were very different fro   what you are now, and I shall love you all my life. My heart ha   chosen you, to unite our lives, and pass them together till our ol   age. Of course, on condition that you will leave the monastery. A   for our age we will wait for the time fixed by the law. By that tim   I shall certainly be quite strong, I shall be walking and dancing   There can be no doubt of that."},
{"text":"  \"You see how I've thought of everything. There's only one thing    can't imagine: what you'll think of me when you read this. I'   always laughing and being naughty. I made you angry this morning   but I assure you before I took up my pen, I prayed before the Imag   of the Mother of God, and now I'm praying, and almost crying."},
{"text":"  \"My secret is in your hands. When you come tomorrow, I don't kno   how I shall look at you. Ah, Alexey Fyodorovitch, what if I can'   restrain myself like a silly and laugh when I look at you as I di   today. You'll think I'm a nasty girl making fun of you, and yo   won't believe my letter. And so I beg you, dear one, if you've an   pity for me, when you come tomorrow, don't look me straight in th   face, for if I meet your eyes, it will be sure to make me laugh   especially as you'll be in that long gown. I feel cold all over whe   I think of it, so when you come, don't look at me at all for a time   look at mamma or at the window. ..."},
{"text":"  \"Here I've written you a love-letter. Oh, dear, what have I done   Alyosha, don't despise me, and if I've done something very horri   and wounded you, forgive me. Now the secret of my reputation, ruine   perhaps forever, is in your hands."},
{"text":"  \"I shall certainly cry today. Goodbye till our meeting, our awfu   meeting.--Lise."},
{"text":"  \"P.S.--Alyosha! You must, must, must come!--Lise.\""},
{"text":"Alyosha read the note in amazement, read it through twice, thought  little, and suddenly laughed a soft, sweet laugh. He started. Tha laugh seemed to him sinful. But a minute later he laughed again just a softly and happily. He slowly replaced the note in the envelope crossed himself and lay down. The agitation in his heart passed a once. \"God, have mercy upon all of them, have all these unhappy an turbulent souls in Thy keeping, and set them in the right path. Al ways are Thine. Save them according to Thy wisdom. Thou art love. Tho wilt send joy to all!\" Alyosha murmured, crossing himself, and fallin into peaceful sleep."},
{"text": Alyosha was roused early, before daybreak. Father Zossima woke u feeling very weak, though he wanted to get out of bed and sit up in  chair. His mind was quite clear; his face looked very tired, yet brigh and almost joyful. It wore an expression of gayety, kindness an cordiality. \"Maybe I shall not live through the coming day,\" he said t Alyosha. Then he desired to confess and take the sacrament at once. H always confessed to Father Passy. After taking the communion, th service of extreme unction followed. The monks assembled and the cel was gradually filled up by the inmates of the hermitage. Meantime i was daylight. People began coming from the monastery. After the servic was over the elder desired to kiss and take leave of everyone. As th cell was so small the earlier visitors withdrew to make room fo others. Alyosha stood beside the elder, who was seated again in hi armchair. He talked as much as he could. Though his voice was weak, i was fairly steady."},
{"text":"\"I've been teaching you so many years, and therefore I've been talkin aloud so many years, that I've got into the habit of talking, and s much so that it's almost more difficult for me to hold my tongue tha to talk, even now, in spite of my weakness, dear Fathers and brothers,\"he jested, looking with emotion at the group round him."},
{"text":"Alyosha remembered afterwards something of what he said to them. Bu though he spoke out distinctly and his voice was fairly steady, hi speech was somewhat disconnected. He spoke of many things, he seeme anxious before the moment of death to say everything he had not said i his life, and not simply for the sake of instructing them, but a though thirsting to share with all men and all creation his joy an ecstasy, and once more in his life to open his whole heart."},
{"text":"\"Love one another, Fathers,\" said Father Zossima, as far as Alyosh could remember afterwards. \"Love God's people. Because we have com here and shut ourselves within these walls, we are no holier than thos that are outside, but on the contrary, from the very fact of comin here, each of us has confessed to himself that he is worse than others than all men on earth. ... And the longer the monk lives in hi seclusion, the more keenly he must recognize that. Else he would hav had no reason to come here. When he realizes that he is not only wors than others, but that he is responsible to all men for all an everything, for all human sins, national and individual, only then th aim of our seclusion is attained. For know, dear ones, that every on of us is undoubtedly responsible for all men and everything on earth not merely through the general sinfulness of creation, but each on personally for all mankind and every individual man. This knowledge i the crown of life for the monk and for every man. For monks are not  special sort of men, but only what all men ought to be. Only throug that knowledge, our heart grows soft with infinite, universal inexhaustible love. Then every one of you will have the power to wi over the whole world by love and to wash away the sins of the worl with your tears. ... Each of you keep watch over your heart an confess your sins to yourself unceasingly. Be not afraid of your sins even when perceiving them, if only there be penitence, but make n conditions with God. Again I say, Be not proud. Be proud neither to th little nor to the great. Hate not those who reject you, who insult you who abuse and slander you. Hate not the atheists, the teachers of evil the materialists--and I mean not only the good ones--for there ar many good ones among them, especially in our day--hate not even th wicked ones. Remember them in your prayers thus: Save, O Lord, al those who have none to pray for them, save too all those who will no pray. And add: it is not in pride that I make this prayer, O Lord, fo I am lower than all men. ... Love God's people, let not stranger draw away the flock, for if you slumber in your slothfulness an disdainful pride, or worse still, in covetousness, they will come fro all sides and draw away your flock. Expound the Gospel to the peopl unceasingly ... be not extortionate. ... Do not love gold an silver, do not hoard them. ... Have faith. Cling to the banner an raise it on high.\""},
{"text":"But the elder spoke more disconnectedly than Alyosha reported his word afterwards. Sometimes he broke off altogether, as though to tak breath, and recover his strength, but he was in a sort of ecstasy. The heard him with emotion, though many wondered at his words and foun them obscure. ... Afterwards all remembered those words."},
{"text":"When Alyosha happened for a moment to leave the cell, he was struck b the general excitement and suspense in the monks who were crowdin about it. This anticipation showed itself in some by anxiety, in other by devout solemnity. All were expecting that some marvel would happe immediately after the elder's death. Their suspense was, from one poin of view, almost frivolous, but even the most austere of the monks wer affected by it. Father Passy's face looked the gravest of all."},
{"text":"Alyosha was mysteriously summoned by a monk to see Rakitin, who ha arrived from town with a singular letter for him from Madame Hohlakov In it she informed Alyosha of a strange and very opportune incident. I appeared that among the women who had come on the previous day t receive Father Zossima's blessing, there had been an old woman from th town, a sergeant's widow, called Prohorovna. She had inquired whethe she might pray for the rest of the soul of her son, Vassenka, who ha gone to Irkutsk, and had sent her no news for over a year. To whic Father Zossima had answered sternly, forbidding her to do so, an saying that to pray for the living as though they were dead was a kin of sorcery. He afterwards forgave her on account of her ignorance, an added, \"as though reading the book of the future\" (this was Madam Hohlakov's expression), words of comfort: \"that her son Vassya wa certainly alive and he would either come himself very shortly or send  letter, and that she was to go home and expect him.\" And \"Would yo believe it?\" exclaimed Madame Hohlakov enthusiastically, \"the prophec has been fulfilled literally indeed, and more than that.\" Scarcely ha the old woman reached home when they gave her a letter from Siberi which had been awaiting her. But that was not all; in the lette written on the road from Ekaterinenburg, Vassya informed his mothe that he was returning to Russia with an official, and that three week after her receiving the letter he hoped \"to embrace his mother.\""},
{"text":"Madame Hohlakov warmly entreated Alyosha to report this new \"miracle o prediction\" to the Superior and all the brotherhood. \"All, all, ough to know of it!\" she concluded. The letter had been written in haste the excitement of the writer was apparent in every line of it. Bu Alyosha had no need to tell the monks, for all knew of it already Rakitin had commissioned the monk who brought his message \"to infor most respectfully his reverence Father Passy, that he, Rakitin, has  matter to speak of with him, of such gravity that he dare not defer i for a moment, and humbly begs forgiveness for his presumption.\" As th monk had given the message to Father Passy before that to Alyosha, th latter found after reading the letter, there was nothing left for hi to do but to hand it to Father Passy in confirmation of the story."},
{"text":"And even that austere and cautious man, though he frowned as he rea the news of the \"miracle,\" could not completely restrain some inne emotion. His eyes gleamed, and a grave and solemn smile came into hi lips."},
{"text":"\"We shall see greater things!\" broke from him."},
{"text":"\"We shall see greater things, greater things yet!\" the monks aroun repeated."},
{"text":"But Father Passy, frowning again, begged all of them, at least for  time, not to speak of the matter \"till it be more fully confirmed seeing there is so much credulity among those of this world, and indee this might well have chanced naturally,\" he added, prudently, as i were to satisfy his conscience, though scarcely believing his ow disavowal, a fact his listeners very clearly perceived."},
{"text":"Within the hour the \"miracle\" was of course known to the whol monastery, and many visitors who had come for the mass. No one seeme more impressed by it than the monk who had come the day before fro St. Sylvester, from the little monastery of Obdorsk in the far North It was he who had been standing near Madame Hohlakov the previous da and had asked Father Zossima earnestly, referring to the \"healing\" o the lady's daughter, \"How can you presume to do such things?\""},
{"text":"He was now somewhat puzzled and did not know whom to believe. Th evening before he had visited Father Ferapont in his cell apart, behin the apiary, and had been greatly impressed and overawed by the visit This Father Ferapont was that aged monk so devout in fasting an observing silence who has been mentioned already, as antagonistic t Father Zossima and the whole institution of \"elders,\" which he regarde as a pernicious and frivolous innovation. He was a very formidabl opponent, although from his practice of silence he scarcely spoke  word to anyone. What made him formidable was that a number of monk fully shared his feeling, and many of the visitors looked upon him as  great saint and ascetic, although they had no doubt that he was crazy But it was just his craziness attracted them."},
{"text":"Father Ferapont never went to see the elder. Though he lived in th hermitage they did not worry him to keep its regulations, and this to because he behaved as though he were crazy. He was seventy-five o more, and he lived in a corner beyond the apiary in an old decayin wooden cell which had been built long ago for another great ascetic Father Iona, who had lived to be a hundred and five, and of whos saintly doings many curious stories were still extant in the monaster and the neighborhood."},
{"text":"Father Ferapont had succeeded in getting himself installed in this sam solitary cell seven years previously. It was simply a peasant's hut though it looked like a chapel, for it contained an extraordinar number of icons with lamps perpetually burning before them--which me brought to the monastery as offerings to God. Father Ferapont had bee appointed to look after them and keep the lamps burning. It was sai (and indeed it was true) that he ate only two pounds of bread in thre days. The beekeeper, who lived close by the apiary, used to bring hi the bread every three days, and even to this man who waited upon him Father Ferapont rarely uttered a word. The four pounds of bread together with the sacrament bread, regularly sent him on Sundays afte the late mass by the Father Superior, made up his weekly rations. Th water in his jug was changed every day. He rarely appeared at mass Visitors who came to do him homage saw him sometimes kneeling all da long at prayer without looking round. If he addressed them, he wa brief, abrupt, strange, and almost always rude. On very rare occasions however, he would talk to visitors, but for the most part he woul utter some one strange saying which was a complete riddle, and n entreaties would induce him to pronounce a word in explanation. He wa not a priest, but a simple monk. There was a strange belief, chiefl however among the most ignorant, that Father Ferapont had communicatio with heavenly spirits and would only converse with them, and so wa silent with men."},
{"text":"The monk from Obdorsk, having been directed to the apiary by th beekeeper, who was also a very silent and surly monk, went to th corner where Father Ferapont's cell stood. \"Maybe he will speak as yo are a stranger and maybe you'll get nothing out of him,\" the beekeepe had warned him. The monk, as he related afterwards, approached in th utmost apprehension. It was rather late in the evening. Father Ferapon was sitting at the door of his cell on a low bench. A huge old elm wa lightly rustling overhead. There was an evening freshness in the air The monk from Obdorsk bowed down before the saint and asked hi blessing."},
{"text":"\"Do you want me to bow down to you, monk?\" said Father Ferapont. \"Ge up!\""},
{"text":"The monk got up."},
{"text":"\"Blessing, be blessed! Sit beside me. Where have you come from?\""},
{"text":"What most struck the poor monk was the fact that in spite of his stric fasting and great age, Father Ferapont still looked a vigorous old man He was tall, held himself erect, and had a thin, but fresh and health face. There was no doubt he still had considerable strength. He was o athletic build. In spite of his great age he was not even quite gray and still had very thick hair and a full beard, both of which had onc been black. His eyes were gray, large and luminous, but strikingl prominent. He spoke with a broad accent. He was dressed in a peasant' long reddish coat of coarse convict cloth (as it used to be called) an had a stout rope round his waist. His throat and chest were bare Beneath his coat, his shirt of the coarsest linen showed almost blac with dirt, not having been changed for months. They said that he wor irons weighing thirty pounds under his coat. His stockingless feet wer thrust in old slippers almost dropping to pieces."},
{"text":"\"From the little Obdorsk monastery, from St. Sylvester,\" the mon answered humbly, whilst his keen and inquisitive, but rather frightene little eyes kept watch on the hermit."},
{"text":"\"I have been at your Sylvester's. I used to stay there. Is Sylveste well?\""},
{"text":"The monk hesitated."},
{"text":"\"You are a senseless lot! How do you keep the fasts?\""},
{"text":"\"Our dietary is according to the ancient conventual rules. During Len there are no meals provided for Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Fo Tuesday and Thursday we have white bread, stewed fruit with honey, wil berries, or salt cabbage and wholemeal stirabout. On Saturday whit cabbage soup, noodles with peas, kasha, all with hemp oil. On weekday we have dried fish and kasha with the cabbage soup. From Monday til Saturday evening, six whole days in Holy Week, nothing is cooked, an we have only bread and water, and that sparingly; if possible no taking food every day, just the same as is ordered for first week i Lent. On Good Friday nothing is eaten. In the same way on the Saturda we have to fast till three o'clock, and then take a little bread an water and drink a single cup of wine. On Holy Thursday we drink win and have something cooked without oil or not cooked at all, inasmuch a the Laodicean council lays down for Holy Thursday: `It is unseemly b remitting the fast on the Holy Thursday to dishonor the whole of Lent! This is how we keep the fast. But what is that compared with you, hol Father,\" added the monk, growing more confident, \"for all the yea round, even at Easter, you take nothing but bread and water, and wha we should eat in two days lasts you full seven. It's trul marvelous--your great abstinence.\""},
{"text":"\"And mushrooms?\" asked Father Ferapont, suddenly."},
{"text":"\"Mushrooms?\" repeated the surprised monk."},
{"text":"\"Yes. I can give up their bread, not needing it at all, and go awa into the forest and live there on the mushrooms or the berries, bu they can't give up their bread here, wherefore they are in bondage t the devil. Nowadays the unclean deny that there is need of suc fasting. Haughty and unclean is their judgment.\""},
{"text":"\"Och, true,\" sighed the monk."},
{"text":"\"And have you seen devils among them?\" asked Ferapont."},
{"text":"\"Among them? Among whom?\" asked the monk, timidly."},
{"text":"\"I went to the Father Superior on Trinity Sunday last year, I haven' been since. I saw a devil sitting on one man's chest hiding under hi cassock, only his horns poked out; another had one peeping out of hi pocket with such sharp eyes, he was afraid of me; another settled i the unclean belly of one, another was hanging round a man's neck, an so he was carrying him about without seeing him.\""},
{"text":"\"You--can see spirits?\" the monk inquired."},
{"text":"\"I tell you I can see, I can see through them. When I was coming ou from the Superior's I saw one hiding from me behind the door, and a bi one, a yard and a half or more high, with a thick long gray tail, an the tip of his tail was in the crack of the door and I was quick an slammed the door, pinching his tail in it. He squealed and began t struggle, and I made the sign of the cross over him three times. And h died on the spot like a crushed spider. He must have rotted there i the corner and be stinking, but they don't see, they don't smell it It's a year since I have been there. I reveal it to you, as you are  stranger.\""},
{"text":"\"Your words are terrible! But, holy and blessed Father,\" said the monk growing bolder and bolder, \"is it true, as they noise abroad even t distant lands about you, that you are in continual communication wit the Holy Ghost?\""},
{"text":"\"He does fly down at times.\""},
{"text":"\"How does he fly down? In what form?\""},
{"text":"\"As a bird.\""},
{"text":"\"The Holy Ghost in the form of a dove?\""},
{"text":"\"There's the Holy Ghost and there's the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spiri can appear as other birds--sometimes as a swallow, sometimes  goldfinch and sometimes as a blue-tit.\""},
{"text":"\"How do you know him from an ordinary tit?\""},
{"text":"\"He speaks.\""},
{"text":"\"How does he speak, in what language?\""},
{"text":"\"Human language.\""},
{"text":"\"And what does he tell you?\""},
{"text":"\"Why, today he told me that a fool would visit me and would ask m unseemly questions. You want to know too much, monk.\""},
{"text":"\"Terrible are your words, most holy and blessed Father,\" the monk shoo his head. But there was a doubtful look in his frightened little eyes."},
{"text":"\"Do you see this tree?\" asked Father Ferapont, after a pause."},
{"text":"\"I do, blessed Father.\""},
{"text":"\"You think it's an elm, but for me it has another shape.\""},
{"text":"\"What sort of shape?\" inquired the monk, after a pause of vai expectation."},
{"text":"\"It happens at night. You see those two branches? In the night it i Christ holding out His arms to me and seeking me with those arms, I se it clearly and tremble. It's terrible, terrible!\""},
{"text":"\"What is there terrible if it's Christ Himself?\""},
{"text":"\"Why, He'll snatch me up and carry me away.\""},
{"text":"\"Alive?\""},
{"text":"\"In the spirit and glory of Elijah, haven't you heard? He will take m in His arms and bear me away.\""},
{"text":"Though the monk returned to the cell he was sharing with one of th brothers, in considerable perplexity of mind, he still cherished a heart a greater reverence for Father Ferapont than for Father Zossima He was strongly in favor of fasting, and it was not strange that on who kept so rigid a fast as Father Ferapont should \"see marvels.\" Hi words seemed certainly queer, but God only could tell what was hidde in those words, and were not worse words and acts commonly seen i those who have sacrificed their intellects for the glory of God? Th pinching of the devil's tail he was ready and eager to believe, and no only in the figurative sense. Besides he had, before visiting th monastery, a strong prejudice against the institution of \"elders,\"which he only knew of by hearsay and believed to be a perniciou innovation. Before he had been long at the monastery, he had detecte the secret murmurings of some shallow brothers who disliked th institution. He was, besides, a meddlesome, inquisitive man, who poke his nose into everything. This was why the news of the fresh \"miracle\"performed by Father Zossima reduced him to extreme perplexity. Alyosh remembered afterwards how their inquisitive guest from Obdorsk had bee continually flitting to and fro from one group to another, listenin and asking questions among the monks that were crowding within an without the elder's cell. But he did not pay much attention to him a the time, and only recollected it afterwards."},
{"text":"He had no thought to spare for it indeed, for when Father Zossima feeling tired again, had gone back to bed, he thought of Alyosha as h was closing his eyes, and sent for him. Alyosha ran at once. There wa no one else in the cell but Father Passy, Father Iosif, and the novic Porfiry. The elder, opening his weary eyes and looking intently a Alyosha, asked him suddenly:"},
{"text":"\"Are your people expecting you, my son?\""},
{"text":"Alyosha hesitated."},
{"text":"\"Haven't they need of you? Didn't you promise someone yesterday to se them today?\""},
{"text":"\"I did promise--to my father--my brothers--others too.\""},
{"text":"\"You see, you must go. Don't grieve. Be sure I shall not die withou your being by to hear my last word. To you I will say that word, m son, it will be my last gift to you. To you, dear son, because you lov me. But now go to keep your promise.\""},
{"text":"Alyosha immediately obeyed, though it was hard to go. But the promis that he should hear his last word on earth, that it should be the las gift to him, Alyosha, sent a thrill of rapture through his soul. H made haste that he might finish what he had to do in the town an return quickly. Father Passy, too, uttered some words of exhortatio which moved and surprised him greatly. He spoke as they left the cel together."},
{"text":"\"Remember, young man, unceasingly,\" Father Passy began, withou preface, \"that the science of this world, which has become a grea power, has, especially in the last century, analyzed everything divin handed down to us in the holy books. After this cruel analysis th learned of this world have nothing left of all that was sacred of old But they have only analyzed the parts and overlooked the whole, an indeed their blindness is marvelous. Yet the whole still stand steadfast before their eyes, and the gates of hell shall not prevai against it. Has it not lasted nineteen centuries, is it not still  living, a moving power in the individual soul and in the masses o people? It is still as strong and living even in the souls of atheists who have destroyed everything! For even those who have renounce Christianity and attack it, in their inmost being still follow th Christian ideal, for hitherto neither their subtlety nor the ardor o their hearts has been able to create a higher ideal of man and o virtue than the ideal given by Christ of old. When it has bee attempted, the result has been only grotesque. Remember thi especially, young man, since you are being sent into the world by you departing elder. Maybe, remembering this great day, you will not forge my words, uttered from the heart for your guidance, seeing you ar young, and the temptations of the world are great and beyond you strength to endure. Well, now go, my orphan.\""},
{"text":"With these words Father Passy blessed him. As Alyosha left th monastery and thought them over, he suddenly realized that he had met  new and unexpected friend, a warmly loving teacher, in this auster monk who had hitherto treated him sternly. It was as though Fathe Zossima had bequeathed him to him at his death, and \"perhaps that' just what had passed between them,\" Alyosha thought suddenly. Th philosophic reflections he had just heard so unexpectedly testified t the warmth of Father Passy's heart. He was in haste to arm the boy' mind for conflict with temptation and to guard the young soul left i his charge with the strongest defense he could imagine."},
{"text":" II"},
{"text":"At His Father's"},
{"text":"First of all, Alyosha went to his father. On the way he remembered tha his father had insisted the day before that he should come without hi brother Ivan seeing him. \"Why so?\" Alyosha wondered suddenly. \"Even i my father has something to say to me alone, why should I go in unseen Most likely in his excitement yesterday he meant to say somethin different,\" he decided. Yet he was very glad when Marfa Ignatyevna, wh opened the garden gate to him (Grigory, it appeared, was ill in bed i the lodge), told him in answer to his question that Ivan Fyodorovitc had gone out two hours ago."},
{"text":"\"And my father?\""},
{"text":"\"He is up, taking his coffee,\" Marfa answered somewhat dryly."},
{"text":"Alyosha went in. The old man was sitting alone at the table wearin slippers and a little old overcoat. He was amusing himself by lookin through some accounts, rather inattentively however. He was quite alon in the house, for Smerdyakov too had gone out marketing. Though he ha got up early and was trying to put a bold face on it, he looked tire and weak. His forehead, upon which huge purple bruises had come ou during the night, was bandaged with a red handkerchief; his nose to had swollen terribly in the night, and some smaller bruises covered i in patches, giving his whole face a peculiarly spiteful and irritabl look. The old man was aware of this, and turned a hostile glance o Alyosha as he came in."},
{"text":"\"The coffee is cold,\" he cried harshly; \"I won't offer you any. I'v ordered nothing but a Lenten fish soup today, and I don't invite anyon to share it. Why have you come?\""},
{"text":"\"To find out how you are,\" said Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"Yes. Besides, I told you to come yesterday. It's all of n consequence. You need not have troubled. But I knew you'd come pokin in directly.\""},
{"text":"He said this with almost hostile feeling. At the same time he got u and looked anxiously in the looking-glass (perhaps for the fortiet time that morning) at his nose. He began, too, binding his re handkerchief more becomingly on his forehead."},
{"text":"\"Red's better. It's just like the hospital in a white one,\" he observe sententiously. \"Well, how are things over there? How is your elder?\""},
{"text":"\"He is very bad; he may die today,\" answered Alyosha. But his fathe had not listened, and had forgotten his own question at once."},
{"text":"\"Ivan's gone out,\" he said suddenly. \"He is doing his utmost to carr off Mitya's betrothed. That's what he is staying here for,\" he adde maliciously, and, twisting his mouth, looked at Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"Surely he did not tell you so?\" asked Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"Yes, he did, long ago. Would you believe it, he told me three week ago? You don't suppose he too came to murder me, do you? He must hav had some object in coming.\""},
{"text":"\"What do you mean? Why do you say such things?\" said Alyosha, troubled."},
{"text":"\"He doesn't ask for money, it's true, but yet he won't get a farthin from me. I intend living as long as possible, you may as well know, m dear Alexey Fyodorovitch, and so I need every farthing, and the longe I live, the more I shall need it,\" he continued, pacing from one corne of the room to the other, keeping his hands in the pockets of his loos greasy overcoat made of yellow cotton material. \"I can still pass for  man at five and fifty, but I want to pass for one for another twent years. As I get older, you know, I shan't be a pretty object. Th wenches won't come to me of their own accord, so I shall want my money So I am saving up more and more, simply for myself, my dear son Alexe Fyodorovitch. You may as well know. For I mean to go on in my sins t the end, let me tell you. For sin is sweet; all abuse it, but all me live in it, only others do it on the sly, and I openly. And so all th other sinners fall upon me for being so simple. And your paradise Alexey Fyodorovitch, is not to my taste, let me tell you that; and it' not the proper place for a gentleman, your paradise, even if it exists I believe that I fall asleep and don't wake up again, and that's all You can pray for my soul if you like. And if you don't want to, don't damn you! That's my philosophy. Ivan talked well here yesterday, thoug we were all drunk. Ivan is a conceited coxcomb, but he has n particular learning ... nor education either. He sits silent an smiles at one without speaking--that's what pulls him through.\""},
{"text":"Alyosha listened to him in silence."},
{"text":"\"Why won't he talk to me? If he does speak, he gives himself airs. You Ivan is a scoundrel! And I'll marry Grushenka in a minute if I want to For if you've money, Alexey Fyodorovitch, you have only to want a thin and you can have it. That's what Ivan is afraid of, he is on the watc to prevent me getting married and that's why he is egging on Mitya t marry Grushenka himself. He hopes to keep me from Grushenka by that (a though I should leave him my money if I don't marry her!). Besides i Mitya marries Grushenka, Ivan will carry off his rich betrothed, that' what he's reckoning on! He is a scoundrel, your Ivan!\""},
{"text":"\"How cross you are! It's because of yesterday; you had better li down,\" said Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"There! you say that,\" the old man observed suddenly, as though it ha struck him for the first time, \"and I am not angry with you. But i Ivan said it, I should be angry with him. It is only with you I hav good moments, else you know I am an ill-natured man.\""},
{"text":"\"You are not ill-natured, but distorted,\" said Alyosha with a smile."},
{"text":"\"Listen. I meant this morning to get that ruffian Mitya locked up and  don't know now what I shall decide about it. Of course in thes fashionable days fathers and mothers are looked upon as a prejudice but even now the law does not allow you to drag your old father abou by the hair, to kick him in the face in his own house, and brag o murdering him outright--all in the presence of witnesses. If I liked I could crush him and could have him locked up at once for what he di yesterday.\""},
{"text":"\"Then you don't mean to take proceedings?\""},
{"text":"\"Ivan has dissuaded me. I shouldn't care about Ivan, but there' another thing.\""},
{"text":"And bending down to Alyosha, he went on in a confidential half-whisper."},
{"text":"\"If I send the ruffian to prison, she'll hear of it and run to see hi at once. But if she hears that he has beaten me, a weak old man, withi an inch of my life, she may give him up and come to me. ... Fo that's her way, everything by contraries. I know her through an through! Won't you have a drop of brandy? Take some cold coffee an I'll pour a quarter of a glass of brandy into it, it's delicious, m boy.\""},
{"text":"\"No, thank you. I'll take that roll with me if I may,\" said Alyosha and taking a halfpenny French roll he put it in the pocket of hi cassock. \"And you'd better not have brandy, either,\" he suggeste apprehensively, looking into the old man's face."},
{"text":"\"You are quite right, it irritates my nerves instead of soothing them Only one little glass. I'll get it out of the cupboard.\""},
{"text":"He unlocked the cupboard, poured out a glass, drank it, then locked th cupboard and put the key back in his pocket."},
{"text":"\"That's enough. One glass won't kill me.\""},
{"text":"\"You see you are in a better humor now,\" said Alyosha, smiling."},
{"text":"\"Um! I love you even without the brandy, but with scoundrels I am  scoundrel. Ivan is not going to Tchermashnya--why is that? He wants t spy how much I give Grushenka if she comes. They are all scoundrels But I don't recognize Ivan, I don't know him at all. Where does he com from? He is not one of us in soul. As though I'd leave him anything!  shan't leave a will at all, you may as well know. And I'll crush Mity like a beetle. I squash black-beetles at night with my slipper; the squelch when you tread on them. And your Mitya will squelch too. You Mitya, for you love him. Yes, you love him and I am not afraid of you loving him. But if Ivan loved him I should be afraid for myself at hi loving him. But Ivan loves nobody. Ivan is not one of us. People lik Ivan are not our sort, my boy. They are like a cloud of dust. When th wind blows, the dust will be gone. ... I had a silly idea in my hea when I told you to come today; I wanted to find out from you abou Mitya. If I were to hand him over a thousand or maybe two now, woul the beggarly wretch agree to take himself off altogether for five year or, better still, thirty-five, and without Grushenka, and give her u once for all, eh?\""},
{"text":"\"I--I'll ask him,\" muttered Alyosha. \"If you would give him thre thousand, perhaps he--\""},
{"text":"\"That's nonsense! You needn't ask him now, no need! I've changed m mind. It was a nonsensical idea of mine. I won't give him anything, no a penny, I want my money myself,\" cried the old man, waving his hand \"I'll crush him like a beetle without it. Don't say anything to him o else he will begin hoping. There's nothing for you to do here, yo needn't stay. Is that betrothed of his, Katerina Ivanovna, whom he ha kept so carefully hidden from me all this time, going to marry him o not? You went to see her yesterday, I believe?\""},
{"text":"\"Nothing will induce her to abandon him.\""},
{"text":"\"There you see how dearly these fine young ladies love a rake and  scoundrel. They are poor creatures I tell you, those pale young ladies very different from--Ah, if I had his youth and the looks I had the (for I was better-looking than he at eight and twenty) I'd have been  conquering hero just as he is. He is a low cad! But he shan't hav Grushenka, anyway, he shan't! I'll crush him!\""},
{"text":"His anger had returned with the last words."},
{"text":"\"You can go. There's nothing for you to do here today,\" he snappe harshly."},
{"text":"Alyosha went up to say goodbye to him, and kissed him on the shoulder."},
{"text":"\"What's that for?\" The old man was a little surprised. \"We shall se each other again, or do you think we shan't?\""},
{"text":"\"Not at all, I didn't mean anything.\""},
{"text":"\"Nor did I, I did not mean anything,\" said the old man, looking at him \"Listen, listen,\" he shouted after him, \"make haste and come again an I'll have a fish soup for you, a fine one, not like today. Be sure t come! Come tomorrow, do you hear, tomorrow!\""},
{"text":"And as soon as Alyosha had gone out of the door, he went to th cupboard again and poured out another half-glass."},
{"text":"\"I won't have more!\" he muttered, clearing his throat, and again h locked the cupboard and put the key in his pocket. Then he went int his bedroom, lay down on the bed, exhausted, and in one minute he wa asleep."},
{"text":" III"},
{"text":"A Meeting with the Schoolboys"},
{"text":"\"Thank goodness he did not ask me about Grushenka,\" thought Alyosha, a he left his father's house and turned towards Madame Hohlakov's, \"or  might have to tell him of my meeting with Grushenka yesterday.\""},
{"text":"Alyosha felt painfully that since yesterday both combatants had renewe their energies, and that their hearts had grown hard again. \"Father i spiteful and angry, he's made some plan and will stick to it. And wha of Dmitri? He too will be harder than yesterday, he too must b spiteful and angry, and he too, no doubt, has made some plan. Oh,  must succeed in finding him today, whatever happens.\""},
{"text":"But Alyosha had not long to meditate. An incident occurred on the road which, though apparently of little consequence, made a great impressio on him. Just after he had crossed the square and turned the corne coming out into Mihailovsky Street, which is divided by a small ditc from the High Street (our whole town is intersected by ditches), he sa a group of schoolboys between the ages of nine and twelve, at th bridge. They were going home from school, some with their bags on thei shoulders, others with leather satchels slung across them, some i short jackets, others in little overcoats. Some even had those hig boots with creases round the ankles, such as little boys spoilt by ric fathers love to wear. The whole group was talking eagerly abou something, apparently holding a council. Alyosha had never from hi Moscow days been able to pass children without taking notice of them and although he was particularly fond of children of three o thereabout, he liked schoolboys of ten and eleven too. And so, anxiou as he was today, he wanted at once to turn aside to talk to them. H looked into their excited rosy faces, and noticed at once that all th boys had stones in their hands. Behind the ditch some thirty pace away, there was another schoolboy standing by a fence. He too had  satchel at his side. He was about ten years old, pale, delicate-lookin and with sparkling black eyes. He kept an attentive and anxious watc on the other six, obviously his schoolfellows with whom he had jus come out of school, but with whom he had evidently had a feud."},
{"text":"Alyosha went up and, addressing a fair, curly-headed, rosy boy in  black jacket, observed:"},
{"text":"\"When I used to wear a satchel like yours, I always used to carry it o my left side, so as to have my right hand free, but you've got yours o your right side. So it will be awkward for you to get at it.\""},
{"text":"Alyosha had no art or premeditation in beginning with this practica remark. But it is the only way for a grownup person to get at once int confidential relations with a child, or still more with a group o children. One must begin in a serious, businesslike way so as to be o a perfectly equal footing. Alyosha understood it by instinct."},
{"text":"\"But he is left-handed,\" another, a fine healthy-looking boy of eleven answered promptly. All the others stared at Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"He even throws stones with his left hand,\" observed a third."},
{"text":"At that instant a stone flew into the group, but only just grazed th left-handed boy, though it was well and vigorously thrown by the bo standing the other side of the ditch."},
{"text":"\"Give it him, hit him back, Smurov,\" they all shouted. But Smurov, th left-handed boy, needed no telling, and at once revenged himself; h threw a stone, but it missed the boy and hit the ground. The boy th other side of the ditch, the pocket of whose coat was visibly bulgin with stones, flung another stone at the group; this time it fle straight at Alyosha and hit him painfully on the shoulder."},
{"text":"\"He aimed it at you, he meant it for you. You are Karamazov Karamazov!\" the boys shouted, laughing. \"Come, all throw at him a once!\" and six stones flew at the boy. One struck the boy on the hea and he fell down, but at once leapt up and began ferociously returnin their fire. Both sides threw stones incessantly. Many of the group ha their pockets full too."},
{"text":"\"What are you about! Aren't you ashamed? Six against one! Why, you'l kill him,\" cried Alyosha."},
{"text":"He ran forward and met the flying stones to screen the solitary boy Three or four ceased throwing for a minute."},
{"text":"\"He began first!\" cried a boy in a red shirt in an angry childis voice. \"He is a beast, he stabbed Krassotkin in class the other da with a penknife. It bled. Krassotkin wouldn't tell tales, but he mus be thrashed.\""},
{"text":"\"But what for? I suppose you tease him.\""},
{"text":"\"There, he sent a stone in your back again, he knows you,\" cried th children. \"It's you he is throwing at now, not us. Come, all of you, a him again, don't miss, Smurov!\" and again a fire of stones, and a ver vicious one, began. The boy the other side of the ditch was hit in th chest; he screamed, began to cry and ran away uphill toward Mihailovsky Street. They all shouted: \"Aha, he is funking, he i running away. Wisp of tow!\""},
{"text":"\"You don't know what a beast he is, Karamazov, killing is too good fo him,\" said the boy in the jacket, with flashing eyes. He seemed to b the eldest."},
{"text":"\"What's wrong with him?\" asked Alyosha, \"is he a telltale or what?\""},
{"text":"The boys looked at one another as though derisively."},
{"text":"\"Are you going that way, to Mihailovsky?\" the same boy went on. \"Catc him up. ... You see he's stopped again, he is waiting and looking a you.\""},
{"text":"\"He is looking at you,\" the other boys chimed in."},
{"text":"\"You ask him, does he like a disheveled wisp of tow. Do you hear, as him that!\""},
{"text":"There was a general burst of laughter. Alyosha looked at them, and the at him."},
{"text":"\"Don't go near him, he'll hurt you,\" cried Smurov in a warning voice."},
{"text":"\"I shan't ask him about the wisp of tow, for I expect you tease hi with that question somehow. But I'll find out from him why you hate hi so.\""},
{"text":"\"Find out then, find out,\" cried the boys, laughing."},
{"text":"Alyosha crossed the bridge and walked uphill by the fence, straigh towards the boy."},
{"text":"\"You'd better look out,\" the boys called after him; \"he won't be afrai of you. He will stab you in a minute, on the sly, as he di Krassotkin.\""},
{"text":"The boy waited for him without budging. Coming up to him, Alyosha sa facing him a child of about nine years old. He was an undersized weakl boy with a thin pale face, with large dark eyes that gazed at hi vindictively. He was dressed in a rather shabby old overcoat, which h had monstrously outgrown. His bare arms stuck out beyond his sleeves There was a large patch on the right knee of his trousers, and in hi right boot just at the toe there was a big hole in the leather carefully blackened with ink. Both the pockets of his greatcoat wer weighed down with stones. Alyosha stopped two steps in front of him looking inquiringly at him. The boy, seeing at once from Alyosha's eye that he wouldn't beat him, became less defiant, and addressed hi first."},
{"text":"\"I am alone, and there are six of them. I'll beat them all, alone!\" h said suddenly, with flashing eyes."},
{"text":"\"I think one of the stones must have hurt you badly,\" observed Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"But I hit Smurov on the head!\" cried the boy."},
{"text":"\"They told me that you know me, and that you threw a stone at me o purpose,\" said Alyosha."},
{"text":"The boy looked darkly at him."},
{"text":"\"I don't know you. Do you know me?\" Alyosha continued."},
{"text":"\"Let me alone!\" the boy cried irritably; but he did not move, as thoug he were expecting something, and again there was a vindictive light i his eyes."},
{"text":"\"Very well, I am going,\" said Alyosha; \"only I don't know you and  don't tease you. They told me how they tease you, but I don't want t tease you. Goodbye!\""},
{"text":"\"Monk in silk trousers!\" cried the boy, following Alyosha with the sam vindictive and defiant expression, and he threw himself into a attitude of defense, feeling sure that now Alyosha would fall upon him but Alyosha turned, looked at him, and walked away. He had not gon three steps before the biggest stone the boy had in his pocket hit hi a painful blow in the back."},
{"text":"\"So you'll hit a man from behind! They tell the truth, then, when the say that you attack on the sly,\" said Alyosha, turning round again This time the boy threw a stone savagely right into Alyosha's face; bu Alyosha just had time to guard himself, and the stone struck him on th elbow."},
{"text":"\"Aren't you ashamed? What have I done to you?\" he cried."},
{"text":"The boy waited in silent defiance, certain that now Alyosha woul attack him. Seeing that even now he would not, his rage was like  little wild beast's; he flew at Alyosha himself, and before Alyosha ha time to move, the spiteful child had seized his left hand with both o his and bit his middle finger. He fixed his teeth in it and it was te seconds before he let go. Alyosha cried out with pain and pulled hi finger away with all his might. The child let go at last and retreate to his former distance. Alyosha's finger had been badly bitten to th bone, close to the nail; it began to bleed. Alyosha took out hi handkerchief and bound it tightly round his injured hand. He was a ful minute bandaging it. The boy stood waiting all the time. At las Alyosha raised his gentle eyes and looked at him."},
{"text":"\"Very well,\" he said, \"you see how badly you've bitten me. That' enough, isn't it? Now tell me, what have I done to you?\""},
{"text":"The boy stared in amazement."},
{"text":"\"Though I don't know you and it's the first time I've seen you,\"Alyosha went on with the same serenity, \"yet I must have done somethin to you--you wouldn't have hurt me like this for nothing. So what hav I done? How have I wronged you, tell me?\""},
{"text":"Instead of answering, the boy broke into a loud tearful wail and ra away. Alyosha walked slowly after him towards Mihailovsky Street, an for a long time he saw the child running in the distance as fast a ever, not turning his head, and no doubt still keeping up his tearfu wail. He made up his mind to find him out as soon as he had time, an to solve this mystery. Just now he had not the time."},
{"text":" IV"},
{"text":"At the Hohlakovs'"},
{"text":"Alyosha soon reached Madame Hohlakov's house, a handsome stone house o two stories, one of the finest in our town. Though Madame Hohlako spent most of her time in another province where she had an estate, o in Moscow, where she had a house of her own, yet she had a house in ou town too, inherited from her forefathers. The estate in our distric was the largest of her three estates, yet she had been very little i our province before this time. She ran out to Alyosha in the hall."},
{"text":"\"Did you get my letter about the new miracle?\" She spoke rapidly an nervously."},
{"text":"\"Yes.\""},
{"text":"\"Did you show it to everyone? He restored the son to his mother!\""},
{"text":"\"He is dying today,\" said Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"I have heard, I know, oh, how I long to talk to you, to you o someone, about all this. No, to you, to you! And how sorry I am I can' see him! The whole town is in excitement, they are all suspense. Bu now--do you know Katerina Ivanovna is here now?\""},
{"text":"\"Ah, that's lucky,\" cried Alyosha. \"Then I shall see her here. She tol me yesterday to be sure to come and see her today.\""},
{"text":"\"I know, I know all. I've heard exactly what happened yesterday--an the atrocious behavior of that--creature. C'est tragique, and if I' been in her place I don't know what I should have done. And you brother Dmitri Fyodorovitch, what do you think of him?--my goodness Alexey Fyodorovitch, I am forgetting, only fancy; your brother is i there with her, not that dreadful brother who was so shockin yesterday, but the other, Ivan Fyodorovitch, he is sitting with he talking; they are having a serious conversation. If you could onl imagine what's passing between them now--it's awful, I tell you it' lacerating, it's like some incredible tale of horror. They are ruinin their lives for no reason anyone can see. They both recognize it an revel in it. I've been watching for you! I've been thirsting for you It's too much for me, that's the worst of it. I'll tell you all abou it presently, but now I must speak of something else, the mos important thing--I had quite forgotten what's most important. Tell me why has Lise been in hysterics? As soon as she heard you were here, sh began to be hysterical!\""},
{"text":"\"Maman, it's you who are hysterical now, not I,\" Lise's voice carole through a tiny crack of the door at the side. Her voice sounded a though she wanted to laugh, but was doing her utmost to control it Alyosha at once noticed the crack, and no doubt Lise was peepin through it, but that he could not see."},
{"text":"\"And no wonder, Lise, no wonder ... your caprices will make m hysterical too. But she is so ill, Alexey Fyodorovitch, she has been s ill all night, feverish and moaning! I could hardly wait for th morning and for Herzenstube to come. He says that he can make nothin of it, that we must wait. Herzenstube always comes and says that he ca make nothing of it. As soon as you approached the house, she screamed fell into hysterics, and insisted on being wheeled back into this roo here.\""},
{"text":"\"Mamma, I didn't know he had come. It wasn't on his account I wanted t be wheeled into this room.\""},
{"text":"\"That's not true, Lise, Yulia ran to tell you that Alexey Fyodorovitc was coming. She was on the lookout for you.\""},
{"text":"\"My darling mamma, it's not at all clever of you. But if you want t make up for it and say something very clever, dear mamma, you'd bette tell our honored visitor, Alexey Fyodorovitch, that he has shown hi want of wit by venturing to us after what happened yesterday an although everyone is laughing at him.\""},
{"text":"\"Lise, you go too far. I declare I shall have to be severe. Who laugh at him? I am so glad he has come, I need him, I can't do without him Oh, Alexey Fyodorovitch, I am exceedingly unhappy!\""},
{"text":"\"But what's the matter with you, mamma, darling?\""},
{"text":"\"Ah, your caprices, Lise, your fidgetiness, your illness, that awfu night of fever, that awful everlasting Herzenstube, everlasting everlasting, that's the worst of it! Everything, in fact, everything. ... Even that miracle, too! Oh, how it has upset me, how it ha shattered me, that miracle, dear Alexey Fyodorovitch! And that traged in the drawing-room, it's more than I can bear, I warn you. I can' bear it. A comedy, perhaps, not a tragedy. Tell me, will Father Zossim live till tomorrow, will he? Oh, my God! What is happening to me? Ever minute I close my eyes and see that it's all nonsense, all nonsense.\""},
{"text":"\"I should be very grateful,\" Alyosha interrupted suddenly, \"if yo could give me a clean rag to bind up my finger with. I have hurt it and it's very painful.\""},
{"text":"Alyosha unbound his bitten finger. The handkerchief was soaked wit blood. Madame Hohlakov screamed and shut her eyes."},
{"text":"\"Good heavens, what a wound, how awful!\""},
{"text":"But as soon as Lise saw Alyosha's finger through the crack, she flun the door wide open."},
{"text":"\"Come, come here,\" she cried, imperiously. \"No nonsense now! Goo heavens, why did you stand there saying nothing about it all this time He might have bled to death, mamma! How did you do it? Water, water You must wash it first of all, simply hold it in cold water to stop th pain, and keep it there, keep it there. ... Make haste, mamma, som water in a slop-basin. But do make haste,\" she finished nervously. Sh was quite frightened at the sight of Alyosha's wound."},
{"text":"\"Shouldn't we send for Herzenstube?\" cried Madame Hohlakov."},
{"text":"\"Mamma, you'll be the death of me. Your Herzenstube will come and sa that he can make nothing of it! Water, water! Mamma, for goodness' sak go yourself and hurry Yulia, she is such a slowcoach and never can com quickly! Make haste, mamma, or I shall die.\""},
{"text":"\"Why, it's nothing much,\" cried Alyosha, frightened at this alarm."},
{"text":"Yulia ran in with water and Alyosha put his finger in it."},
{"text":"\"Some lint, mamma, for mercy's sake, bring some lint and that mudd caustic lotion for wounds, what's it called? We've got some. You kno where the bottle is, mamma; it's in your bedroom in the right-han cupboard, there's a big bottle of it there with the lint.\""},
{"text":"\"I'll bring everything in a minute, Lise, only don't scream and don' fuss. You see how bravely Alexey Fyodorovitch bears it. Where did yo get such a dreadful wound, Alexey Fyodorovitch?\""},
{"text":"Madame Hohlakov hastened away. This was all Lise was waiting for."},
{"text":"\"First of all, answer the question, where did you get hurt like this?\"she asked Alyosha, quickly. \"And then I'll talk to you about somethin quite different. Well?\""},
{"text":"Instinctively feeling that the time of her mother's absence wa precious for her, Alyosha hastened to tell her of his enigmatic meetin with the schoolboys in the fewest words possible. Lise clasped he hands at his story."},
{"text":"\"How can you, and in that dress too, associate with schoolboys?\" sh cried angrily, as though she had a right to control him. \"You ar nothing but a boy yourself if you can do that, a perfect boy! But yo must find out for me about that horrid boy and tell me all about it for there's some mystery in it. Now for the second thing, but first  question: does the pain prevent you talking about utterly unimportan things, but talking sensibly?\""},
{"text":"\"Of course not, and I don't feel much pain now.\""},
{"text":"\"That's because your finger is in the water. It must be change directly, for it will get warm in a minute. Yulia, bring some ice fro the cellar and another basin of water. Now she is gone, I can speak will you give me the letter I sent you yesterday, dear Alexe Fyodorovitch--be quick, for mamma will be back in a minute and I don' want--\""},
{"text":"\"I haven't got the letter.\""},
{"text":"\"That's not true, you have. I knew you would say that. You've got it i that pocket. I've been regretting that joke all night. Give me back th letter at once, give it me.\""},
{"text":"\"I've left it at home.\""},
{"text":"\"But you can't consider me as a child, a little girl, after that sill joke! I beg your pardon for that silliness, but you must bring me th letter, if you really haven't got it--bring it today, you must, yo must.\""},
{"text":"\"Today I can't possibly, for I am going back to the monastery and  shan't come and see you for the next two days--three or fou perhaps--for Father Zossima--\""},
{"text":"\"Four days, what nonsense! Listen. Did you laugh at me very much?\""},
{"text":"\"I didn't laugh at all.\""},
{"text":"\"Why not?\""},
{"text":"\"Because I believed all you said.\""},
{"text":"\"You are insulting me!\""},
{"text":"\"Not at all. As soon as I read it, I thought that all that would com to pass, for as soon as Father Zossima dies, I am to leave th monastery. Then I shall go back and finish my studies, and when yo reach the legal age we will be married. I shall love you. Though  haven't had time to think about it, I believe I couldn't find a bette wife than you, and Father Zossima tells me I must marry.\""},
{"text":"\"But I am a cripple, wheeled about in a chair,\" laughed Lise, flushin crimson."},
{"text":"\"I'll wheel you about myself, but I'm sure you'll get well by then.\""},
{"text":"\"But you are mad,\" said Lise, nervously, \"to make all this nonsense ou of a joke! Here's mamma, very apropos, perhaps. Mamma, how slow yo always are, how can you be so long! And here's Yulia with the ice!\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, Lise, don't scream, above all things don't scream. That screa drives me ... How can I help it when you put the lint in anothe place? I've been hunting and hunting--I do believe you did it o purpose.\""},
{"text":"\"But I couldn't tell that he would come with a bad finger, or els perhaps I might have done it on purpose. My darling mamma, you begin t say really witty things.\""},
{"text":"\"Never mind my being witty, but I must say you show nice feeling fo Alexey Fyodorovitch's sufferings! Oh, my dear Alexey Fyodorovitch what's killing me is no one thing in particular, not Herzenstube, bu everything together, that's what is too much for me.\""},
{"text":"\"That's enough, mamma, enough about Herzenstube,\" Lise laughed gayly \"Make haste with the lint and the lotion, mamma. That's simpl Goulard's water, Alexey Fyodorovitch, I remember the name now, but it' a splendid lotion. Would you believe it, mamma, on the way here he ha a fight with the boys in the street, and it was a boy bit his finger isn't he a child, a child himself? Is he fit to be married after that For only fancy, he wants to be married, mamma. Just think of hi married, wouldn't it be funny, wouldn't it be awful?\""},
{"text":"And Lise kept laughing her thin hysterical giggle, looking slyly a Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"But why married, Lise? What makes you talk of such a thing? It's quit out of place--and perhaps the boy was rabid.\""},
{"text":"\"Why, mamma! As though there were rabid boys!\""},
{"text":"\"Why not, Lise, as though I had said something stupid! Your boy migh have been bitten by a mad dog and he would become mad and bite anyon near him. How well she has bandaged it, Alexey Fyodorovitch! I couldn' have done it. Do you still feel the pain?\""},
{"text":"\"It's nothing much now.\""},
{"text":"\"You don't feel afraid of water?\" asked Lise."},
{"text":"\"Come, that's enough, Lise, perhaps I really was rather too quic talking of the boy being rabid, and you pounced upon it at once Katerina Ivanovna has only just heard that you are here, Alexe Fyodorovitch, she simply rushed at me, she's dying to see you, dying!\""},
{"text":"\"Ach, mamma, go to them yourself. He can't go just now, he is in to much pain.\""},
{"text":"\"Not at all, I can go quite well,\" said Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"What! You are going away? Is that what you say?\""},
{"text":"\"Well, when I've seen them, I'll come back here and we can talk as muc as you like. But I should like to see Katerina Ivanovna at once, for  am very anxious to be back at the monastery as soon as I can.\""},
{"text":"\"Mamma, take him away quickly. Alexey Fyodorovitch, don't trouble t come and see me afterwards, but go straight back to your monastery an a good riddance. I want to sleep, I didn't sleep all night.\""},
{"text":"\"Ah, Lise, you are only making fun, but how I wish you would sleep!\"cried Madame Hohlakov."},
{"text":"\"I don't know what I've done. ... I'll stay another three minutes five if you like,\" muttered Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"Even five! Do take him away quickly, mamma, he is a monster.\""},
{"text":"\"Lise, you are crazy. Let us go, Alexey Fyodorovitch, she is to capricious today. I am afraid to cross her. Oh, the trouble one ha with nervous girls! Perhaps she really will be able to sleep afte seeing you. How quickly you have made her sleepy, and how fortunate i is!\""},
{"text":"\"Ah, mamma, how sweetly you talk! I must kiss you for it, mamma.\""},
{"text":"\"And I kiss you too, Lise. Listen, Alexey Fyodorovitch,\" Madam Hohlakov began mysteriously and importantly, speaking in a rapi whisper. \"I don't want to suggest anything, I don't want to lift th veil, you will see for yourself what's going on. It's appalling. It' the most fantastic farce. She loves your brother, Ivan, and she i doing her utmost to persuade herself she loves your brother, Dmitri It's appalling! I'll go in with you, and if they don't turn me out I'll stay to the end.\""},
{"text":" V"},
{"text":"A Laceration in the Drawing-Room"},
{"text":"But in the drawing-room the conversation was already over. Katerin Ivanovna was greatly excited, though she looked resolute. At the momen Alyosha and Madame Hohlakov entered, Ivan Fyodorovitch stood up to tak leave. His face was rather pale, and Alyosha looked at him anxiously For this moment was to solve a doubt, a harassing enigma which had fo some time haunted Alyosha. During the preceding month it had bee several times suggested to him that his brother Ivan was in love wit Katerina Ivanovna, and, what was more, that he meant \"to carry her off\"from Dmitri. Until quite lately the idea seemed to Alyosha monstrous though it worried him extremely. He loved both his brothers, an dreaded such rivalry between them. Meantime, Dmitri had said outrigh on the previous day that he was glad that Ivan was his rival, and tha it was a great assistance to him, Dmitri. In what way did it assis him? To marry Grushenka? But that Alyosha considered the worst thin possible. Besides all this, Alyosha had till the evening befor implicitly believed that Katerina Ivanovna had a steadfast an passionate love for Dmitri; but he had only believed it till th evening before. He had fancied, too, that she was incapable of loving  man like Ivan, and that she did love Dmitri, and loved him just as h was, in spite of all the strangeness of such a passion."},
{"text":"But during yesterday's scene with Grushenka another idea had struc him. The word \"lacerating,\" which Madame Hohlakov had just uttered almost made him start, because half waking up towards daybreak tha night he had cried out \"Laceration, laceration,\" probably applying i to his dream. He had been dreaming all night of the previous day' scene at Katerina Ivanovna's. Now Alyosha was impressed by Madam Hohlakov's blunt and persistent assertion that Katerina Ivanovna was i love with Ivan, and only deceived herself through some sort of pose from \"self-laceration,\" and tortured herself by her pretended love fo Dmitri from some fancied duty of gratitude. \"Yes,\" he thought, \"perhap the whole truth lies in those words.\" But in that case what was Ivan' position? Alyosha felt instinctively that a character like Katerin Ivanovna's must dominate, and she could only dominate someone lik Dmitri, and never a man like Ivan. For Dmitri might at last submit t her domination \"to his own happiness\" (which was what Alyosha woul have desired), but Ivan--no, Ivan could not submit to her, and suc submission would not give him happiness. Alyosha could not hel believing that of Ivan. And now all these doubts and reflection flitted through his mind as he entered the drawing-room. Another idea too, forced itself upon him: \"What if she loved neither o them--neither Ivan nor Dmitri?\""},
{"text":"It must be noted that Alyosha felt as it were ashamed of his ow thoughts and blamed himself when they kept recurring to him during th last month. \"What do I know about love and women and how can I decid such questions?\" he thought reproachfully, after such doubts an surmises. And yet it was impossible not to think about it. He fel instinctively that this rivalry was of immense importance in hi brothers' lives and that a great deal depended upon it."},
{"text":"\"One reptile will devour the other,\" Ivan had pronounced the da before, speaking in anger of his father and Dmitri. So Ivan looked upo Dmitri as a reptile, and perhaps had long done so. Was it perhaps sinc he had known Katerina Ivanovna? That phrase had, of course, escape Ivan unawares yesterday, but that only made it more important. If h felt like that, what chance was there of peace? Were there not, on th contrary, new grounds for hatred and hostility in their family? An with which of them was Alyosha to sympathize? And what was he to wis for each of them? He loved them both, but what could he desire for eac in the midst of these conflicting interests? He might go quite astra in this maze, and Alyosha's heart could not endure uncertainty, becaus his love was always of an active character. He was incapable of passiv love. If he loved anyone, he set to work at once to help him. And to d so he must know what he was aiming at; he must know for certain wha was best for each, and having ascertained this it was natural for hi to help them both. But instead of a definite aim, he found nothing bu uncertainty and perplexity on all sides. \"It was lacerating,\" as wa said just now. But what could he understand even in this \"laceration\" He did not understand the first word in this perplexing maze."},
{"text":"Seeing Alyosha, Katerina Ivanovna said quickly and joyfully to Ivan who had already got up to go, \"A minute! Stay another minute! I want t hear the opinion of this person here whom I trust absolutely. Don't g away,\" she added, addressing Madame Hohlakov. She made Alyosha sit dow beside her, and Madame Hohlakov sat opposite, by Ivan."},
{"text":"\"You are all my friends here, all I have in the world, my dea friends,\" she began warmly, in a voice which quivered with genuin tears of suffering, and Alyosha's heart warmed to her at once. \"You Alexey Fyodorovitch, were witness yesterday of that abominable scene and saw what I did. You did not see it, Ivan Fyodorovitch, he did. Wha he thought of me yesterday I don't know. I only know one thing, that i it were repeated today, this minute, I should express the same feeling again as yesterday--the same feelings, the same words, the sam actions. You remember my actions, Alexey Fyodorovitch; you checked m in one of them\" ... (as she said that, she flushed and her eye shone). \"I must tell you that I can't get over it. Listen, Alexe Fyodorovitch. I don't even know whether I still love him. I feel pit for him, and that is a poor sign of love. If I loved him, if I stil loved him, perhaps I shouldn't be sorry for him now, but should hat him.\""},
{"text":"Her voice quivered, and tears glittered on her eyelashes. Alyosh shuddered inwardly. \"That girl is truthful and sincere,\" he thought \"and she does not love Dmitri any more.\""},
{"text":"\"That's true, that's true,\" cried Madame Hohlakov."},
{"text":"\"Wait, dear. I haven't told you the chief, the final decision I came t during the night. I feel that perhaps my decision is a terribl one--for me, but I foresee that nothing will induce me to chang it--nothing. It will be so all my life. My dear, kind, ever-faithfu and generous adviser, the one friend I have in the world, Iva Fyodorovitch, with his deep insight into the heart, approves an commends my decision. He knows it.\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, I approve of it,\" Ivan assented, in a subdued but firm voice."},
{"text":"\"But I should like Alyosha, too (Ah! Alexey Fyodorovitch, forgive m calling you simply Alyosha), I should like Alexey Fyodorovitch, too, t tell me before my two friends whether I am right. I feel instinctivel that you, Alyosha, my dear brother (for you are a dear brother to me),\"she said again ecstatically, taking his cold hand in her hot one, \" foresee that your decision, your approval, will bring me peace, i spite of all my sufferings, for, after your words, I shall be calm an submit--I feel that.\""},
{"text":"\"I don't know what you are asking me,\" said Alyosha, flushing. \"I onl know that I love you and at this moment wish for your happiness mor than my own! ... But I know nothing about such affairs,\" somethin impelled him to add hurriedly."},
{"text":"\"In such affairs, Alexey Fyodorovitch, in such affairs, the chief thin is honor and duty and something higher--I don't know what--but highe perhaps even than duty. I am conscious of this irresistible feeling i my heart, and it compels me irresistibly. But it may all be put in tw words. I've already decided, even if he marries that--creature,\" sh began solemnly, \"whom I never, never can forgive, even then I will no abandon him. Henceforward I will never, never abandon him!\" she cried breaking into a sort of pale, hysterical ecstasy. \"Not that I would ru after him continually, get in his way and worry him. Oh, no! I will g away to another town--where you like--but I will watch over him al my life--I will watch over him all my life unceasingly. When h becomes unhappy with that woman, and that is bound to happen quit soon, let him come to me and he will find a friend, a sister. .. Only a sister, of course, and so forever; but he will learn at leas that that sister is really his sister, who loves him and has sacrifice all her life to him. I will gain my point. I will insist on his knowin me and confiding entirely in me, without reserve,\" she cried, in a sor of frenzy. \"I will be a god to whom he can pray--and that, at least he owes me for his treachery and for what I suffered yesterday throug him. And let him see that all my life I will be true to him and th promise I gave him, in spite of his being untrue and betraying me.  will--I will become nothing but a means for his happiness, or--ho shall I say?--an instrument, a machine for his happiness, and that fo my whole life, my whole life, and that he may see that all his life That's my decision. Ivan Fyodorovitch fully approves me.\""},
{"text":"She was breathless. She had perhaps intended to express her idea wit more dignity, art and naturalness, but her speech was too hurried an crude. It was full of youthful impulsiveness, it betrayed that she wa still smarting from yesterday's insult, and that her pride crave satisfaction. She felt this herself. Her face suddenly darkened, a unpleasant look came into her eyes. Alyosha at once saw it and felt  pang of sympathy. His brother Ivan made it worse by adding:"},
{"text":"\"I've only expressed my own view,\" he said. \"From anyone else, thi would have been affected and overstrained, but from you--no. Any othe woman would have been wrong, but you are right. I don't know how t explain it, but I see that you are absolutely genuine and, therefore you are right.\""},
{"text":"\"But that's only for the moment. And what does this moment stand for Nothing but yesterday's insult.\" Madame Hohlakov obviously had no intended to interfere, but she could not refrain from this very jus comment."},
{"text":"\"Quite so, quite so,\" cried Ivan, with peculiar eagerness, obviousl annoyed at being interrupted, \"in anyone else this moment would be onl due to yesterday's impression and would be only a moment. But wit Katerina Ivanovna's character, that moment will last all her life. Wha for anyone else would be only a promise is for her an everlastin burdensome, grim perhaps, but unflagging duty. And she will b sustained by the feeling of this duty being fulfilled. Your life Katerina Ivanovna, will henceforth be spent in painful brooding ove your own feelings, your own heroism, and your own suffering; but in th end that suffering will be softened and will pass into swee contemplation of the fulfillment of a bold and proud design. Yes, prou it certainly is, and desperate in any case, but a triumph for you. An the consciousness of it will at last be a source of complet satisfaction and will make you resigned to everything else.\""},
{"text":"This was unmistakably said with some malice and obviously wit intention; even perhaps with no desire to conceal that he spok ironically and with intention."},
{"text":"\"Oh, dear, how mistaken it all is!\" Madame Hohlakov cried again."},
{"text":"\"Alexey Fyodorovitch, you speak. I want dreadfully to know what yo will say!\" cried Katerina Ivanovna, and burst into tears. Alyosha go up from the sofa."},
{"text":"\"It's nothing, nothing!\" she went on through her tears. \"I'm upset,  didn't sleep last night. But by the side of two such friends as you an your brother I still feel strong--for I know--you two will neve desert me.\""},
{"text":"\"Unluckily I am obliged to return to Moscow--perhaps tomorrow--and t leave you for a long time--And, unluckily, it's unavoidable,\" Iva said suddenly."},
{"text":"\"Tomorrow--to Moscow!\" her face was suddenly contorted; \"but--but dear me, how fortunate!\" she cried in a voice suddenly changed. In on instant there was no trace left of her tears. She underwent a instantaneous transformation, which amazed Alyosha. Instead of a poor insulted girl, weeping in a sort of \"laceration,\" he saw a woma completely self-possessed and even exceedingly pleased, as thoug something agreeable had just happened."},
{"text":"\"Oh, not fortunate that I am losing you, of course not,\" she correcte herself suddenly, with a charming society smile. \"Such a friend as yo are could not suppose that. I am only too unhappy at losing you.\" Sh rushed impulsively at Ivan, and seizing both his hands, pressed the warmly. \"But what is fortunate is that you will be able in Moscow t see auntie and Agafya and to tell them all the horror of my presen position. You can speak with complete openness to Agafya, but spar dear auntie. You will know how to do that. You can't think how wretche I was yesterday and this morning, wondering how I could write them tha dreadful letter--for one can never tell such things in a letter. .. Now it will be easy for me to write, for you will see them and explai everything. Oh, how glad I am! But I am only glad of that, believe me Of course, no one can take your place. ... I will run at once t write the letter,\" she finished suddenly, and took a step as though t go out of the room."},
{"text":"\"And what about Alyosha and his opinion, which you were so desperatel anxious to hear?\" cried Madame Hohlakov. There was a sarcastic, angr note in her voice."},
{"text":"\"I had not forgotten that,\" cried Katerina Ivanovna, coming to a sudde standstill, \"and why are you so antagonistic at such a moment?\" sh added, with warm and bitter reproachfulness. \"What I said, I repeat.  must have his opinion. More than that, I must have his decision! As h says, so it shall be. You see how anxious I am for your words, Alexe Fyodorovitch. ... But what's the matter?\""},
{"text":"\"I couldn't have believed it. I can't understand it!\" Alyosha crie suddenly in distress."},
{"text":"\"What? What?\""},
{"text":"\"He is going to Moscow, and you cry out that you are glad. You sai that on purpose! And you begin explaining that you are not glad of tha but sorry to be--losing a friend. But that was acting, too--you wer playing a part--as in a theater!\""},
{"text":"\"In a theater? What? What do you mean?\" exclaimed Katerina Ivanovna profoundly astonished, flushing crimson, and frowning."},
{"text":"\"Though you assure him you are sorry to lose a friend in him, yo persist in telling him to his face that it's fortunate he is going,\"said Alyosha breathlessly. He was standing at the table and did not si down."},
{"text":"\"What are you talking about? I don't understand.\""},
{"text":"\"I don't understand myself. ... I seemed to see in a flash ...  know I am not saying it properly, but I'll say it all the same,\"Alyosha went on in the same shaking and broken voice. \"What I see i that perhaps you don't love Dmitri at all ... and never have, fro the beginning. ... And Dmitri, too, has never loved you ... an only esteems you. ... I really don't know how I dare to say all this but somebody must tell the truth ... for nobody here will tell th truth.\""},
{"text":"\"What truth?\" cried Katerina Ivanovna, and there was an hysterical rin in her voice."},
{"text":"\"I'll tell you,\" Alyosha went on with desperate haste, as though h were jumping from the top of a house. \"Call Dmitri; I will fetc him--and let him come here and take your hand and take Ivan's and joi your hands. For you're torturing Ivan, simply because you lov him--and torturing him, because you love Dmitri throug `self-laceration'--with an unreal love--because you've persuade yourself.\""},
{"text":"Alyosha broke off and was silent."},
{"text":"\"You ... you ... you are a little religious idiot--that's what yo are!\" Katerina Ivanovna snapped. Her face was white and her lips wer moving with anger."},
{"text":"Ivan suddenly laughed and got up. His hat was in his hand."},
{"text":"\"You are mistaken, my good Alyosha,\" he said, with an expressio Alyosha had never seen in his face before--an expression of youthfu sincerity and strong, irresistibly frank feeling. \"Katerina Ivanovn has never cared for me! She has known all the time that I cared fo her--though I never said a word of my love to her--she knew, but sh didn't care for me. I have never been her friend either, not for on moment; she is too proud to need my friendship. She kept me at her sid as a means of revenge. She revenged with me and on me all the insult which she has been continually receiving from Dmitri ever since thei first meeting. For even that first meeting has rankled in her heart a an insult--that's what her heart is like! She has talked to me o nothing but her love for him. I am going now; but, believe me, Katerin Ivanovna, you really love him. And the more he insults you, the mor you love him--that's your `laceration.' You love him just as he is you love him for insulting you. If he reformed, you'd give him up a once and cease to love him. But you need him so as to contemplat continually your heroic fidelity and to reproach him for infidelity And it all comes from your pride. Oh, there's a great deal o humiliation and self-abasement about it, but it all comes from pride. ... I am too young and I've loved you too much. I know that I ough not to say this, that it would be more dignified on my part simply t leave you, and it would be less offensive for you. But I am going fa away, and shall never come back. ... It is forever. I don't want t sit beside a `laceration.' ... But I don't know how to speak now I've said everything. ... Goodbye, Katerina Ivanovna; you can't b angry with me, for I am a hundred times more severely punished tha you, if only by the fact that I shall never see you again. Goodbye!  don't want your hand. You have tortured me too deliberately for me t be able to forgive you at this moment. I shall forgive you later, bu now I don't want your hand. `Den Dank, Dame, begehr ich nicht,' \" h added, with a forced smile, showing, however, that he could rea Schiller, and read him till he knew him by heart--which Alyosha woul never have believed. He went out of the room without saying goodby even to his hostess, Madame Hohlakov. Alyosha clasped his hands."},
{"text":"\"Ivan!\" he cried desperately after him. \"Come back, Ivan! No, nothin will induce him to come back now!\" he cried again, regretfull realizing it; \"but it's my fault, my fault. I began it! Ivan spok angrily, wrongly. Unjustly and angrily. He must come back here, com back,\" Alyosha kept exclaiming frantically."},
{"text":"Katerina Ivanovna went suddenly into the next room."},
{"text":"\"You have done no harm. You behaved beautifully, like an angel,\" Madam Hohlakov whispered rapidly and ecstatically to Alyosha. \"I will do m utmost to prevent Ivan Fyodorovitch from going.\""},
{"text":"Her face beamed with delight, to the great distress of Alyosha, bu Katerina Ivanovna suddenly returned. She had two hundred-rouble note in her hand."},
{"text":"\"I have a great favor to ask of you, Alexey Fyodorovitch,\" she began addressing Alyosha with an apparently calm and even voice, as thoug nothing had happened. \"A week--yes, I think it was a week ago--Dmitr Fyodorovitch was guilty of a hasty and unjust action--a very ugl action. There is a low tavern here, and in it he met that discharge officer, that captain, whom your father used to employ in som business. Dmitri Fyodorovitch somehow lost his temper with thi captain, seized him by the beard and dragged him out into the stree and for some distance along it, in that insulting fashion. And I a told that his son, a boy, quite a child, who is at the school here, sa it and ran beside them crying and begging for his father, appealing t everyone to defend him, while everyone laughed. You must forgive me Alexey Fyodorovitch, I cannot think without indignation of tha disgraceful action of his ... one of those actions of which onl Dmitri Fyodorovitch would be capable in his anger ... and in hi passions! I can't describe it even. ... I can't find my words. I'v made inquiries about his victim, and find he is quite a poor man. Hi name is Snegiryov. He did something wrong in the army and wa discharged. I can't tell you what. And now he has sunk into terribl destitution, with his family--an unhappy family of sick children, and I believe, an insane wife. He has been living here a long time; he use to work as a copying clerk, but now he is getting nothing. I thought i you ... that is I thought ... I don't know. I am so confused. Yo see, I wanted to ask you, my dear Alexey Fyodorovitch, to go to him, t find some excuse to go to them--I mean to that captain--oh, goodness how badly I explain it!--and delicately, carefully, as only you kno how to\" (Alyosha blushed), \"manage to give him this assistance, thes two hundred roubles. He will be sure to take it. ... I mean, persuad him to take it. ... Or, rather, what do I mean? You see it's not b way of compensation to prevent him from taking proceedings (for  believe he meant to), but simply a token of sympathy, of a desire t assist him from me, Dmitri Fyodorovitch's betrothed, not from himself. ... But you know. ... I would go myself, but you'll know how to d it ever so much better. He lives in Lake Street, in the house of  woman called Kalmikov. ... For God's sake, Alexey Fyodorovitch, do i for me, and now ... now I am rather ... tired. Goodbye!\""},
{"text":"She turned and disappeared behind the portire so quickly that Alyosh had not time to utter a word, though he wanted to speak. He longed t beg her pardon, to blame himself, to say something, for his heart wa full and he could not bear to go out of the room without it. But Madam Hohlakov took him by the hand and drew him along with her. In the hal she stopped him again as before."},
{"text":"\"She is proud, she is struggling with herself; but kind, charming generous,\" she exclaimed, in a half-whisper. \"Oh, how I love her especially sometimes, and how glad I am again of everything! Dea Alexey Fyodorovitch, you didn't know, but I must tell you, that we all all--both her aunts, I and all of us, Lise, even--have been hopin and praying for nothing for the last month but that she may give u your favorite Dmitri, who takes no notice of her and does not care fo her, and may marry Ivan Fyodorovitch--such an excellent and cultivate young man, who loves her more than anything in the world. We are in  regular plot to bring it about, and I am even staying on here perhap on that account.\""},
{"text":"\"But she has been crying--she has been wounded again,\" cried Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"Never trust a woman's tears, Alexey Fyodorovitch. I am never for th women in such cases. I am always on the side of the men.\""},
{"text":"\"Mamma, you are spoiling him,\" Lise's little voice cried from behin the door."},
{"text":"\"No, it was all my fault. I am horribly to blame,\" Alyosha repeate unconsoled, hiding his face in his hands in an agony of remorse for hi indiscretion."},
{"text":"\"Quite the contrary; you behaved like an angel, like an angel. I a ready to say so a thousand times over.\""},
{"text":"\"Mamma, how has he behaved like an angel?\" Lise's voice was hear again."},
{"text":"\"I somehow fancied all at once,\" Alyosha went on as though he had no heard Lise, \"that she loved Ivan, and so I said that stupid thing. ... What will happen now?\""},
{"text":"\"To whom, to whom?\" cried Lise. \"Mamma, you really want to be the deat of me. I ask you and you don't answer.\""},
{"text":"At the moment the maid ran in."},
{"text":"\"Katerina Ivanovna is ill. ... She is crying, struggling .. hysterics.\""},
{"text":"\"What is the matter?\" cried Lise, in a tone of real anxiety. \"Mamma,  shall be having hysterics, and not she!\""},
{"text":"\"Lise, for mercy's sake, don't scream, don't persecute me. At your ag one can't know everything that grownup people know. I'll come and tel you everything you ought to know. Oh, mercy on us! I am coming, I a coming. ... Hysterics is a good sign, Alexey Fyodorovitch; it's a excellent thing that she is hysterical. That's just as it ought to be In such cases I am always against the woman, against all these feminin tears and hysterics. Run and say, Yulia, that I'll fly to her. As fo Ivan Fyodorovitch's going away like that, it's her own fault. But h won't go away. Lise, for mercy's sake, don't scream! Oh, yes; you ar not screaming. It's I am screaming. Forgive your mamma; but I a delighted, delighted, delighted! Did you notice, Alexey Fyodorovitch how young, how young Ivan Fyodorovitch was just now when he went out when he said all that and went out? I thought he was so learned, such  savant, and all of a sudden he behaved so warmly, openly, an youthfully, with such youthful inexperience, and it was all so fine like you. ... And the way he repeated that German verse, it was jus like you! But I must fly, I must fly! Alexey Fyodorovitch, make hast to carry out her commission, and then make haste back. Lise, do yo want anything now? For mercy's sake, don't keep Alexey Fyodorovitch  minute. He will come back to you at once.\""},
{"text":"Madame Hohlakov at last ran off. Before leaving, Alyosha would hav opened the door to see Lise."},
{"text":"\"On no account,\" cried Lise. \"On no account now. Speak through th door. How have you come to be an angel? That's the only thing I want t know.\""},
{"text":"\"For an awful piece of stupidity, Lise! Goodbye!\""},
{"text":"\"Don't dare to go away like that!\" Lise was beginning."},
{"text":"\"Lise, I have a real sorrow! I'll be back directly, but I have a great great sorrow!\""},
{"text":"And he ran out of the room."},
{"text":" VI"},
{"text":"A Laceration in the Cottage"},
{"text":"He certainly was really grieved in a way he had seldom been before. H had rushed in like a fool, and meddled in what? In a love-affair. \"Bu what do I know about it? What can I tell about such things?\" h repeated to himself for the hundredth time, flushing crimson. \"Oh being ashamed would be nothing; shame is only the punishment I deserve The trouble is I shall certainly have caused more unhappiness. .. And Father Zossima sent me to reconcile and bring them together. I this the way to bring them together?\" Then he suddenly remembered ho he had tried to join their hands, and he felt fearfully ashamed again \"Though I acted quite sincerely, I must be more sensible in th future,\" he concluded suddenly, and did not even smile at hi conclusion."},
{"text":"Katerina Ivanovna's commission took him to Lake Street, and his brothe Dmitri lived close by, in a turning out of Lake Street. Alyosha decide to go to him in any case before going to the captain, though he had  presentiment that he would not find his brother. He suspected that h would intentionally keep out of his way now, but he must find hi anyhow. Time was passing: the thought of his dying elder had not lef Alyosha for one minute from the time he set off from the monastery."},
{"text":"There was one point which interested him particularly about Katerin Ivanovna's commission; when she had mentioned the captain's son, th little schoolboy who had run beside his father crying, the idea had a once struck Alyosha that this must be the schoolboy who had bitten hi finger when he, Alyosha, asked him what he had done to hurt him. No Alyosha felt practically certain of this, though he could not have sai why. Thinking of another subject was a relief, and he resolved to thin no more about the \"mischief\" he had done, and not to torture himsel with remorse, but to do what he had to do, let come what would. At tha thought he was completely comforted. Turning to the street where Dmitr lodged, he felt hungry, and taking out of his pocket the roll he ha brought from his father's, he ate it. It made him feel stronger."},
{"text":"Dmitri was not at home. The people of the house, an old cabinetmaker his son, and his old wife, looked with positive suspicion at Alyosha \"He hasn't slept here for the last three nights. Maybe he has gon away,\" the old man said in answer to Alyosha's persistent inquiries Alyosha saw that he was answering in accordance with instructions. Whe he asked whether he were not at Grushenka's or in hiding at Foma' (Alyosha spoke so freely on purpose), all three looked at him in alarm \"They are fond of him, they are doing their best for him,\" though Alyosha. \"That's good.\""},
{"text":"At last he found the house in Lake Street. It was a decrepit littl house, sunk on one side, with three windows looking into the street and with a muddy yard, in the middle of which stood a solitary cow. H crossed the yard and found the door opening into the passage. On th left of the passage lived the old woman of the house with her ol daughter. Both seemed to be deaf. In answer to his repeated inquiry fo the captain, one of them at last understood that he was asking fo their lodgers, and pointed to a door across the passage. The captain' lodging turned out to be a simple cottage room. Alyosha had his hand o the iron latch to open the door, when he was struck by the strange hus within. Yet he knew from Katerina Ivanovna's words that the man had  family. \"Either they are all asleep or perhaps they have heard m coming and are waiting for me to open the door. I'd better knoc first,\" and he knocked. An answer came, but not at once, after a interval of perhaps ten seconds."},
{"text":"\"Who's there?\" shouted someone in a loud and very angry voice."},
{"text":"Then Alyosha opened the door and crossed the threshold. He foun himself in a regular peasant's room. Though it was large, it wa cumbered up with domestic belongings of all sorts, and there wer several people in it. On the left was a large Russian stove. From th stove to the window on the left was a string running across the room and on it there were rags hanging. There was a bedstead against th wall on each side, right and left, covered with knitted quilts. On th one on the left was a pyramid of four print-covered pillows, eac smaller than the one beneath. On the other there was only one ver small pillow. The opposite corner was screened off by a curtain or  sheet hung on a string. Behind this curtain could be seen a bed made u on a bench and a chair. The rough square table of plain wood had bee moved into the middle window. The three windows, which consisted eac of four tiny greenish mildewy panes, gave little light, and were clos shut, so that the room was not very light and rather stuffy. On th table was a frying-pan with the remains of some fried eggs,  half-eaten piece of bread, and a small bottle with a few drops o vodka."},
{"text":"A woman of genteel appearance, wearing a cotton gown, was sitting on  chair by the bed on the left. Her face was thin and yellow, and he sunken cheeks betrayed at the first glance that she was ill. But wha struck Alyosha most was the expression in the poor woman's eyes-- look of surprised inquiry and yet of haughty pride. And while he wa talking to her husband, her big brown eyes moved from one speaker t the other with the same haughty and questioning expression. Beside he at the window stood a young girl, rather plain, with scanty reddis hair, poorly but very neatly dressed. She looked disdainfully a Alyosha as he came in. Beside the other bed was sitting another femal figure. She was a very sad sight, a young girl of about twenty, bu hunchback and crippled \"with withered legs,\" as Alyosha was tol afterwards. Her crutches stood in the corner close by. The strikingl beautiful and gentle eyes of this poor girl looked with mild serenit at Alyosha. A man of forty-five was sitting at the table, finishing th fried eggs. He was spare, small and weakly built. He had reddish hai and a scanty light-colored beard, very much like a wisp of tow (thi comparison and the phrase \"a wisp of tow\" flashed at once int Alyosha's mind for some reason, he remembered it afterwards). It wa obviously this gentleman who had shouted to him, as there was no othe man in the room. But when Alyosha went in, he leapt up from the benc on which he was sitting, and, hastily wiping his mouth with a ragge napkin, darted up to Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"It's a monk come to beg for the monastery. A nice place to come to!\"the girl standing in the left corner said aloud. The man spun roun instantly towards her and answered her in an excited and breakin voice:"},
{"text":"\"No, Varvara, you are wrong. Allow me to ask,\" he turned again t Alyosha, \"what has brought you to--our retreat?\""},
{"text":"Alyosha looked attentively at him. It was the first time he had see him. There was something angular, flurried and irritable about him Though he had obviously just been drinking, he was not drunk. There wa extraordinary impudence in his expression, and yet, strange to say, a the same time there was fear. He looked like a man who had long bee kept in subjection and had submitted to it, and now had suddenly turne and was trying to assert himself. Or, better still, like a man wh wants dreadfully to hit you but is horribly afraid you will hit him. I his words and in the intonation of his shrill voice there was a sort o crazy humor, at times spiteful and at times cringing, and continuall shifting from one tone to another. The question about \"our retreat\" h had asked as it were quivering all over, rolling his eyes, and skippin up so close to Alyosha that he instinctively drew back a step. He wa dressed in a very shabby dark cotton coat, patched and spotted. He wor checked trousers of an extremely light color, long out of fashion, an of very thin material. They were so crumpled and so short that h looked as though he had grown out of them like a boy."},
{"text":"\"I am Alexey Karamazov,\" Alyosha began in reply."},
{"text":"\"I quite understand that, sir,\" the gentleman snapped out at once t assure him that he knew who he was already. \"I am Captain Snegiryov sir, but I am still desirous to know precisely what has led you--\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, I've come for nothing special. I wanted to have a word wit you--if only you allow me.\""},
{"text":"\"In that case, here is a chair, sir; kindly be seated. That's what the used to say in the old comedies, `kindly be seated,' \" and with a rapi gesture he seized an empty chair (it was a rough wooden chair, no upholstered) and set it for him almost in the middle of the room; then taking another similar chair for himself, he sat down facing Alyosha so close to him that their knees almost touched."},
{"text":"\"Nikolay Ilyitch Snegiryov, sir, formerly a captain in the Russia infantry, put to shame for his vices, but still a captain. Though  might not be one now for the way I talk; for the last half of my lif I've learnt to say `sir.' It's a word you use when you've come down i the world.\""},
{"text":"\"That's very true,\" smiled Alyosha. \"But is it used involuntarily or o purpose?\""},
{"text":"\"As God's above, it's involuntary, and I usen't to use it! I didn't us the word `sir' all my life, but as soon as I sank into low water  began to say `sir.' It's the work of a higher power. I see you ar interested in contemporary questions, but how can I have excited you curiosity, living as I do in surroundings impossible for the exercis of hospitality?\""},
{"text":"\"I've come--about that business.\""},
{"text":"\"About what business?\" the captain interrupted impatiently."},
{"text":"\"About your meeting with my brother Dmitri Fyodorovitch,\" Alyosh blurted out awkwardly."},
{"text":"\"What meeting, sir? You don't mean that meeting? About my `wisp o tow,' then?\" He moved closer so that his knees positively knocke against Alyosha. His lips were strangely compressed like a thread."},
{"text":"\"What wisp of tow?\" muttered Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"He is come to complain of me, father!\" cried a voice familiar t Alyosha--the voice of the schoolboy--from behind the curtain. \"I bi his finger just now.\" The curtain was pulled, and Alyosha saw hi assailant lying on a little bed made up on the bench and the chair i the corner under the icons. The boy lay covered by his coat and an ol wadded quilt. He was evidently unwell, and, judging by his glitterin eyes, he was in a fever. He looked at Alyosha without fear, as thoug he felt he was at home and could not be touched."},
{"text":"\"What! Did he bite your finger?\" The captain jumped up from his chair \"Was it your finger he bit?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes. He was throwing stones with other schoolboys. There were six o them against him alone. I went up to him, and he threw a stone at m and then another at my head. I asked him what I had done to him. An then he rushed at me and bit my finger badly, I don't know why.\""},
{"text":"\"I'll thrash him, sir, at once--this minute!\" The captain jumped u from his seat."},
{"text":"\"But I am not complaining at all, I am simply telling you ... I don' want him to be thrashed. Besides, he seems to be ill.\""},
{"text":"\"And do you suppose I'd thrash him? That I'd take my Ilusha and thras him before you for your satisfaction? Would you like it done at once sir?\" said the captain, suddenly turning to Alyosha, as though he wer going to attack him. \"I am sorry about your finger, sir; but instead o thrashing Ilusha, would you like me to chop off my four fingers wit this knife here before your eyes to satisfy your just wrath? I shoul think four fingers would be enough to satisfy your thirst fo vengeance. You won't ask for the fifth one too?\" He stopped short wit a catch in his throat. Every feature in his face was twitching an working; he looked extremely defiant. He was in a sort of frenzy."},
{"text":"\"I think I understand it all now,\" said Alyosha gently and sorrowfully still keeping his seat. \"So your boy is a good boy, he loves hi father, and he attacked me as the brother of your assailant. ... No I understand it,\" he repeated thoughtfully. \"But my brother Dmitr Fyodorovitch regrets his action, I know that, and if only it i possible for him to come to you, or better still, to meet you in tha same place, he will ask your forgiveness before everyone--if you wis it.\""},
{"text":"\"After pulling out my beard, you mean, he will ask my forgiveness? An he thinks that will be a satisfactory finish, doesn't he?\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, no! On the contrary, he will do anything you like and in any wa you like.\""},
{"text":"\"So if I were to ask his highness to go down on his knees before me i that very tavern--`The Metropolis' it's called--or in th marketplace, he would do it?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, he would even go down on his knees.\""},
{"text":"\"You've pierced me to the heart, sir. Touched me to tears and pierce me to the heart! I am only too sensible of your brother's generosity Allow me to introduce my family, my two daughters and my son--m litter. If I die, who will care for them, and while I live who but the will care for a wretch like me? That's a great thing the Lord ha ordained for every man of my sort, sir. For there must be someone abl to love even a man like me.\""},
{"text":"\"Ah, that's perfectly true!\" exclaimed Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"Oh, do leave off playing the fool! Some idiot comes in, and you put u to shame!\" cried the girl by the window, suddenly turning to her fathe with a disdainful and contemptuous air."},
{"text":"\"Wait a little, Varvara!\" cried her father, speaking peremptorily bu looking at her quite approvingly. \"That's her character,\" he said addressing Alyosha again."},
{"text":"  \"And in all nature there was naugh   That could find favor in his eyes--"},
{"text":"or rather in the feminine: that could find favor in her eyes. But no let me present you to my wife, Arina Petrovna. She is crippled, she i forty-three; she can move, but very little. She is of humble origin Arina Petrovna, compose your countenance. This is Alexey Fyodorovitc Karamazov. Get up, Alexey Fyodorovitch.\" He took him by the hand an with unexpected force pulled him up. \"You must stand up to b introduced to a lady. It's not the Karamazov, mamma, who ... h'm ... etcetera, but his brother, radiant with modest virtues. Come Arina Petrovna, come, mamma, first your hand to be kissed.\""},
{"text":"And he kissed his wife's hand respectfully and even tenderly. The gir at the window turned her back indignantly on the scene; an expressio of extraordinary cordiality came over the haughtily inquiring face o the woman."},
{"text":"\"Good morning! Sit down, Mr. Tchernomazov,\" she said."},
{"text":"\"Karamazov, mamma, Karamazov. We are of humble origin,\" he whispere again."},
{"text":"\"Well, Karamazov, or whatever it is, but I always think o Tchernomazov. ... Sit down. Why has he pulled you up? He calls m crippled, but I am not, only my legs are swollen like barrels, and I a shriveled up myself. Once I used to be so fat, but now it's as though  had swallowed a needle.\""},
{"text":"\"We are of humble origin,\" the captain muttered again."},
{"text":"\"Oh, father, father!\" the hunchback girl, who had till then been silen on her chair, said suddenly, and she hid her eyes in her handkerchief."},
{"text":"\"Buffoon!\" blurted out the girl at the window."},
{"text":"\"Have you heard our news?\" said the mother, pointing at her daughters \"It's like clouds coming over; the clouds pass and we have music again When we were with the army, we used to have many such guests. I don' mean to make any comparisons; everyone to their taste. The deacon' wife used to come then and say, `Alexandr Alexandrovitch is a man o the noblest heart, but Nastasya Petrovna,' she would say, `is of th brood of hell.' `Well,' I said, `that's a matter of taste; but you ar a little spitfire.' `And you want keeping in your place,' says she `You black sword,' said I, `who asked you to teach me?' `But m breath,' says she, `is clean, and yours is unclean.' `You ask all th officers whether my breath is unclean.' And ever since then I had it i my mind. Not long ago I was sitting here as I am now, when I saw tha very general come in who came here for Easter, and I asked him: `You Excellency,' said I, `can a lady's breath be unpleasant?' `Yes,' h answered; `you ought to open a windowpane or open the door, for the ai is not fresh here.' And they all go on like that! And what is my breat to them? The dead smell worse still! `I won't spoil the air,' said I `I'll order some slippers and go away.' My darlings, don't blame you own mother! Nikolay Ilyitch, how is it I can't please you? There's onl Ilusha who comes home from school and loves me. Yesterday he brought m an apple. Forgive your own mother--forgive a poor lonely creature! Wh has my breath become unpleasant to you?\""},
{"text":"And the poor mad woman broke into sobs, and tears streamed down he cheeks. The captain rushed up to her."},
{"text":"\"Mamma, mamma, my dear, give over! You are not lonely. Everyone love you, everyone adores you.\" He began kissing both her hands again an tenderly stroking her face; taking the dinner-napkin, he began wipin away her tears. Alyosha fancied that he too had tears in his eyes \"There, you see, you hear?\" he turned with a sort of fury to Alyosha pointing to the poor imbecile."},
{"text":"\"I see and hear,\" muttered Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"Father, father, how can you--with him! Let him alone!\" cried the boy sitting up in his bed and gazing at his father with glowing eyes."},
{"text":"\"Do give over fooling, showing off your silly antics which never lea to anything!\" shouted Varvara, stamping her foot with passion."},
{"text":"\"Your anger is quite just this time, Varvara, and I'll make haste t satisfy you. Come, put on your cap, Alexey Fyodorovitch, and I'll pu on mine. We will go out. I have a word to say to you in earnest, bu not within these walls. This girl sitting here is my daughter Nina;  forgot to introduce her to you. She is a heavenly angel incarnate .. who has flown down to us mortals, ... if you can understand.\""},
{"text":"\"There he is shaking all over, as though he is in convulsions!\" Varvar went on indignantly."},
{"text":"\"And she there stamping her foot at me and calling me a fool just now she is a heavenly angel incarnate too, and she has good reason to cal me so. Come along, Alexey Fyodorovitch, we must make an end.\""},
{"text":"And, snatching Alyosha's hand, he drew him out of the room into th street."},
{"text":" VII"},
{"text":"And in the Open Air"},
{"text":"\"The air is fresh, but in my apartment it is not so in any sense of th word. Let us walk slowly, sir. I should be glad of your kind interest.\""},
{"text":"\"I too have something important to say to you,\" observed Alyosha, \"onl I don't know how to begin.\""},
{"text":"\"To be sure you must have business with me. You would never have looke in upon me without some object. Unless you come simply to complain o the boy, and that's hardly likely. And, by the way, about the boy:  could not explain to you in there, but here I will describe that scen to you. My tow was thicker a week ago--I mean my beard. That's th nickname they give to my beard, the schoolboys most of all. Well, you brother Dmitri Fyodorovitch was pulling me by my beard, I'd don nothing, he was in a towering rage and happened to come upon me. H dragged me out of the tavern into the marketplace; at that moment th boys were coming out of school, and with them Ilusha. As soon as he sa me in such a state he rushed up to me. `Father,' he cried, `father!' H caught hold of me, hugged me, tried to pull me away, crying to m assailant, `Let go, let go, it's my father, forgive him!'--yes, h actually cried `forgive him.' He clutched at that hand, that very hand in his little hands and kissed it. ... I remember his little face a that moment, I haven't forgotten it and I never shall!\""},
{"text":"\"I swear,\" cried Alyosha, \"that my brother will express his most dee and sincere regret, even if he has to go down on his knees in that sam marketplace. ... I'll make him or he is no brother of mine!\""},
{"text":"\"Aha, then it's only a suggestion! And it does not come from him bu simply from the generosity of your own warm heart. You should have sai so. No, in that case allow me to tell you of your brother's highl chivalrous soldierly generosity, for he did give expression to it a the time. He left off dragging me by my beard and released me: `You ar an officer,' he said, `and I am an officer, if you can find a decen man to be your second send me your challenge. I will give satisfaction though you are a scoundrel.' That's what he said. A chivalrous spiri indeed! I retired with Ilusha, and that scene is a family recor imprinted forever on Ilusha's soul. No, it's not for us to claim th privileges of noblemen. Judge for yourself. You've just been in ou mansion, what did you see there? Three ladies, one a cripple an weak-minded, another a cripple and hunchback and the third not cripple but far too clever. She is a student, dying to get back to Petersburg to work for the emancipation of the Russian woman on the banks of th Neva. I won't speak of Ilusha, he is only nine. I am alone in th world, and if I die, what will become of all of them? I simply ask yo that. And if I challenge him and he kills me on the spot, what then What will become of them? And worse still, if he doesn't kill me bu only cripples me: I couldn't work, but I should still be a mouth t feed. Who would feed it and who would feed them all? Must I take Ilush from school and send him to beg in the streets? That's what it mean for me to challenge him to a duel. It's silly talk and nothing else.\""},
{"text":"\"He will beg your forgiveness, he will bow down at your feet in th middle of the marketplace,\" cried Alyosha again, with glowing eyes."},
{"text":"\"I did think of prosecuting him,\" the captain went on, \"but look in ou code, could I get much compensation for a personal injury? And the Agrafena Alexandrovna[131]3 sent for me and shouted at me: `Don't dar to dream of it! If you proceed against him, I'll publish it to all th world that he beat you for your dishonesty, and then you will b prosecuted.' I call God to witness whose was the dishonesty and b whose commands I acted, wasn't it by her own and Fyodor Pavlovitch's `And what's more,' she went on, `I'll dismiss you for good and you'l never earn another penny from me. I'll speak to my merchant too (that's what she calls her old man) `and he will dismiss you!' And i he dismisses me, what can I earn then from anyone? Those two are all  have to look to, for your Fyodor Pavlovitch has not only given ove employing me, for another reason, but he means to make use of paper I've signed to go to law against me. And so I kept quiet, and you hav seen our retreat. But now let me ask you: did Ilusha hurt your finge much? I didn't like to go into it in our mansion before him.\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, very much, and he was in a great fury. He was avenging you on m as a Karamazov, I see that now. But if only you had seen how he wa throwing stones at his schoolfellows! It's very dangerous. They migh kill him. They are children and stupid. A stone may be thrown and brea somebody's head.\""},
{"text":"\"That's just what has happened. He has been bruised by a stone today Not on the head but on the chest, just above the heart. He came hom crying and groaning and now he is ill.\""},
{"text":"\"And you know he attacks them first. He is bitter against them on you account. They say he stabbed a boy called Krassotkin with a penknif not long ago.\""},
{"text":"\"I've heard about that too, it's dangerous. Krassotkin is an officia here, we may hear more about it.\""},
{"text":"\"I would advise you,\" Alyosha went on warmly, \"not to send him t school at all for a time till he is calmer ... and his anger i passed.\""},
{"text":"\"Anger!\" the captain repeated, \"that's just what it is. He is a littl creature, but it's a mighty anger. You don't know all, sir. Let me tel you more. Since that incident all the boys have been teasing him abou the `wisp of tow.' Schoolboys are a merciless race, individually the are angels, but together, especially in schools, they are ofte merciless. Their teasing has stirred up a gallant spirit in Ilusha. A ordinary boy, a weak son, would have submitted, have felt ashamed o his father, sir, but he stood up for his father against them all. Fo his father and for truth and justice. For what he suffered when h kissed your brother's hand and cried to him `Forgive father, forgiv him,'--that only God knows--and I, his father. For our children--no your children, but ours--the children of the poor gentlemen looke down upon by everyone--know what justice means, sir, even at nin years old. How should the rich know? They don't explore such depth once in their lives. But at that moment in the square when he kisse his hand, at that moment my Ilusha had grasped all that justice means That truth entered into him and crushed him forever, sir,\" the captai said hotly again with a sort of frenzy, and he struck his right fis against his left palm as though he wanted to show how \"the truth\"crushed Ilusha. \"That very day, sir, he fell ill with fever and wa delirious all night. All that day he hardly said a word to me, but  noticed he kept watching me from the corner, though he turned to th window and pretended to be learning his lessons. But I could see hi mind was not on his lessons. Next day I got drunk to forget m troubles, sinful man as I am, and I don't remember much. Mamma bega crying, too--I am very fond of mamma--well, I spent my last penn drowning my troubles. Don't despise me for that, sir, in Russia men wh drink are the best. The best men amongst us are the greatest drunkards I lay down and I don't remember about Ilusha, though all that day th boys had been jeering at him at school. `Wisp of tow,' they shouted `your father was pulled out of the tavern by his wisp of tow, you ra by and begged forgiveness.' \""},
{"text":"\"On the third day when he came back from school, I saw he looked pal and wretched. `What is it?' I asked. He wouldn't answer. Well, there' no talking in our mansion without mamma and the girls taking part i it. What's more, the girls had heard about it the very first day Varvara had begun snarling. `You fools and buffoons, can you ever d anything rational?' `Quite so,' I said, `can we ever do anythin rational?' For the time I turned it off like that. So in the evening  took the boy out for a walk, for you must know we go for a walk ever evening, always the same way, along which we are going now--from ou gate to that great stone which lies alone in the road under the hurdle which marks the beginning of the town pasture. A beautiful and lonel spot, sir. Ilusha and I walked along hand in hand as usual. He has  little hand, his fingers are thin and cold--he suffers with his chest you know. `Father,' said he, `father!' `Well?' said I. I saw his eye flashing. `Father, how he treated you then!' `It can't be helped Ilusha,' I said. `Don't forgive him, father, don't forgive him! A school they say that he has paid you ten roubles for it.' `No, Ilusha, said I, `I would not take money from him for anything.' Then he bega trembling all over, took my hand in both his and kissed it again `Father,' he said, `father, challenge him to a duel, at school they sa you are a coward and won't challenge him, and that you'll accept te roubles from him.' `I can't challenge him to a duel, Ilusha,'  answered. And I told briefly what I've just told you. He listened `Father,' he said, `anyway don't forgive it. When I grow up I'll cal him out myself and kill him.' His eyes shone and glowed. And of cours I am his father, and I had to put in a word: `It's a sin to kill,'  said, `even in a duel.' `Father,' he said, `when I grow up, I'll knoc him down, knock the sword out of his hand, I'll fall on him, wave m sword over him and say: \"I could kill you, but I forgive you, s there!\" ' You see what the workings of his little mind have been durin these two days; he must have been planning that vengeance all day, an raving about it at night."},
{"text":"\"But he began to come home from school badly beaten, I found out abou it the day before yesterday, and you are right, I won't send him t that school any more. I heard that he was standing up against all th class alone and defying them all, that his heart was full o resentment, of bitterness--I was alarmed about him. We went fo another walk. `Father,' he asked, `are the rich people stronger tha anyone else on earth?' `Yes, Ilusha,' I said, `there are no people o earth stronger than the rich.' `Father,' he said, `I will get rich,  will become an officer and conquer everybody. The Tsar will reward me I will come back here and then no one will dare--' Then he was silen and his lips still kept trembling. `Father,' he said, `what a horri town this is.' `Yes, Ilusha,' I said, `it isn't a very nice town. `Father, let us move into another town, a nice one,' he said, `wher people don't know about us.' `We will move, we will, Ilusha,' said I `only I must save up for it.' I was glad to be able to turn his min from painful thoughts, and we began to dream of how we would move t another town, how we would buy a horse and cart. `We will put mamma an your sisters inside, we will cover them up and we'll walk, you shal have a lift now and then, and I'll walk beside, for we must take car of our horse, we can't all ride. That's how we'll go.' He was enchante at that, most of all at the thought of having a horse and driving him For of course a Russian boy is born among horses. We chattered a lon while. Thank God, I thought, I have diverted his mind and comforte him."},
{"text":"\"That was the day before yesterday, in the evening, but last nigh everything was changed. He had gone to school in the morning, he cam back depressed, terribly depressed. In the evening I took him by th hand and we went for a walk; he would not talk. There was a win blowing and no sun, and a feeling of autumn; twilight was coming on. W walked along, both of us depressed. `Well, my boy,' said I, `how abou our setting off on our travels?' I thought I might bring him back t our talk of the day before. He didn't answer, but I felt his finger trembling in my hand. Ah, I thought, it's a bad job; there's somethin fresh. We had reached the stone where we are now. I sat down on th stone. And in the air there were lots of kites flapping and whirling There were as many as thirty in sight. Of course, it's just the seaso for the kites. `Look, Ilusha,' said I, `it's time we got out our las year's kite again. I'll mend it, where have you put it away?' My bo made no answer. He looked away and turned sideways to me. And then  gust of wind blew up the sand. He suddenly fell on me, threw both hi little arms round my neck and held me tight. You know, when childre are silent and proud, and try to keep back their tears when they are i great trouble and suddenly break down, their tears fall in streams With those warm streams of tears, he suddenly wetted my face. He sobbe and shook as though he were in convulsions, and squeezed up against m as I sat on the stone. `Father,' he kept crying, `dear father, how h insulted you!' And I sobbed too. We sat shaking in each other's arms `Ilusha,' I said to him, `Ilusha darling.' No one saw us then. Go alone saw us, I hope He will record it to my credit. You must than your brother, Alexey Fyodorovitch. No, sir, I won't thrash my boy fo your satisfaction.\""},
{"text":"He had gone back to his original tone of resentful buffoonery. Alyosh felt though that he trusted him, and that if there had been someon else in his, Alyosha's place, the man would not have spoken so openl and would not have told what he had just told. This encouraged Alyosha whose heart was trembling on the verge of tears."},
{"text":"\"Ah, how I would like to make friends with your boy!\" he cried. \"If yo could arrange it--\""},
{"text":"\"Certainly, sir,\" muttered the captain."},
{"text":"\"But now listen to something quite different!\" Alyosha went on. \"I hav a message for you. That same brother of mine, Dmitri, has insulted hi betrothed, too, a noble-hearted girl of whom you have probably heard.  have a right to tell you of her wrong; I ought to do so, in fact, fo hearing of the insult done to you and learning all about you unfortunate position, she commissioned me at once--just now--to brin you this help from her--but only from her alone, not from Dmitri, wh has abandoned her. Nor from me, his brother, nor from anyone else, bu from her, only from her! She entreats you to accept her help. ... Yo have both been insulted by the same man. She thought of you only whe she had just received a similar insult from him--similar in it cruelty, I mean. She comes like a sister to help a brother i misfortune. ... She told me to persuade you to take these two hundre roubles from her, as from a sister, knowing that you are in such need No one will know of it, it can give rise to no unjust slander. Ther are the two hundred roubles, and I swear you must take the unless--unless all men are to be enemies on earth! But there ar brothers even on earth. ... You have a generous heart ... you mus see that, you must,\" and Alyosha held out two new rainbow-colore hundred-rouble notes."},
{"text":"They were both standing at the time by the great stone close to th fence, and there was no one near. The notes seemed to produce  tremendous impression on the captain. He started, but at first onl from astonishment. Such an outcome of their conversation was the las thing he expected. Nothing could have been farther from his dreams tha help from anyone--and such a sum!"},
{"text":"He took the notes, and for a minute he was almost unable to answer quite a new expression came into his face."},
{"text":"\"That for me? So much money--two hundred roubles! Good heavens! Why,  haven't seen so much money for the last four years! Mercy on us! An she says she is a sister. ... And is that the truth?\""},
{"text":"\"I swear that all I told you is the truth,\" cried Alyosha."},
{"text":"The captain flushed red."},
{"text":"\"Listen, my dear, listen. If I take it, I shan't be behaving like  scoundrel? In your eyes, Alexey Fyodorovitch, I shan't be a scoundrel No, Alexey Fyodorovitch, listen, listen,\" he hurried, touching Alyosh with both his hands. \"You are persuading me to take it, saying tha it's a sister sends it, but inwardly, in your heart won't you fee contempt for me if I take it, eh?\""},
{"text":"\"No, no, on my salvation I swear I shan't! And no one will ever kno but me--I, you and she, and one other lady, her great friend.\""},
{"text":"\"Never mind the lady! Listen, Alexey Fyodorovitch, at a moment lik this you must listen, for you can't understand what these two hundre roubles mean to me now.\" The poor fellow went on rising gradually int a sort of incoherent, almost wild enthusiasm. He was thrown off hi balance and talked extremely fast, as though afraid he would not b allowed to say all he had to say."},
{"text":"\"Besides its being honestly acquired from a `sister,' so highl respected and revered, do you know that now I can look after mamma an Nina, my hunchback angel daughter? Doctor Herzenstube came to me in th kindness of his heart and was examining them both for a whole hour. ` can make nothing of it,' said he, but he prescribed a mineral wate which is kept at a chemist's here. He said it would be sure to do he good, and he ordered baths, too, with some medicine in them. Th mineral water costs thirty copecks, and she'd need to drink fort bottles perhaps; so I took the prescription and laid it on the shel under the icons, and there it lies. And he ordered hot baths for Nin with something dissolved in them, morning and evening. But how can w carry out such a cure in our mansion, without servants, without help without a bath, and without water? Nina is rheumatic all over, I don' think I told you that. All her right side aches at night, she is i agony, and, would you believe it, the angel bears it without groanin for fear of waking us. We eat what we can get, and she'll only take th leavings, what you'd scarcely give to a dog. `I am not worth it, I a taking it from you, I am a burden on you,' that's what her angel eye try to express. We wait on her, but she doesn't like it. `I am  useless cripple, no good to anyone.' As though she were not worth it when she is the saving of all of us with her angelic sweetness. Withou her, without her gentle word it would be hell among us! She soften even Varvara. And don't judge Varvara harshly either, she is an ange too, she, too, has suffered wrong. She came to us for the summer, an she brought sixteen roubles she had earned by lessons and saved up, t go back with to Petersburg in September, that is now. But we took he money and lived on it, so now she has nothing to go back with. Thoug indeed she couldn't go back, for she has to work for us like a slave She is like an overdriven horse with all of us on her back. She wait on us all, mends and washes, sweeps the floor, puts mamma to bed. An mamma is capricious and tearful and insane! And now I can get a servan with this money, you understand, Alexey Fyodorovitch, I can ge medicines for the dear creatures, I can send my student to Petersburg I can buy beef, I can feed them properly. Good Lord, but it's a dream!\""},
{"text":"Alyosha was delighted that he had brought him such happiness and tha the poor fellow had consented to be made happy."},
{"text":"\"Stay, Alexey Fyodorovitch, stay,\" the captain began to talk wit frenzied rapidity, carried away by a new daydream. \"Do you know tha Ilusha and I will perhaps really carry out our dream. We will buy  horse and cart, a black horse, he insists on its being black, and w will set off as we pretended the other day. I have an old friend,  lawyer in K. province, and I heard through a trustworthy man that if  were to go he'd give me a place as clerk in his office, so, who knows maybe he would. So I'd just put mamma and Nina in the cart, and Ilush could drive, and I'd walk, I'd walk. ... Why, if I only succeed i getting one debt paid that's owing me, I should have perhaps enough fo that too!\""},
{"text":"\"There would be enough!\" cried Alyosha. \"Katerina Ivanovna will sen you as much more as you need, and you know, I have money too, take wha you want, as you would from a brother, from a friend, you can give i back later. ... (You'll get rich, you'll get rich!) And you know yo couldn't have a better idea than to move to another province! It woul be the saving of you, especially of your boy--and you ought to g quickly, before the winter, before the cold. You must write to us whe you are there, and we will always be brothers. ... No, it's not  dream!\""},
{"text":"Alyosha could have hugged him, he was so pleased. But glancing at hi he stopped short. The man was standing with his neck outstretched an his lips protruding, with a pale and frenzied face. His lips wer moving as though trying to articulate something; no sound came, bu still his lips moved. It was uncanny."},
{"text":"\"What is it?\" asked Alyosha, startled."},
{"text":"\"Alexey Fyodorovitch ... I ... you,\" muttered the captain faltering, looking at him with a strange, wild, fixed stare, and an ai of desperate resolution. At the same time there was a sort of grin o his lips. \"I ... you, sir ... wouldn't you like me to show you  little trick I know?\" he murmured, suddenly, in a firm rapid whisper his voice no longer faltering."},
{"text":"\"What trick?\""},
{"text":"\"A pretty trick,\" whispered the captain. His mouth was twisted on th left side, his left eye was screwed up. He still stared at Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"What is the matter? What trick?\" Alyosha cried, now thoroughl alarmed."},
{"text":"\"Why, look,\" squealed the captain suddenly, and showing him the tw notes which he had been holding by one corner between his thumb an forefinger during the conversation, he crumpled them up savagely an squeezed them tight in his right hand. \"Do you see, do you see?\" h shrieked, pale and infuriated. And suddenly flinging up his hand, h threw the crumpled notes on the sand. \"Do you see?\" he shrieked again pointing to them. \"Look there!\""},
{"text":"And with wild fury he began trampling them under his heel, gasping an exclaiming as he did so:"},
{"text":"\"So much for your money! So much for your money! So much for you money! So much for your money!\""},
{"text":"Suddenly he darted back and drew himself up before Alyosha, and hi whole figure expressed unutterable pride."},
{"text":"\"Tell those who sent you that the wisp of tow does not sell his honor,\"he cried, raising his arm in the air. Then he turned quickly and bega to run; but he had not run five steps before he turned completely roun and kissed his hand to Alyosha. He ran another five paces and the turned round for the last time. This time his face was not contorte with laughter, but quivering all over with tears. In a tearful faltering, sobbing voice he cried:"},
{"text":"\"What should I say to my boy if I took money from you for our shame?\""},
{"text":"And then he ran on without turning. Alyosha looked after him inexpressibly grieved. Oh, he saw that till the very last moment th man had not known he would crumple up and fling away the notes. He di not turn back. Alyosha knew he would not. He would not follow him an call him back, he knew why. When he was out of sight, Alyosha picked u the two notes. They were very much crushed and crumpled, and had bee pressed into the sand, but were uninjured and even rustled like ne ones when Alyosha unfolded them and smoothed them out. After smoothin them out, he folded them up, put them in his pocket and went t Katerina Ivanovna to report on the success of her commission."},
{"text":"ook V"},
{"text":"Pro and Contra"},
{"text":" I"},
{"text":"The Engagement"},
{"text":"Madame Hohlakov was again the first to meet Alyosha. She was flustered something important had happened. Katerina Ivanovna's hysterics ha ended in a fainting fit, and then \"a terrible, awful weakness ha followed, she lay with her eyes turned up and was delirious. Now sh was in a fever. They had sent for Herzenstube; they had sent for th aunts. The aunts were already here, but Herzenstube had not yet come They were all sitting in her room, waiting. She was unconscious now and what if it turned to brain fever!\""},
{"text":"Madame Hohlakov looked gravely alarmed. \"This is serious, serious,\" sh added at every word, as though nothing that had happened to her befor had been serious. Alyosha listened with distress, and was beginning t describe his adventures, but she interrupted him at the first words She had not time to listen. She begged him to sit with Lise and wai for her there."},
{"text":"\"Lise,\" she whispered almost in his ear, \"Lise has greatly surprised m just now, dear Alexey Fyodorovitch. She touched me, too, and so m heart forgives her everything. Only fancy, as soon as you had gone, sh began to be truly remorseful for having laughed at you today an yesterday, though she was not laughing at you, but only joking. But sh was seriously sorry for it, almost ready to cry, so that I was quit surprised. She has never been really sorry for laughing at me, but ha only made a joke of it. And you know she is laughing at me ever minute. But this time she was in earnest. She thinks a great deal o your opinion, Alexey Fyodorovitch, and don't take offense or be wounde by her if you can help it. I am never hard upon her, for she's such  clever little thing. Would you believe it? She said just now that yo were a friend of her childhood, `the greatest friend of he childhood'--just think of that--`greatest friend'--and what abou me? She has very strong feelings and memories, and, what's more, sh uses these phrases, most unexpected words, which come out all of  sudden when you least expect them. She spoke lately about a pine-tree for instance: there used to be a pine-tree standing in our garden i her early childhood. Very likely it's standing there still; so there' no need to speak in the past tense. Pine-trees are not like people Alexey Fyodorovitch, they don't change quickly. `Mamma,' she said, ` remember this pine-tree as in a dream,' only she said something s original about it that I can't repeat it. Besides, I've forgotten it Well, goodbye! I am so worried I feel I shall go out of my mind. Ah Alexey Fyodorovitch, I've been out of my mind twice in my life. Go t Lise, cheer her up, as you always can so charmingly. Lise,\" she cried going to her door, \"here I've brought you Alexey Fyodorovitch, whom yo insulted so. He is not at all angry, I assure you; on the contrary, h is surprised that you could suppose so.\""},
{"text":"\"Merci, maman. Come in, Alexey Fyodorovitch.\""},
{"text":"Alyosha went in. Lise looked rather embarrassed, and at once flushe crimson. She was evidently ashamed of something, and, as people alway do in such cases, she began immediately talking of other things, a though they were of absorbing interest to her at the moment."},
{"text":"\"Mamma has just told me all about the two hundred roubles, Alexe Fyodorovitch, and your taking them to that poor officer ... and sh told me all the awful story of how he had been insulted ... and yo know, although mamma muddles things ... she always rushes from on thing to another ... I cried when I heard. Well, did you give him th money and how is that poor man getting on?\""},
{"text":"\"The fact is I didn't give it to him, and it's a long story,\" answere Alyosha, as though he, too, could think of nothing but his regret a having failed, yet Lise saw perfectly well that he, too, looked away and that he, too, was trying to talk of other things."},
{"text":"Alyosha sat down to the table and began to tell his story, but at th first words he lost his embarrassment and gained the whole of Lise' attention as well. He spoke with deep feeling, under the influence o the strong impression he had just received, and he succeeded in tellin his story well and circumstantially. In old days in Moscow he had bee fond of coming to Lise and describing to her what had just happened t him, what he had read, or what he remembered of his childhood Sometimes they had made daydreams and woven whole romance together--generally cheerful and amusing ones. Now they both fel suddenly transported to the old days in Moscow, two years before. Lis was extremely touched by his story. Alyosha described Ilusha with war feeling. When he finished describing how the luckless man trampled o the money, Lise could not help clasping her hands and crying out:"},
{"text":"\"So you didn't give him the money! So you let him run away! Oh, dear you ought to have run after him!\""},
{"text":"\"No, Lise; it's better I didn't run after him,\" said Alyosha, gettin up from his chair and walking thoughtfully across the room."},
{"text":"\"How so? How is it better? Now they are without food and their case i hopeless?\""},
{"text":"\"Not hopeless, for the two hundred roubles will still come to them He'll take the money tomorrow. Tomorrow he will be sure to take it,\"said Alyosha, pacing up and down, pondering. \"You see, Lise,\" he wen on, stopping suddenly before her, \"I made one blunder, but that, eve that, is all for the best.\""},
{"text":"\"What blunder, and why is it for the best?\""},
{"text":"\"I'll tell you. He is a man of weak and timorous character; he ha suffered so much and is very good-natured. I keep wondering why he too offense so suddenly, for I assure you, up to the last minute, he di not know that he was going to trample on the notes. And I think no that there was a great deal to offend him ... and it could not hav been otherwise in his position. ... To begin with, he was sore a having been so glad of the money in my presence and not havin concealed it from me. If he had been pleased, but not so much; if h had not shown it; if he had begun affecting scruples and difficulties as other people do when they take money, he might still endure to tak it. But he was too genuinely delighted, and that was mortifying. Ah Lise, he is a good and truthful man--that's the worst of the whol business. All the while he talked, his voice was so weak, so broken, h talked so fast, so fast, he kept laughing such a laugh, or perhaps h was crying--yes, I am sure he was crying, he was so delighted--and h talked about his daughters--and about the situation he could get i another town. ... And when he had poured out his heart, he fel ashamed at having shown me his inmost soul like that. So he began t hate me at once. He is one of those awfully sensitive poor people. Wha had made him feel most ashamed was that he had given in too soon an accepted me as a friend, you see. At first he almost flew at me an tried to intimidate me, but as soon as he saw the money he had begu embracing me; he kept touching me with his hands. This must have bee how he came to feel it all so humiliating, and then I made tha blunder, a very important one. I suddenly said to him that if he ha not money enough to move to another town, we would give it to him, and indeed, I myself would give him as much as he wanted out of my ow money. That struck him all at once. Why, he thought, did I put mysel forward to help him? You know, Lise, it's awfully hard for a man wh has been injured, when other people look at him as though they were hi benefactors. ... I've heard that; Father Zossima told me so. I don' know how to put it, but I have often seen it myself. And I feel lik that myself, too. And the worst of it was that though he did not know up to the very last minute, that he would trample on the notes, he ha a kind of presentiment of it, I am sure of that. That's just what mad him so ecstatic, that he had that presentiment. ... And though it' so dreadful, it's all for the best. In fact, I believe nothing bette could have happened.\""},
{"text":"\"Why, why could nothing better have happened?\" cried Lise, looking wit great surprise at Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"Because if he had taken the money, in an hour after getting home, h would be crying with mortification, that's just what would hav happened. And most likely he would have come to me early tomorrow, an perhaps have flung the notes at me and trampled upon them as he di just now. But now he has gone home awfully proud and triumphant, thoug he knows he has `ruined himself.' So now nothing could be easier tha to make him accept the two hundred roubles by tomorrow, for he ha already vindicated his honor, tossed away the money, and trampled i under foot. ... He couldn't know when he did it that I should brin it to him again tomorrow, and yet he is in terrible need of that money Though he is proud of himself now, yet even today he'll be thinkin what a help he has lost. He will think of it more than ever at night will dream of it, and by tomorrow morning he may be ready to run to m to ask forgiveness. It's just then that I'll appear. `Here, you are  proud man,' I shall say: `you have shown it; but now take the money an forgive us!' And then he will take it!\""},
{"text":"Alyosha was carried away with joy as he uttered his last words, \"An then he will take it!\" Lise clapped her hands."},
{"text":"\"Ah, that's true! I understand that perfectly now. Ah, Alyosha, how d you know all this? So young and yet he knows what's in the heart. .. I should never have worked it out.\""},
{"text":"\"The great thing now is to persuade him that he is on an equal footin with us, in spite of his taking money from us,\" Alyosha went on in hi excitement, \"and not only on an equal, but even on a higher footing.\""},
{"text":"\" `On a higher footing' is charming, Alexey Fyodorovitch; but go on, g on!\""},
{"text":"\"You mean there isn't such an expression as `on a higher footing'; bu that doesn't matter because--\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, no, of course it doesn't matter. Forgive me, Alyosha, dear. .. You know, I scarcely respected you till now--that is I respected yo but on an equal footing; but now I shall begin to respect you on  higher footing. Don't be angry, dear, at my joking,\" she put in a once, with strong feeling. \"I am absurd and small, but you, you Listen, Alexey Fyodorovitch. Isn't there in all our analysis--I mea your analysis ... no, better call it ours--aren't we showin contempt for him, for that poor man--in analyzing his soul like this as it were, from above, eh? In deciding so certainly that he will tak the money?\""},
{"text":"\"No, Lise, it's not contempt,\" Alyosha answered, as though he ha prepared himself for the question. \"I was thinking of that on the wa here. How can it be contempt when we are all like him, when we are al just the same as he is? For you know we are just the same, no better If we are better, we should have been just the same in his place. .. I don't know about you, Lise, but I consider that I have a sordid sou in many ways, and his soul is not sordid; on the contrary, full of fin feeling. ... No, Lise, I have no contempt for him. Do you know, Lise my elder told me once to care for most people exactly as one would fo children, and for some of them as one would for the sick in hospitals.\""},
{"text":"\"Ah, Alexey Fyodorovitch, dear, let us care for people as we would fo the sick!\""},
{"text":"\"Let us, Lise; I am ready. Though I am not altogether ready in myself I am sometimes very impatient and at other times I don't see things It's different with you.\""},
{"text":"\"Ah, I don't believe it! Alexey Fyodorovitch, how happy I am!\""},
{"text":"\"I am so glad you say so, Lise.\""},
{"text":"\"Alexey Fyodorovitch, you are wonderfully good, but you are sometime sort of formal. ... And yet you are not a bit formal really. Go t the door, open it gently, and see whether mamma is listening,\" sai Lise, in a nervous, hurried whisper."},
{"text":"Alyosha went, opened the door, and reported that no one was listening."},
{"text":"\"Come here, Alexey Fyodorovitch,\" Lise went on, flushing redder an redder. \"Give me your hand--that's right. I have to make a grea confession, I didn't write to you yesterday in joke, but in earnest,\"and she hid her eyes with her hand. It was evident that she was greatl ashamed of the confession."},
{"text":"Suddenly she snatched his hand and impulsively kissed it three times."},
{"text":"\"Ah, Lise, what a good thing!\" cried Alyosha joyfully. \"You know, I wa perfectly sure you were in earnest.\""},
{"text":"\"Sure? Upon my word!\" She put aside his hand, but did not leave go o it, blushing hotly, and laughing a little happy laugh. \"I kiss his han and he says, `What a good thing!' \""},
{"text":"But her reproach was undeserved. Alyosha, too, was greatly overcome."},
{"text":"\"I should like to please you always, Lise, but I don't know how to d it,\" he muttered, blushing too."},
{"text":"\"Alyosha, dear, you are cold and rude. Do you see? He has chosen me a his wife and is quite settled about it. He is sure I was in earnest What a thing to say! Why, that's impertinence--that's what it is.\""},
{"text":"\"Why, was it wrong of me to feel sure?\" Alyosha asked, laughin suddenly."},
{"text":"\"Ah, Alyosha, on the contrary, it was delightfully right,\" cried Lise looking tenderly and happily at him."},
{"text":"Alyosha stood still, holding her hand in his. Suddenly he stooped dow and kissed her on her lips."},
{"text":"\"Oh, what are you doing?\" cried Lise. Alyosha was terribly abashed."},
{"text":"\"Oh, forgive me if I shouldn't. ... Perhaps I'm awfully stupid. .. You said I was cold, so I kissed you. ... But I see it was stupid.\""},
{"text":"Lise laughed, and hid her face in her hands. \"And in that dress!\" sh ejaculated in the midst of her mirth. But she suddenly ceased laughin and became serious, almost stern."},
{"text":"\"Alyosha, we must put off kissing. We are not ready for that yet, an we shall have a long time to wait,\" she ended suddenly. \"Tell me rathe why you who are so clever, so intellectual, so observant, choose  little idiot, an invalid like me? Ah, Alyosha, I am awfully happy, fo I don't deserve you a bit.\""},
{"text":"\"You do, Lise. I shall be leaving the monastery altogether in a fe days. If I go into the world, I must marry. I know that. He told me t marry, too. Whom could I marry better than you--and who would have m except you? I have been thinking it over. In the first place, you'v known me from a child and you've a great many qualities I haven't. Yo are more lighthearted than I am; above all, you are more innocent tha I am. I have been brought into contact with many, many things already. ... Ah, you don't know, but I, too, am a Karamazov. What does i matter if you do laugh and make jokes, and at me, too? Go on laughing I am so glad you do. You laugh like a little child, but you think lik a martyr.\""},
{"text":"\"Like a martyr? How?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, Lise, your question just now: whether we weren't showing contemp for that poor man by dissecting his soul--that was the question of  sufferer. ... You see, I don't know how to express it, but anyone wh thinks of such questions is capable of suffering. Sitting in you invalid chair you must have thought over many things already.\""},
{"text":"\"Alyosha, give me your hand. Why are you taking it away?\" murmured Lis in a failing voice, weak with happiness. \"Listen, Alyosha. What wil you wear when you come out of the monastery? What sort of suit? Don' laugh, don't be angry, it's very, very important to me.\""},
{"text":"\"I haven't thought about the suit, Lise; but I'll wear whatever yo like.\""},
{"text":"\"I should like you to have a dark blue velvet coat, a white piqu waistcoat, and a soft gray felt hat. ... Tell me, did you believ that I didn't care for you when I said I didn't mean what I wrote?\""},
{"text":"\"No, I didn't believe it.\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, you insupportable person, you are incorrigible.\""},
{"text":"\"You see, I knew that you--seemed to care for me, but I pretended t believe that you didn't care for me to make it--easier for you.\""},
{"text":"\"That makes it worse! Worse and better than all! Alyosha, I am awfull fond of you. Just before you came this morning, I tried my fortune.  decided I would ask you for my letter, and if you brought it out calml and gave it to me (as might have been expected from you) it would mea that you did not love me at all, that you felt nothing, and were simpl a stupid boy, good for nothing, and that I am ruined. But you left th letter at home and that cheered me. You left it behind on purpose, s as not to give it back, because you knew I would ask for it? That wa it, wasn't it?\""},
{"text":"\"Ah, Lise, it was not so a bit. The letter is with me now, and it wa this morning, in this pocket. Here it is.\""},
{"text":"Alyosha pulled the letter out laughing, and showed it her at  distance."},
{"text":"\"But I am not going to give it to you. Look at it from here.\""},
{"text":"\"Why, then you told a lie? You, a monk, told a lie!\""},
{"text":"\"I told a lie if you like,\" Alyosha laughed, too. \"I told a lie so a not to give you back the letter. It's very precious to me,\" he adde suddenly, with strong feeling, and again he flushed. \"It always wil be, and I won't give it up to anyone!\""},
{"text":"Lise looked at him joyfully. \"Alyosha,\" she murmured again, \"look a the door. Isn't mamma listening?\""},
{"text":"\"Very well, Lise, I'll look; but wouldn't it be better not to look? Wh suspect your mother of such meanness?\""},
{"text":"\"What meanness? As for her spying on her daughter, it's her right, it' not meanness!\" cried Lise, firing up. \"You may be sure, Alexe Fyodorovitch, that when I am a mother, if I have a daughter like mysel I shall certainly spy on her!\""},
{"text":"\"Really, Lise? That's not right.\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, my goodness! What has meanness to do with it? If she wer listening to some ordinary worldly conversation, it would be meanness but when her own daughter is shut up with a young man. ... Listen Alyosha, do you know I shall spy upon you as soon as we are married and let me tell you I shall open all your letters and read them, so yo may as well be prepared.\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, of course, if so--\" muttered Alyosha, \"only it's not right.\""},
{"text":"\"Ah, how contemptuous! Alyosha, dear, we won't quarrel the very firs day. I'd better tell you the whole truth. Of course, it's very wrong t spy on people, and, of course, I am not right and you are, only I shal spy on you all the same.\""},
{"text":"\"Do, then; you won't find out anything,\" laughed Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"And, Alyosha, will you give in to me? We must decide that too.\""},
{"text":"\"I shall be delighted to, Lise, and certain to, only not in the mos important things. Even if you don't agree with me, I shall do my dut in the most important things.\""},
{"text":"\"That's right; but let me tell you I am ready to give in to you no only in the most important matters, but in everything. And I am read to vow to do so now--in everything, and for all my life!\" cried Lis fervently, \"and I'll do it gladly, gladly! What's more, I'll swea never to spy on you, never once, never to read one of your letters. Fo you are right and I am not. And though I shall be awfully tempted t spy, I know that I won't do it since you consider it dishonorable. Yo are my conscience now. ... Listen, Alexey Fyodorovitch, why have yo been so sad lately--both yesterday and today? I know you have a lot o anxiety and trouble, but I see you have some special grief besides some secret one, perhaps?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, Lise, I have a secret one, too,\" answered Alyosha mournfully. \" see you love me, since you guessed that.\""},
{"text":"\"What grief? What about? Can you tell me?\" asked Lise with timi entreaty."},
{"text":"\"I'll tell you later, Lise--afterwards,\" said Alyosha, confused. \"No you wouldn't understand it perhaps--and perhaps I couldn't explai it.\""},
{"text":"\"I know your brothers and your father are worrying you, too.\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, my brothers too,\" murmured Alyosha, pondering."},
{"text":"\"I don't like your brother Ivan, Alyosha,\" said Lise suddenly."},
{"text":"He noticed this remark with some surprise, but did not answer it."},
{"text":"\"My brothers are destroying themselves,\" he went on, \"my father, too And they are destroying others with them. It's `the primitive force o the Karamazovs,' as Father Passy said the other day, a crude unbridled, earthly force. Does the spirit of God move above that force Even that I don't know. I only know that I, too, am a Karamazov. .. Me a monk, a monk! Am I a monk, Lise? You said just now that I was.\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, I did.\""},
{"text":"\"And perhaps I don't even believe in God.\""},
{"text":"\"You don't believe? What is the matter?\" said Lise quietly and gently But Alyosha did not answer. There was something too mysterious, to subjective in these last words of his, perhaps obscure to himself, bu yet torturing him."},
{"text":"\"And now on the top of it all, my friend, the best man in the world, i going, is leaving the earth! If you knew, Lise, how bound up in soul  am with him! And then I shall be left alone. ... I shall come to you Lise. ... For the future we will be together.\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, together, together! Henceforward we shall be always together, al our lives! Listen, kiss me, I allow you.\""},
{"text":"Alyosha kissed her."},
{"text":"\"Come, now go. Christ be with you!\" and she made the sign of the cros over him. \"Make haste back to him while he is alive. I see I've kep you cruelly. I'll pray today for him and you. Alyosha, we shall b happy! Shall we be happy, shall we?\""},
{"text":"\"I believe we shall, Lise.\""},
{"text":"Alyosha thought it better not to go in to Madame Hohlakov and was goin out of the house without saying goodbye to her. But no sooner had h opened the door than he found Madame Hohlakov standing before him. Fro the first word Alyosha guessed that she had been waiting on purpose t meet him."},
{"text":"\"Alexey Fyodorovitch, this is awful. This is all childish nonsense an ridiculous. I trust you won't dream--It's foolishness, nothing bu foolishness!\" she said, attacking him at once."},
{"text":"\"Only don't tell her that,\" said Alyosha, \"or she will be upset, an that's bad for her now.\""},
{"text":"\"Sensible advice from a sensible young man. Am I to understand that yo only agreed with her from compassion for her invalid state, because yo didn't want to irritate her by contradiction?\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, no, not at all. I was quite serious in what I said,\" Alyosh declared stoutly."},
{"text":"\"To be serious about it is impossible, unthinkable, and in the firs place I shall never be at home to you again, and I shall take her away you may be sure of that.\""},
{"text":"\"But why?\" asked Alyosha. \"It's all so far off. We may have to wai another year and a half.\""},
{"text":"\"Ah, Alexey Fyodorovitch, that's true, of course, and you'll have tim to quarrel and separate a thousand times in a year and a half. But I a so unhappy! Though it's such nonsense, it's a great blow to me. I fee like Famusov in the last scene of Sorrow from Wit. You are Tchatsky an she is Sofya, and, only fancy, I've run down to meet you on the stairs and in the play the fatal scene takes place on the staircase. I hear it all; I almost dropped. So this is the explanation of her dreadfu night and her hysterics of late! It means love to the daughter bu death to the mother. I might as well be in my grave at once. And a mor serious matter still, what is this letter she has written? Show it m at once, at once!\""},
{"text":"\"No, there's no need. Tell me, how is Katerina Ivanovna now? I mus know.\""},
{"text":"\"She still lies in delirium; she has not regained consciousness. He aunts are here; but they do nothing but sigh and give themselves airs Herzenstube came, and he was so alarmed that I didn't know what to d for him. I nearly sent for a doctor to look after him. He was drive home in my carriage. And on the top of it all, you and this letter It's true nothing can happen for a year and a half. In the name of al that's holy, in the name of your dying elder, show me that letter Alexey Fyodorovitch. I'm her mother. Hold it in your hand, if you like and I will read it so.\""},
{"text":"\"No, I won't show it to you. Even if she sanctioned it, I wouldn't.  am coming tomorrow, and if you like, we can talk over many things, bu now goodbye!\""},
{"text":"And Alyosha ran downstairs and into the street."},
{"text":" II"},
{"text":"Smerdyakov with a Guitar"},
{"text":"He had no time to lose indeed. Even while he was saying goodbye t Lise, the thought had struck him that he must attempt some stratagem t find his brother Dmitri, who was evidently keeping out of his way. I was getting late, nearly three o'clock. Alyosha's whole soul turned t the monastery, to his dying saint, but the necessity of seeing Dmitr outweighed everything. The conviction that a great inevitabl catastrophe was about to happen grew stronger in Alyosha's mind wit every hour. What that catastrophe was, and what he would say at tha moment to his brother, he could perhaps not have said definitely. \"Eve if my benefactor must die without me, anyway I won't have to reproac myself all my life with the thought that I might have saved somethin and did not, but passed by and hastened home. If I do as I intend,  shall be following his great precept.\""},
{"text":"His plan was to catch his brother Dmitri unawares, to climb over th fence, as he had the day before, get into the garden and sit in th summerhouse. If Dmitri were not there, thought Alyosha, he would no announce himself to Foma or the women of the house, but would remai hidden in the summerhouse, even if he had to wait there till evening If, as before, Dmitri were lying in wait for Grushenka to come, h would be very likely to come to the summerhouse. Alyosha did not however, give much thought to the details of his plan, but resolved t act upon it, even if it meant not getting back to the monastery tha day."},
{"text":"Everything happened without hindrance, he climbed over the hurdl almost in the same spot as the day before, and stole into th summerhouse unseen. He did not want to be noticed. The woman of th house and Foma too, if he were here, might be loyal to his brother an obey his instructions, and so refuse to let Alyosha come into th garden, or might warn Dmitri that he was being sought and inquired for."},
{"text":"There was no one in the summerhouse. Alyosha sat down and began t wait. He looked round the summerhouse, which somehow struck him as  great deal more ancient than before. Though the day was just as fine a yesterday, it seemed a wretched little place this time. There was  circle on the table, left no doubt from the glass of brandy having bee spilt the day before. Foolish and irrelevant ideas strayed about hi mind, as they always do in a time of tedious waiting. He wondered, fo instance, why he had sat down precisely in the same place as before why not in the other seat. At last he felt very depressed--depresse by suspense and uncertainty. But he had not sat there more than  quarter of an hour, when he suddenly heard the thrum of a guita somewhere quite close. People were sitting, or had only just sat down somewhere in the bushes not more than twenty paces away. Alyosh suddenly recollected that on coming out of the summerhouse the da before, he had caught a glimpse of an old green low garden-seat amon the bushes on the left, by the fence. The people must be sitting on i now. Who were they?"},
{"text":"A man's voice suddenly began singing in a sugary falsetto, accompanyin himself on the guitar:"},
{"text":"  With invincible forc   I am bound to my dear   O Lord, have merc   On her and on me   On her and on me   On her and on me!"},
{"text":"The voice ceased. It was a lackey's tenor and a lackey's song. Anothe voice, a woman's, suddenly asked insinuatingly and bashfully, thoug with mincing affectation:"},
{"text":"\"Why haven't you been to see us for so long, Pavel Fyodorovitch? Why d you always look down upon us?\""},
{"text":"\"Not at all,\" answered a man's voice politely, but with emphati dignity. It was clear that the man had the best of the position, an that the woman was making advances. \"I believe the man must b Smerdyakov,\" thought Alyosha, \"from his voice. And the lady must be th daughter of the house here, who has come from Moscow, the one who wear the dress with a tail and goes to Marfa for soup.\""},
{"text":"\"I am awfully fond of verses of all kinds, if they rhyme,\" the woman' voice continued. \"Why don't you go on?\""},
{"text":"The man sang again:"},
{"text":"  What do I care for royal wealt   If but my dear one be in health   Lord have merc   On her and on me   On her and on me   On her and on me!"},
{"text":"\"It was even better last time,\" observed the woman's voice. \"You san `If my darling be in health'; it sounded more tender. I suppose you'v forgotten today.\""},
{"text":"\"Poetry is rubbish!\" said Smerdyakov curtly."},
{"text":"\"Oh, no! I am very fond of poetry.\""},
{"text":"\"So far as it's poetry, it's essential rubbish. Consider yourself, wh ever talks in rhyme? And if we were all to talk in rhyme, even thoug it were decreed by government, we shouldn't say much, should we? Poetr is no good, Marya Kondratyevna.\""},
{"text":"\"How clever you are! How is it you've gone so deep into everything?\"The woman's voice was more and more insinuating."},
{"text":"\"I could have done better than that. I could have known more than that if it had not been for my destiny from my childhood up. I would hav shot a man in a duel if he called me names because I am descended fro a filthy beggar and have no father. And they used to throw it in m teeth in Moscow. It had reached them from here, thanks to Grigor Vassilyevitch. Grigory Vassilyevitch blames me for rebelling against m birth, but I would have sanctioned their killing me before I was bor that I might not have come into the world at all. They used to say i the market, and your mamma too, with great lack of delicacy, set of telling me that her hair was like a mat on her head, and that she wa short of five foot by a wee bit. Why talk of a wee bit while she migh have said `a little bit,' like everyone else? She wanted to make i touching, a regular peasant's feeling. Can a Russian peasant be said t feel, in comparison with an educated man? He can't be said to hav feeling at all, in his ignorance. From my childhood up when I hear ` wee bit,' I am ready to burst with rage. I hate all Russia, Mary Kondratyevna.\""},
{"text":"\"If you'd been a cadet in the army, or a young hussar, you wouldn' have talked like that, but would have drawn your saber to defend al Russia.\""},
{"text":"\"I don't want to be a hussar, Marya Kondratyevna, and, what's more,  should like to abolish all soldiers.\""},
{"text":"\"And when an enemy comes, who is going to defend us?\""},
{"text":"\"There's no need of defense. In 1812 there was a great invasion o Russia by Napoleon, first Emperor of the French, father of the presen one, and it would have been a good thing if they had conquered us.  clever nation would have conquered a very stupid one and annexed it. W should have had quite different institutions.\""},
{"text":"\"Are they so much better in their own country than we are? I wouldn' change a dandy I know of for three young Englishmen,\" observed Mary Kondratyevna tenderly, doubtless accompanying her words with a mos languishing glance."},
{"text":"\"That's as one prefers.\""},
{"text":"\"But you are just like a foreigner--just like a most gentlemanl foreigner. I tell you that, though it makes me bashful.\""},
{"text":"\"If you care to know, the folks there and ours here are just alike i their vice. They are swindlers, only there the scoundrel wears polishe boots and here he grovels in filth and sees no harm in it. The Russia people want thrashing, as Fyodor Pavlovitch said very truly yesterday though he is mad, and all his children.\""},
{"text":"\"You said yourself you had such a respect for Ivan Fyodorovitch.\""},
{"text":"\"But he said I was a stinking lackey. He thinks that I might be unruly He is mistaken there. If I had a certain sum in my pocket, I would hav left here long ago. Dmitri Fyodorovitch is lower than any lackey in hi behavior, in his mind, and in his poverty. He doesn't know how to d anything, and yet he is respected by everyone. I may be only  soup-maker, but with luck I could open a caf restaurant in Petrovka in Moscow, for my cookery is something special, and there's no one i Moscow, except the foreigners, whose cookery is anything special Dmitri Fyodorovitch is a beggar, but if he were to challenge the son o the first count in the country, he'd fight him. Though in what way i he better than I am? For he is ever so much stupider than I am. Look a the money he has wasted without any need!\""},
{"text":"\"It must be lovely, a duel,\" Marya Kondratyevna observed suddenly."},
{"text":"\"How so?\""},
{"text":"\"It must be so dreadful and so brave, especially when young officer with pistols in their hands pop at one another for the sake of som lady. A perfect picture! Ah, if only girls were allowed to look on, I' give anything to see one!\""},
{"text":"\"It's all very well when you are firing at someone, but when he i firing straight in your mug, you must feel pretty silly. You'd be gla to run away, Marya Kondratyevna.\""},
{"text":"\"You don't mean you would run away?\" But Smerdyakov did not deign t reply. After a moment's silence the guitar tinkled again, and he san again in the same falsetto:"},
{"text":"  Whatever you may say   I shall go far away   Life will be bright and ga   In the city far away   I shall not grieve   I shall not grieve at all   I don't intend to grieve at all."},
{"text":"Then something unexpected happened. Alyosha suddenly sneezed. They wer silent. Alyosha got up and walked towards them. He found Smerdyako dressed up and wearing polished boots, his hair pomaded, and perhap curled. The guitar lay on the garden-seat. His companion was th daughter of the house, wearing a light-blue dress with a train tw yards long. She was young and would not have been bad-looking, but tha her face was so round and terribly freckled."},
{"text":"\"Will my brother Dmitri soon be back?\" asked Alyosha with as muc composure as he could."},
{"text":"Smerdyakov got up slowly; Marya Kondratyevna rose too."},
{"text":"\"How am I to know about Dmitri Fyodorovitch? It's not as if I were hi keeper,\" answered Smerdyakov quietly, distinctly, and superciliously."},
{"text":"\"But I simply asked whether you do know?\" Alyosha explained."},
{"text":"\"I know nothing of his whereabouts and don't want to.\""},
{"text":"\"But my brother told me that you let him know all that goes on in th house, and promised to let him know when Agrafena Alexandrovna comes.\""},
{"text":"Smerdyakov turned a deliberate, unmoved glance upon him."},
{"text":"\"And how did you get in this time, since the gate was bolted an hou ago?\" he asked, looking at Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"I came in from the back-alley, over the fence, and went straight t the summerhouse. I hope you'll forgive me,\" he added, addressing Mary Kondratyevna. \"I was in a hurry to find my brother.\""},
{"text":"\"Ach, as though we could take it amiss in you!\" drawled Mary Kondratyevna, flattered by Alyosha's apology. \"For Dmitri Fyodorovitc often goes to the summerhouse in that way. We don't know he is here an he is sitting in the summerhouse.\""},
{"text":"\"I am very anxious to find him, or to learn from you where he is now Believe me, it's on business of great importance to him.\""},
{"text":"\"He never tells us,\" lisped Marya Kondratyevna."},
{"text":"\"Though I used to come here as a friend,\" Smerdyakov began again \"Dmitri Fyodorovitch has pestered me in a merciless way even here b his incessant questions about the master. `What news?' he'll ask `What's going on in there now? Who's coming and going?' and can't  tell him something more. Twice already he's threatened me with death.\""},
{"text":"\"With death?\" Alyosha exclaimed in surprise."},
{"text":"\"Do you suppose he'd think much of that, with his temper, which you ha a chance of observing yourself yesterday? He says if I let Agrafen Alexandrovna in and she passes the night there, I'll be the first t suffer for it. I am terribly afraid of him, and if I were not even mor afraid of doing so, I ought to let the police know. God only knows wha he might not do!\""},
{"text":"\"His honor said to him the other day, `I'll pound you in a mortar!' \"added Marya Kondratyevna."},
{"text":"\"Oh, if it's pounding in a mortar, it may be only talk,\" observe Alyosha. \"If I could meet him, I might speak to him about that too.\""},
{"text":"\"Well, the only thing I can tell you is this,\" said Smerdyakov, a though thinking better of it; \"I am here as an old friend and neighbor and it would be odd if I didn't come. On the other hand, Iva Fyodorovitch sent me first thing this morning to your brother's lodgin in Lake Street, without a letter, but with a message to Dmitr Fyodorovitch to go to dine with him at the restaurant here, in th marketplace. I went, but didn't find Dmitri Fyodorovitch at home though it was eight o'clock. `He's been here, but he is quite gone, those were the very words of his landlady. It's as though there was a understanding between them. Perhaps at this moment he is in th restaurant with Ivan Fyodorovitch, for Ivan Fyodorovitch has not bee home to dinner and Fyodor Pavlovitch dined alone an hour ago, and i gone to lie down. But I beg you most particularly not to speak of m and of what I have told you, for he'd kill me for nothing at all.\""},
{"text":"\"Brother Ivan invited Dmitri to the restaurant today?\" repeated Alyosh quickly."},
{"text":"\"That's so.\""},
{"text":"\"The Metropolis tavern in the marketplace?\""},
{"text":"\"The very same.\""},
{"text":"\"That's quite likely,\" cried Alyosha, much excited. \"Thank you Smerdyakov; that's important. I'll go there at once.\""},
{"text":"\"Don't betray me,\" Smerdyakov called after him."},
{"text":"\"Oh, no, I'll go to the tavern as though by chance. Don't be anxious.\""},
{"text":"\"But wait a minute, I'll open the gate to you,\" cried Mary Kondratyevna."},
{"text":"\"No; it's a shortcut, I'll get over the fence again.\""},
{"text":"What he had heard threw Alyosha into great agitation. He ran to th tavern. It was impossible for him to go into the tavern in his monasti dress, but he could inquire at the entrance for his brothers and cal them down. But just as he reached the tavern, a window was flung open and his brother Ivan called down to him from it."},
{"text":"\"Alyosha, can't you come up here to me? I shall be awfully grateful.\""},
{"text":"\"To be sure I can, only I don't quite know whether in this dress--\""},
{"text":"\"But I am in a room apart. Come up the steps; I'll run down to mee you.\""},
{"text":"A minute later Alyosha was sitting beside his brother. Ivan was alon dining."},
{"text":" III"},
{"text":"The Brothers Make Friends"},
{"text":"Ivan was not, however, in a separate room, but only in a place shut of by a screen, so that it was unseen by other people in the room. It wa the first room from the entrance with a buffet along the wall. Waiter were continually darting to and fro in it. The only customer in th room was an old retired military man drinking tea in a corner. Bu there was the usual bustle going on in the other rooms of the tavern there were shouts for the waiters, the sound of popping corks, th click of billiard balls, the drone of the organ. Alyosha knew that Iva did not usually visit this tavern and disliked taverns in general. S he must have come here, he reflected, simply to meet Dmitri b arrangement. Yet Dmitri was not there."},
{"text":"\"Shall I order you fish, soup or anything. You don't live on tea alone I suppose,\" cried Ivan, apparently delighted at having got hold o Alyosha. He had finished dinner and was drinking tea."},
{"text":"\"Let me have soup, and tea afterwards, I am hungry,\" said Alyosh gayly."},
{"text":"\"And cherry jam? They have it here. You remember how you used to lov cherry jam when you were little?\""},
{"text":"\"You remember that? Let me have jam too, I like it still.\""},
{"text":"Ivan rang for the waiter and ordered soup, jam and tea."},
{"text":"\"I remember everything, Alyosha, I remember you till you were eleven,  was nearly fifteen. There's such a difference between fifteen an eleven that brothers are never companions at those ages. I don't kno whether I was fond of you even. When I went away to Moscow for th first few years I never thought of you at all. Then, when you came t Moscow yourself, we only met once somewhere, I believe. And now I'v been here more than three months, and so far we have scarcely said  word to each other. Tomorrow I am going away, and I was just thinkin as I sat here how I could see you to say goodbye and just then yo passed.\""},
{"text":"\"Were you very anxious to see me, then?\""},
{"text":"\"Very. I want to get to know you once for all, and I want you to kno me. And then to say goodbye. I believe it's always best to get to kno people just before leaving them. I've noticed how you've been lookin at me these three months. There has been a continual look o expectation in your eyes, and I can't endure that. That's how it i I've kept away from you. But in the end I have learned to respect you The little man stands firm, I thought. Though I am laughing, I a serious. You do stand firm, don't you? I like people who are firm lik that whatever it is they stand by, even if they are such little fellow as you. Your expectant eyes ceased to annoy me, I grew fond of them i the end, those expectant eyes. You seem to love me for some reason Alyosha?\""},
{"text":"\"I do love you, Ivan. Dmitri says of you--Ivan is a tomb! I say o you, Ivan is a riddle. You are a riddle to me even now. But  understand something in you, and I did not understand it till thi morning.\""},
{"text":"\"What's that?\" laughed Ivan."},
{"text":"\"You won't be angry?\" Alyosha laughed too."},
{"text":"\"Well?\""},
{"text":"\"That you are just as young as other young men of three and twenty that you are just a young and fresh and nice boy, green in fact! Now have I insulted you dreadfully?\""},
{"text":"\"On the contrary, I am struck by a coincidence,\" cried Ivan, warmly an good-humoredly. \"Would you believe it that ever since that scene wit her, I have thought of nothing else but my youthful greenness, and jus as though you guessed that, you begin about it. Do you know I've bee sitting here thinking to myself: that if I didn't believe in life, if  lost faith in the woman I love, lost faith in the order of things, wer convinced in fact that everything is a disorderly, damnable, an perhaps devil-ridden chaos, if I were struck by every horror of man' disillusionment--still I should want to live and, having once taste of the cup, I would not turn away from it till I had drained it! A thirty, though, I shall be sure to leave the cup, even if I've no emptied it, and turn away--where I don't know. But till I am thirty,  know that my youth will triumph over everything--ever disillusionment, every disgust with life. I've asked myself many time whether there is in the world any despair that would overcome thi frantic and perhaps unseemly thirst for life in me, and I've come t the conclusion that there isn't, that is till I am thirty, and then  shall lose it of myself, I fancy. Some driveling consumptiv moralists--and poets especially--often call that thirst for lif base. It's a feature of the Karamazovs, it's true, that thirst for lif regardless of everything; you have it no doubt too, but why is it base The centripetal force on our planet is still fearfully strong, Alyosha I have a longing for life, and I go on living in spite of logic. Thoug I may not believe in the order of the universe, yet I love the stick little leaves as they open in spring. I love the blue sky, I love som people, whom one loves you know sometimes without knowing why. I lov some great deeds done by men, though I've long ceased perhaps to hav faith in them, yet from old habit one's heart prizes them. Here the have brought the soup for you, eat it, it will do you good. It' first-rate soup, they know how to make it here. I want to travel i Europe, Alyosha, I shall set off from here. And yet I know that I a only going to a graveyard, but it's a most precious graveyard, that' what it is! Precious are the dead that lie there, every stone over the speaks of such burning life in the past, of such passionate faith i their work, their truth, their struggle and their science, that I kno I shall fall on the ground and kiss those stones and weep over them though I'm convinced in my heart that it's long been nothing but  graveyard. And I shall not weep from despair, but simply because  shall be happy in my tears, I shall steep my soul in my emotion. I lov the sticky leaves in spring, the blue sky--that's all it is. It's no a matter of intellect or logic, it's loving with one's inside, wit one's stomach. One loves the first strength of one's youth. Do yo understand anything of my tirade, Alyosha?\" Ivan laughed suddenly."},
{"text":"\"I understand too well, Ivan. One longs to love with one's inside, wit one's stomach. You said that so well and I am awfully glad that yo have such a longing for life,\" cried Alyosha. \"I think everyone shoul love life above everything in the world.\""},
{"text":"\"Love life more than the meaning of it?\""},
{"text":"\"Certainly, love it, regardless of logic as you say, it must b regardless of logic, and it's only then one will understand the meanin of it. I have thought so a long time. Half your work is done, Ivan, yo love life, now you've only to try to do the second half and you ar saved.\""},
{"text":"\"You are trying to save me, but perhaps I am not lost! And what doe your second half mean?\""},
{"text":"\"Why, one has to raise up your dead, who perhaps have not died afte all. Come, let me have tea. I am so glad of our talk, Ivan.\""},
{"text":"\"I see you are feeling inspired. I am awfully fond of such profession de foi from such--novices. You are a steadfast person, Alexey. Is i true that you mean to leave the monastery?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, my elder sends me out into the world.\""},
{"text":"\"We shall see each other then in the world. We shall meet before I a thirty, when I shall begin to turn aside from the cup. Father doesn' want to turn aside from his cup till he is seventy, he dreams o hanging on to eighty in fact, so he says. He means it only to seriously, though he is a buffoon. He stands on a firm rock, too, h stands on his sensuality--though after we are thirty, indeed, ther may be nothing else to stand on. ... But to hang on to seventy i nasty, better only to thirty; one might retain `a shadow of nobility by deceiving oneself. Have you seen Dmitri today?\""},
{"text":"\"No, but I saw Smerdyakov,\" and Alyosha rapidly, though minutely described his meeting with Smerdyakov. Ivan began listening anxiousl and questioned him."},
{"text":"\"But he begged me not to tell Dmitri that he had told me about him,\"added Alyosha. Ivan frowned and pondered."},
{"text":"\"Are you frowning on Smerdyakov's account?\" asked Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"Yes, on his account. Damn him, I certainly did want to see Dmitri, bu now there's no need,\" said Ivan reluctantly."},
{"text":"\"But are you really going so soon, brother?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes.\""},
{"text":"\"What of Dmitri and father? how will it end?\" asked Alyosha anxiously."},
{"text":"\"You are always harping upon it! What have I to do with it? Am I m brother Dmitri's keeper?\" Ivan snapped irritably, but then he suddenl smiled bitterly. \"Cain's answer about his murdered brother, wasn't it Perhaps that's what you're thinking at this moment? Well, damn it all I can't stay here to be their keeper, can I? I've finished what I ha to do, and I am going. Do you imagine I am jealous of Dmitri, that I'v been trying to steal his beautiful Katerina Ivanovna for the last thre months? Nonsense, I had business of my own. I finished it. I am going I finished it just now, you were witness.\""},
{"text":"\"At Katerina Ivanovna's?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, and I've released myself once for all. And after all, what have  to do with Dmitri? Dmitri doesn't come in. I had my own business t settle with Katerina Ivanovna. You know, on the contrary, that Dmitr behaved as though there was an understanding between us. I didn't as him to do it, but he solemnly handed her over to me and gave us hi blessing. It's all too funny. Ah, Alyosha, if you only knew how ligh my heart is now! Would you believe it, I sat here eating my dinner an was nearly ordering champagne to celebrate my first hour of freedom Tfoo! It's been going on nearly six months, and all at once I've throw it off. I could never have guessed even yesterday, how easy it would b to put an end to it if I wanted.\""},
{"text":"\"You are speaking of your love, Ivan?\""},
{"text":"\"Of my love, if you like. I fell in love with the young lady, I worrie myself over her and she worried me. I sat watching over her ... an all at once it's collapsed! I spoke this morning with inspiration, bu I went away and roared with laughter. Would you believe it? Yes, it' the literal truth.\""},
{"text":"\"You seem very merry about it now,\" observed Alyosha, looking into hi face, which had suddenly grown brighter."},
{"text":"\"But how could I tell that I didn't care for her a bit! Ha ha! I appears after all I didn't. And yet how she attracted me! Ho attractive she was just now when I made my speech! And do you know sh attracts me awfully even now, yet how easy it is to leave her. Do yo think I am boasting?\""},
{"text":"\"No, only perhaps it wasn't love.\""},
{"text":"\"Alyosha,\" laughed Ivan, \"don't make reflections about love, it' unseemly for you. How you rushed into the discussion this morning! I'v forgotten to kiss you for it. ... But how she tormented me! I certainly was sitting by a `laceration.' Ah, she knew how I loved her She loved me and not Dmitri,\" Ivan insisted gayly. \"Her feeling fo Dmitri was simply a self-laceration. All I told her just now wa perfectly true, but the worst of it is, it may take her fifteen o twenty years to find out that she doesn't care for Dmitri, and loves m whom she torments, and perhaps she may never find it out at all, i spite of her lesson today. Well, it's better so; I can simply go awa for good. By the way, how is she now? What happened after I departed?\""},
{"text":"Alyosha told him she had been hysterical, and that she was now, h heard, unconscious and delirious."},
{"text":"\"Isn't Madame Hohlakov laying it on?\""},
{"text":"\"I think not.\""},
{"text":"\"I must find out. Nobody dies of hysterics, though. They don't matter God gave woman hysterics as a relief. I won't go to her at all. Wh push myself forward again?\""},
{"text":"\"But you told her that she had never cared for you.\""},
{"text":"\"I did that on purpose. Alyosha, shall I call for some champagne? Le us drink to my freedom. Ah, if only you knew how glad I am!\""},
{"text":"\"No, brother, we had better not drink,\" said Alyosha suddenly. \"Beside I feel somehow depressed.\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, you've been depressed a long time, I've noticed it.\""},
{"text":"\"Have you settled to go tomorrow morning, then?\""},
{"text":"\"Morning? I didn't say I should go in the morning. ... But perhaps i may be the morning. Would you believe it, I dined here today only t avoid dining with the old man, I loathe him so. I should have left lon ago, so far as he is concerned. But why are you so worried about m going away? We've plenty of time before I go, an eternity!\""},
{"text":"\"If you are going away tomorrow, what do you mean by an eternity?\""},
{"text":"\"But what does it matter to us?\" laughed Ivan. \"We've time enough fo our talk, for what brought us here. Why do you look so surprised Answer: why have we met here? To talk of my love for Katerina Ivanovna of the old man and Dmitri? of foreign travel? of the fatal position o Russia? Of the Emperor Napoleon? Is that it?\""},
{"text":"\"No.\""},
{"text":"\"Then you know what for. It's different for other people; but we in ou green youth have to settle the eternal questions first of all. That' what we care about. Young Russia is talking about nothing but th eternal questions now. Just when the old folks are all taken up wit practical questions. Why have you been looking at me in expectation fo the last three months? To ask me, `What do you believe, or don't yo believe at all?' That's what your eyes have been meaning for thes three months, haven't they?\""},
{"text":"\"Perhaps so,\" smiled Alyosha. \"You are not laughing at me, now, Ivan?\""},
{"text":"\"Me laughing! I don't want to wound my little brother who has bee watching me with such expectation for three months. Alyosha, loo straight at me! Of course I am just such a little boy as you are, onl not a novice. And what have Russian boys been doing up till now, som of them, I mean? In this stinking tavern, for instance, here, they mee and sit down in a corner. They've never met in their lives before and when they go out of the tavern, they won't meet again for forty years And what do they talk about in that momentary halt in the tavern? O the eternal questions, of the existence of God and immortality. An those who do not believe in God talk of socialism or anarchism, of th transformation of all humanity on a new pattern, so that it all come to the same, they're the same questions turned inside out. And masses masses of the most original Russian boys do nothing but talk of th eternal questions! Isn't it so?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, for real Russians the questions of God's existence and o immortality, or, as you say, the same questions turned inside out, com first and foremost, of course, and so they should,\" said Alyosha, stil watching his brother with the same gentle and inquiring smile."},
{"text":"\"Well, Alyosha, it's sometimes very unwise to be a Russian at all, bu anything stupider than the way Russian boys spend their time one ca hardly imagine. But there's one Russian boy called Alyosha I am awfull fond of.\""},
{"text":"\"How nicely you put that in!\" Alyosha laughed suddenly."},
{"text":"\"Well, tell me where to begin, give your orders. The existence of God eh?\""},
{"text":"\"Begin where you like. You declared yesterday at father's that ther was no God.\" Alyosha looked searchingly at his brother."},
{"text":"\"I said that yesterday at dinner on purpose to tease you and I saw you eyes glow. But now I've no objection to discussing with you, and I sa so very seriously. I want to be friends with you, Alyosha, for I hav no friends and want to try it. Well, only fancy, perhaps I too accep God,\" laughed Ivan; \"that's a surprise for you, isn't it?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, of course, if you are not joking now.\""},
{"text":"\"Joking? I was told at the elder's yesterday that I was joking. Yo know, dear boy, there was an old sinner in the eighteenth century wh declared that, if there were no God, he would have to be invented. S'i n'existait pas Dieu, il faudrait l'inventer. And man has actuall invented God. And what's strange, what would be marvelous, is not tha God should really exist; the marvel is that such an idea, the idea o the necessity of God, could enter the head of such a savage, viciou beast as man. So holy it is, so touching, so wise and so great a credi it does to man. As for me, I've long resolved not to think whether ma created God or God man. And I won't go through all the axioms laid dow by Russian boys on that subject, all derived from European hypotheses for what's a hypothesis there, is an axiom with the Russian boy, an not only with the boys but with their teachers too, for our Russia professors are often just the same boys themselves. And so I omit al the hypotheses. For what are we aiming at now? I am trying to explai as quickly as possible my essential nature, that is what manner of ma I am, what I believe in, and for what I hope, that's it, isn't it? An therefore I tell you that I accept God simply. But you must note this if God exists and if He really did create the world, then, as we al know, He created it according to the geometry of Euclid and the huma mind with the conception of only three dimensions in space. Yet ther have been and still are geometricians and philosophers, and even som of the most distinguished, who doubt whether the whole universe, or t speak more widely the whole of being, was only created in Euclid' geometry; they even dare to dream that two parallel lines, whic according to Euclid can never meet on earth, may meet somewhere i infinity. I have come to the conclusion that, since I can't understan even that, I can't expect to understand about God. I acknowledge humbl that I have no faculty for settling such questions, I have a Euclidia earthly mind, and how could I solve problems that are not of thi world? And I advise you never to think about it either, my dea Alyosha, especially about God, whether He exists or not. All suc questions are utterly inappropriate for a mind created with an idea o only three dimensions. And so I accept God and am glad to, and what' more, I accept His wisdom, His purpose--which are utterly beyond ou ken; I believe in the underlying order and the meaning of life;  believe in the eternal harmony in which they say we shall one day b blended. I believe in the Word to Which the universe is striving, an Which Itself was `with God,' and Which Itself is God and so on, and s on, to infinity. There are all sorts of phrases for it. I seem to be o the right path, don't I? Yet would you believe it, in the final resul I don't accept this world of God's, and, although I know it exists,  don't accept it at all. It's not that I don't accept God, you mus understand, it's the world created by Him I don't and cannot accept Let me make it plain. I believe like a child that suffering will b healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of huma contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like the despicabl fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidian mind of man that in the world's finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, somethin so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, fo the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all the crime of humanity, of all the blood they've shed; that it will make it no only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened wit men--but though all that may come to pass, I don't accept it. I won' accept it. Even if parallel lines do meet and I see it myself, I shal see it and say that they've met, but still I won't accept it. That' what's at the root of me, Alyosha; that's my creed. I am in earnest i what I say. I began our talk as stupidly as I could on purpose, bu I've led up to my confession, for that's all you want. You didn't wan to hear about God, but only to know what the brother you love lives by And so I've told you.\""},
{"text":"Ivan concluded his long tirade with marked and unexpected feeling."},
{"text":"\"And why did you begin `as stupidly as you could'?\" asked Alyosha looking dreamily at him."},
{"text":"\"To begin with, for the sake of being Russian. Russian conversations o such subjects are always carried on inconceivably stupidly. An secondly, the stupider one is, the closer one is to reality. Th stupider one is, the clearer one is. Stupidity is brief and artless while intelligence wriggles and hides itself. Intelligence is a knave but stupidity is honest and straightforward. I've led the conversatio to my despair, and the more stupidly I have presented it, the bette for me.\""},
{"text":"\"You will explain why you don't accept the world?\" said Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"To be sure I will, it's not a secret, that's what I've been leading u to. Dear little brother, I don't want to corrupt you or to turn yo from your stronghold, perhaps I want to be healed by you.\" Ivan smile suddenly quite like a little gentle child. Alyosha had never seen suc a smile on his face before."},
{"text":" IV"},
{"text":"Rebellion"},
{"text":"\"I must make you one confession,\" Ivan began. \"I could never understan how one can love one's neighbors. It's just one's neighbors, to m mind, that one can't love, though one might love those at a distance.  once read somewhere of John the Merciful, a saint, that when a hungry frozen beggar came to him, he took him into his bed, held him in hi arms, and began breathing into his mouth, which was putrid an loathsome from some awful disease. I am convinced that he did that fro `self-laceration,' from the self-laceration of falsity, for the sake o the charity imposed by duty, as a penance laid on him. For anyone t love a man, he must be hidden, for as soon as he shows his face, lov is gone.\""},
{"text":"\"Father Zossima has talked of that more than once,\" observed Alyosha \"he, too, said that the face of a man often hinders many people no practiced in love, from loving him. But yet there's a great deal o love in mankind, and almost Christlike love. I know that myself, Ivan.\""},
{"text":"\"Well, I know nothing of it so far, and can't understand it, and th innumerable mass of mankind are with me there. The question is, whethe that's due to men's bad qualities or whether it's inherent in thei nature. To my thinking, Christlike love for men is a miracle impossibl on earth. He was God. But we are not gods. Suppose I, for instance suffer intensely. Another can never know how much I suffer, because h is another and not I. And what's more, a man is rarely ready to admi another's suffering (as though it were a distinction). Why won't h admit it, do you think? Because I smell unpleasant, because I have  stupid face, because I once trod on his foot. Besides, there i suffering and suffering; degrading, humiliating suffering such a humbles me--hunger, for instance--my benefactor will perhaps allo me; but when you come to higher suffering--for an idea, fo instance--he will very rarely admit that, perhaps because my fac strikes him as not at all what he fancies a man should have who suffer for an idea. And so he deprives me instantly of his favor, and not a all from badness of heart. Beggars, especially genteel beggars, ough never to show themselves, but to ask for charity through th newspapers. One can love one's neighbors in the abstract, or even at  distance, but at close quarters it's almost impossible. If it were a on the stage, in the ballet, where if beggars come in, they wear silke rags and tattered lace and beg for alms dancing gracefully, then on might like looking at them. But even then we should not love them. Bu enough of that. I simply wanted to show you my point of view. I mean to speak of the suffering of mankind generally, but we had bette confine ourselves to the sufferings of the children. That reduces th scope of my argument to a tenth of what it would be. Still we'd bette keep to the children, though it does weaken my case. But, in the firs place, children can be loved even at close quarters, even when they ar dirty, even when they are ugly (I fancy, though, children never ar ugly). The second reason why I won't speak of grownup people is that besides being disgusting and unworthy of love, they have  compensation--they've eaten the apple and know good and evil, and the have become `like gods.' They go on eating it still. But the childre haven't eaten anything, and are so far innocent. Are you fond o children, Alyosha? I know you are, and you will understand why I prefe to speak of them. If they, too, suffer horribly on earth, they mus suffer for their fathers' sins, they must be punished for thei fathers, who have eaten the apple; but that reasoning is of the othe world and is incomprehensible for the heart of man here on earth. Th innocent must not suffer for another's sins, and especially suc innocents! You may be surprised at me, Alyosha, but I am awfully fon of children, too. And observe, cruel people, the violent, th rapacious, the Karamazovs are sometimes very fond of children. Childre while they are quite little--up to seven, for instance--are so remot from grownup people; they are different creatures, as it were, of  different species. I knew a criminal in prison who had, in the cours of his career as a burglar, murdered whole families, including severa children. But when he was in prison, he had a strange affection fo them. He spent all his time at his window, watching the childre playing in the prison yard. He trained one little boy to come up to hi window and made great friends with him. ... You don't know why I a telling you all this, Alyosha? My head aches and I am sad.\""},
{"text":"\"You speak with a strange air,\" observed Alyosha uneasily, \"as thoug you were not quite yourself.\""},
{"text":"\"By the way, a Bulgarian I met lately in Moscow,\" Ivan went on, seemin not to hear his brother's words, \"told me about the crimes committed b Turks and Circassians in all parts of Bulgaria through fear of  general rising of the Slavs. They burn villages, murder, outrage wome and children, they nail their prisoners by the ears to the fences leave them so till morning, and in the morning they hang them--al sorts of things you can't imagine. People talk sometimes of bestia cruelty, but that's a great injustice and insult to the beasts; a beas can never be so cruel as a man, so artistically cruel. The tiger onl tears and gnaws, that's all he can do. He would never think of nailin people by the ears, even if he were able to do it. These Turks took  pleasure in torturing children, too; cutting the unborn child from th mother's womb, and tossing babies up in the air and catching them o the points of their bayonets before their mothers' eyes. Doing i before the mothers' eyes was what gave zest to the amusement. Here i another scene that I thought very interesting. Imagine a tremblin mother with her baby in her arms, a circle of invading Turks aroun her. They've planned a diversion: they pet the baby, laugh to make i laugh. They succeed, the baby laughs. At that moment a Turk points  pistol four inches from the baby's face. The baby laughs with glee holds out its little hands to the pistol, and he pulls the trigger i the baby's face and blows out its brains. Artistic, wasn't it? By th way, Turks are particularly fond of sweet things, they say.\""},
{"text":"\"Brother, what are you driving at?\" asked Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"I think if the devil doesn't exist, but man has created him, he ha created him in his own image and likeness.\""},
{"text":"\"Just as he did God, then?\" observed Alyosha."},
{"text":"\" `It's wonderful how you can turn words,' as Polonius says in Hamlet,\"laughed Ivan. \"You turn my words against me. Well, I am glad. Your must be a fine God, if man created Him in his image and likeness. Yo asked just now what I was driving at. You see, I am fond of collectin certain facts, and, would you believe, I even copy anecdotes of  certain sort from newspapers and books, and I've already got a fin collection. The Turks, of course, have gone into it, but they ar foreigners. I have specimens from home that are even better than th Turks. You know we prefer beating--rods and scourges--that's ou national institution. Nailing ears is unthinkable for us, for we are after all, Europeans. But the rod and the scourge we have always wit us and they cannot be taken from us. Abroad now they scarcely do an beating. Manners are more humane, or laws have been passed, so tha they don't dare to flog men now. But they make up for it in another wa just as national as ours. And so national that it would be practicall impossible among us, though I believe we are being inoculated with it since the religious movement began in our aristocracy. I have  charming pamphlet, translated from the French, describing how, quit recently, five years ago, a murderer, Richard, was executed--a youn man, I believe, of three and twenty, who repented and was converted t the Christian faith at the very scaffold. This Richard was a illegitimate child who was given as a child of six by his parents t some shepherds on the Swiss mountains. They brought him up to work fo them. He grew up like a little wild beast among them. The shepherd taught him nothing, and scarcely fed or clothed him, but sent him ou at seven to herd the flock in cold and wet, and no one hesitated o scrupled to treat him so. Quite the contrary, they thought they ha every right, for Richard had been given to them as a chattel, and the did not even see the necessity of feeding him. Richard himsel describes how in those years, like the Prodigal Son in the Gospel, h longed to eat of the mash given to the pigs, which were fattened fo sale. But they wouldn't even give him that, and beat him when he stol from the pigs. And that was how he spent all his childhood and hi youth, till he grew up and was strong enough to go away and be a thief The savage began to earn his living as a day laborer in Geneva. H drank what he earned, he lived like a brute, and finished by killin and robbing an old man. He was caught, tried, and condemned to death They are not sentimentalists there. And in prison he was immediatel surrounded by pastors, members of Christian brotherhoods, philanthropi ladies, and the like. They taught him to read and write in prison, an expounded the Gospel to him. They exhorted him, worked upon him drummed at him incessantly, till at last he solemnly confessed hi crime. He was converted. He wrote to the court himself that he was  monster, but that in the end God had vouchsafed him light and show grace. All Geneva was in excitement about him--all philanthropic an religious Geneva. All the aristocratic and well-bred society of th town rushed to the prison, kissed Richard and embraced him; `You ar our brother, you have found grace.' And Richard does nothing but wee with emotion, `Yes, I've found grace! All my youth and childhood I wa glad of pigs' food, but now even I have found grace. I am dying in th Lord.' `Yes, Richard, die in the Lord; you have shed blood and mus die. Though it's not your fault that you knew not the Lord, when yo coveted the pigs' food and were beaten for stealing it (which was ver wrong of you, for stealing is forbidden); but you've shed blood and yo must die.' And on the last day, Richard, perfectly limp, did nothin but cry and repeat every minute: `This is my happiest day. I am goin to the Lord.' `Yes,' cry the pastors and the judges and philanthropi ladies. `This is the happiest day of your life, for you are going t the Lord!' They all walk or drive to the scaffold in procession behin the prison van. At the scaffold they call to Richard: `Die, brother die in the Lord, for even thou hast found grace!' And so, covered wit his brothers' kisses, Richard is dragged on to the scaffold, and led t the guillotine. And they chopped off his head in brotherly fashion because he had found grace. Yes, that's characteristic. That pamphle is translated into Russian by some Russian philanthropists o aristocratic rank and evangelical aspirations, and has been distribute gratis for the enlightenment of the people. The case of Richard i interesting because it's national. Though to us it's absurd to cut of a man's head, because he has become our brother and has found grace yet we have our own speciality, which is all but worse. Our historica pastime is the direct satisfaction of inflicting pain. There are line in Nekrassov describing how a peasant lashes a horse on the eyes, `o its meek eyes,' everyone must have seen it. It's peculiarly Russian. H describes how a feeble little nag has foundered under too heavy a loa and cannot move. The peasant beats it, beats it savagely, beats it a last not knowing what he is doing in the intoxication of cruelty thrashes it mercilessly over and over again. `However weak you are, yo must pull, if you die for it.' The nag strains, and then he begin lashing the poor defenseless creature on its weeping, on its `mee eyes.' The frantic beast tugs and draws the load, trembling all over gasping for breath, moving sideways, with a sort of unnatural spasmodi action--it's awful in Nekrassov. But that's only a horse, and God ha given horses to be beaten. So the Tatars have taught us, and they lef us the knout as a remembrance of it. But men, too, can be beaten.  well-educated, cultured gentleman and his wife beat their own chil with a birch-rod, a girl of seven. I have an exact account of it. Th papa was glad that the birch was covered with twigs. `It stings more, said he, and so he began stinging his daughter. I know for a fact ther are people who at every blow are worked up to sensuality, to litera sensuality, which increases progressively at every blow they inflict They beat for a minute, for five minutes, for ten minutes, more ofte and more savagely. The child screams. At last the child cannot scream it gasps, `Daddy! daddy!' By some diabolical unseemly chance the cas was brought into court. A counsel is engaged. The Russian people hav long called a barrister `a conscience for hire.' The counsel protest in his client's defense. `It's such a simple thing,' he says, `a everyday domestic event. A father corrects his child. To our shame b it said, it is brought into court.' The jury, convinced by him, give  favorable verdict. The public roars with delight that the torturer i acquitted. Ah, pity I wasn't there! I would have proposed to raise  subscription in his honor! Charming pictures."},
{"text":"\"But I've still better things about children. I've collected a great great deal about Russian children, Alyosha. There was a little girl o five who was hated by her father and mother, `most worthy an respectable people, of good education and breeding.' You see, I mus repeat again, it is a peculiar characteristic of many people, this lov of torturing children, and children only. To all other types o humanity these torturers behave mildly and benevolently, lik cultivated and humane Europeans; but they are very fond of tormentin children, even fond of children themselves in that sense. It's jus their defenselessness that tempts the tormentor, just the angeli confidence of the child who has no refuge and no appeal, that sets hi vile blood on fire. In every man, of course, a demon lies hidden--th demon of rage, the demon of lustful heat at the screams of the torture victim, the demon of lawlessness let off the chain, the demon o diseases that follow on vice, gout, kidney disease, and so on."},
{"text":"\"This poor child of five was subjected to every possible torture b those cultivated parents. They beat her, thrashed her, kicked her fo no reason till her body was one bruise. Then, they went to greate refinements of cruelty--shut her up all night in the cold and frost i a privy, and because she didn't ask to be taken up at night (as thoug a child of five sleeping its angelic, sound sleep could be trained t wake and ask), they smeared her face and filled her mouth wit excrement, and it was her mother, her mother did this. And that mothe could sleep, hearing the poor child's groans! Can you understand why  little creature, who can't even understand what's done to her, shoul beat her little aching heart with her tiny fist in the dark and th cold, and weep her meek unresentful tears to dear, kind God to protec her? Do you understand that, friend and brother, you pious and humbl novice? Do you understand why this infamy must be and is permitted Without it, I am told, man could not have existed on earth, for h could not have known good and evil. Why should he know that diabolica good and evil when it costs so much? Why, the whole world of knowledg is not worth that child's prayer to `dear, kind God'! I say nothing o the sufferings of grownup people, they have eaten the apple, damn them and the devil take them all! But these little ones! I am making yo suffer, Alyosha, you are not yourself. I'll leave off if you like.\""},
{"text":"\"Never mind. I want to suffer too,\" muttered Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"One picture, only one more, because it's so curious, s characteristic, and I have only just read it in some collection o Russian antiquities. I've forgotten the name. I must look it up. It wa in the darkest days of serfdom at the beginning of the century, an long live the Liberator of the People! There was in those days  general of aristocratic connections, the owner of great estates, one o those men--somewhat exceptional, I believe, even then--who, retirin from the service into a life of leisure, are convinced that they'v earned absolute power over the lives of their subjects. There were suc men then. So our general, settled on his property of two thousan souls, lives in pomp, and domineers over his poor neighbors as thoug they were dependents and buffoons. He has kennels of hundreds of hound and nearly a hundred dog-boys--all mounted, and in uniform. One day  serf-boy, a little child of eight, threw a stone in play and hurt th paw of the general's favorite hound. `Why is my favorite dog lame?' H is told that the boy threw a stone that hurt the dog's paw. `So you di it.' The general looked the child up and down. `Take him.' He wa taken--taken from his mother and kept shut up all night. Early tha morning the general comes out on horseback, with the hounds, hi dependents, dog-boys, and huntsmen, all mounted around him in ful hunting parade. The servants are summoned for their edification, and i front of them all stands the mother of the child. The child is brough from the lockup. It's a gloomy, cold, foggy autumn day, a capital da for hunting. The general orders the child to be undressed; the child i stripped naked. He shivers, numb with terror, not daring to cry. .. `Make him run,' commands the general. `Run! run!' shout the dog-boys The boy runs. ... `At him!' yells the general, and he sets the whol pack of hounds on the child. The hounds catch him, and tear him t pieces before his mother's eyes! ... I believe the general wa afterwards declared incapable of administering his estates. Well--wha did he deserve? To be shot? To be shot for the satisfaction of ou moral feelings? Speak, Alyosha!\""},
{"text":"\"To be shot,\" murmured Alyosha, lifting his eyes to Ivan with a pale twisted smile."},
{"text":"\"Bravo!\" cried Ivan, delighted. \"If even you say so. ... You're  pretty monk! So there is a little devil sitting in your heart, Alyosh Karamazov!\""},
{"text":"\"What I said was absurd, but--\""},
{"text":"\"That's just the point, that `but'!\" cried Ivan. \"Let me tell you novice, that the absurd is only too necessary on earth. The worl stands on absurdities, and perhaps nothing would have come to pass i it without them. We know what we know!\""},
{"text":"\"What do you know?\""},
{"text":"\"I understand nothing,\" Ivan went on, as though in delirium. \"I don' want to understand anything now. I want to stick to the fact. I made u my mind long ago not to understand. If I try to understand anything,  shall be false to the fact, and I have determined to stick to th fact.\""},
{"text":"\"Why are you trying me?\" Alyosha cried, with sudden distress. \"Will yo say what you mean at last?\""},
{"text":"\"Of course, I will; that's what I've been leading up to. You are dea to me, I don't want to let you go, and I won't give you up to you Zossima.\""},
{"text":"Ivan for a minute was silent, his face became all at once very sad."},
{"text":"\"Listen! I took the case of children only to make my case clearer. O the other tears of humanity with which the earth is soaked from it crust to its center, I will say nothing. I have narrowed my subject o purpose. I am a bug, and I recognize in all humility that I canno understand why the world is arranged as it is. Men are themselves t blame, I suppose; they were given paradise, they wanted freedom, an stole fire from heaven, though they knew they would become unhappy, s there is no need to pity them. With my pitiful, earthly, Euclidia understanding, all I know is that there is suffering and that there ar none guilty; that cause follows effect, simply and directly; tha everything flows and finds its level--but that's only Euclidia nonsense, I know that, and I can't consent to live by it! What comfor is it to me that there are none guilty and that cause follows effec simply and directly, and that I know it?--I must have justice, or  will destroy myself. And not justice in some remote infinite time an space, but here on earth, and that I could see myself. I have believe in it. I want to see it, and if I am dead by then, let me rise again for if it all happens without me, it will be too unfair. Surely  haven't suffered, simply that I, my crimes and my sufferings, ma manure the soil of the future harmony for somebody else. I want to se with my own eyes the hind lie down with the lion and the victim rise u and embrace his murderer. I want to be there when everyone suddenl understands what it has all been for. All the religions of the worl are built on this longing, and I am a believer. But then there are th children, and what am I to do about them? That's a question I can' answer. For the hundredth time I repeat, there are numbers o questions, but I've only taken the children, because in their case wha I mean is so unanswerably clear. Listen! If all must suffer to pay fo the eternal harmony, what have children to do with it, tell me, please It's beyond all comprehension why they should suffer, and why the should pay for the harmony. Why should they, too, furnish material t enrich the soil for the harmony of the future? I understand solidarit in sin among men. I understand solidarity in retribution, too; bu there can be no such solidarity with children. And if it is really tru that they must share responsibility for all their fathers' crimes, suc a truth is not of this world and is beyond my comprehension. Som jester will say, perhaps, that the child would have grown up and hav sinned, but you see he didn't grow up, he was torn to pieces by th dogs, at eight years old. Oh, Alyosha, I am not blaspheming!  understand, of course, what an upheaval of the universe it will be when everything in heaven and earth blends in one hymn of praise an everything that lives and has lived cries aloud: `Thou art just,  Lord, for Thy ways are revealed.' When the mother embraces the fien who threw her child to the dogs, and all three cry aloud with tears `Thou art just, O Lord!' then, of course, the crown of knowledge wil be reached and all will be made clear. But what pulls me up here i that I can't accept that harmony. And while I am on earth, I make hast to take my own measures. You see, Alyosha, perhaps it really may happe that if I live to that moment, or rise again to see it, I, too perhaps, may cry aloud with the rest, looking at the mother embracin the child's torturer, `Thou art just, O Lord!' but I don't want to cr aloud then. While there is still time, I hasten to protect myself, an so I renounce the higher harmony altogether. It's not worth the tear of that one tortured child who beat itself on the breast with it little fist and prayed in its stinking outhouse, with its unexpiate tears to `dear, kind God'! It's not worth it, because those tears ar unatoned for. They must be atoned for, or there can be no harmony. Bu how? How are you going to atone for them? Is it possible? By thei being avenged? But what do I care for avenging them? What do I care fo a hell for oppressors? What good can hell do, since those children hav already been tortured? And what becomes of harmony, if there is hell?  want to forgive. I want to embrace. I don't want more suffering. And i the sufferings of children go to swell the sum of sufferings which wa necessary to pay for truth, then I protest that the truth is not wort such a price. I don't want the mother to embrace the oppressor wh threw her son to the dogs! She dare not forgive him! Let her forgiv him for herself, if she will, let her forgive the torturer for th immeasurable suffering of her mother's heart. But the sufferings of he tortured child she has no right to forgive; she dare not forgive th torturer, even if the child were to forgive him! And if that is so, i they dare not forgive, what becomes of harmony? Is there in the whol world a being who would have the right to forgive and could forgive?  don't want harmony. From love for humanity I don't want it. I woul rather be left with the unavenged suffering. I would rather remain wit my unavenged suffering and unsatisfied indignation, even if I wer wrong. Besides, too high a price is asked for harmony; it's beyond ou means to pay so much to enter on it. And so I hasten to give back m entrance ticket, and if I am an honest man I am bound to give it bac as soon as possible. And that I am doing. It's not God that I don' accept, Alyosha, only I most respectfully return Him the ticket.\""},
{"text":"\"That's rebellion,\" murmured Alyosha, looking down."},
{"text":"\"Rebellion? I am sorry you call it that,\" said Ivan earnestly. \"One ca hardly live in rebellion, and I want to live. Tell me yourself,  challenge you--answer. Imagine that you are creating a fabric of huma destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving the peace and rest at last, but that it was essential and inevitable t torture to death only one tiny creature--that baby beating its breas with its fist, for instance--and to found that edifice on it unavenged tears, would you consent to be the architect on thos conditions? Tell me, and tell the truth.\""},
{"text":"\"No, I wouldn't consent,\" said Alyosha softly."},
{"text":"\"And can you admit the idea that men for whom you are building it woul agree to accept their happiness on the foundation of the unexpiate blood of a little victim? And accepting it would remain happy forever?\""},
{"text":"\"No, I can't admit it. Brother,\" said Alyosha suddenly, with flashin eyes, \"you said just now, is there a being in the whole world who woul have the right to forgive and could forgive? But there is a Being an He can forgive everything, all and for all, because He gave Hi innocent blood for all and everything. You have forgotten Him, and o Him is built the edifice, and it is to Him they cry aloud, `Thou ar just, O Lord, for Thy ways are revealed!' \""},
{"text":"\"Ah! the One without sin and His blood! No, I have not forgotten Him on the contrary I've been wondering all the time how it was you did no bring Him in before, for usually all arguments on your side put Him i the foreground. Do you know, Alyosha--don't laugh! I made a poem abou a year ago. If you can waste another ten minutes on me, I'll tell it t you.\""},
{"text":"\"You wrote a poem?\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, no, I didn't write it,\" laughed Ivan, \"and I've never written tw lines of poetry in my life. But I made up this poem in prose and  remembered it. I was carried away when I made it up. You will be m first reader--that is listener. Why should an author forego even on listener?\" smiled Ivan. \"Shall I tell it to you?\""},
{"text":"\"I am all attention,\" said Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"My poem is called `The Grand Inquisitor'; it's a ridiculous thing, bu I want to tell it to you.\""},
{"text":" V"},
{"text":"The Grand Inquisitor"},
{"text":"\"Even this must have a preface--that is, a literary preface,\" laughe Ivan, \"and I am a poor hand at making one. You see, my action take place in the sixteenth century, and at that time, as you probabl learnt at school, it was customary in poetry to bring down heavenl powers on earth. Not to speak of Dante, in France, clerks, as well a the monks in the monasteries, used to give regular performances i which the Madonna, the saints, the angels, Christ, and God himself wer brought on the stage. In those days it was done in all simplicity. I Victor Hugo's Notre Dame de Paris an edifying and gratuitous spectacl was provided for the people in the Htel de Ville of Paris in the reig of Louis XI in honor of the birth of the dauphin. It was called Le bo jugement de la trs sainte et gracieuse Vierge Marie, and she appear herself on the stage and pronounces her bon jugement. Similar plays chiefly from the Old Testament, were occasionally performed in Mosco too, up to the times of Peter the Great. But besides plays there wer all sorts of legends and ballads scattered about the world, in whic the saints and angels and all the powers of Heaven took part whe required. In our monasteries the monks busied themselves i translating, copying, and even composing such poems--and even unde the Tatars. There is, for instance, one such poem (of course, from th Greek), The Wanderings of Our Lady Through Hell, with descriptions a bold as Dante's. Our Lady visits hell, and the Archangel Michael lead her through the torments. She sees the sinners and their punishment There she sees among others one noteworthy set of sinners in a burnin lake; some of them sink to the bottom of the lake so that they can' swim out, and `these God forgets'--an expression of extraordinar depth and force. And so Our Lady, shocked and weeping, falls before th throne of God and begs for mercy for all in hell--for all she has see there, indiscriminately. Her conversation with God is immensel interesting. She beseeches Him, she will not desist, and when Go points to the hands and feet of her Son, nailed to the Cross, and asks `How can I forgive His tormentors?' she bids all the saints, all th martyrs, all the angels and archangels to fall down with her and pra for mercy on all without distinction. It ends by her winning from God  respite of suffering every year from Good Friday till Trinity Day, an the sinners at once raise a cry of thankfulness from hell, chanting `Thou art just, O Lord, in this judgment.' Well, my poem would hav been of that kind if it had appeared at that time. He comes on th scene in my poem, but He says nothing, only appears and passes on Fifteen centuries have passed since He promised to come in His glory fifteen centuries since His prophet wrote, `Behold, I come quickly' `Of that day and that hour knoweth no man, neither the Son, but th Father,' as He Himself predicted on earth. But humanity awaits him wit the same faith and with the same love. Oh, with greater faith, for i is fifteen centuries since man has ceased to see signs from heaven."},
{"text":"  No signs from heaven come toda   To add to what the heart doth say."},
{"text":"There was nothing left but faith in what the heart doth say. It is tru there were many miracles in those days. There were saints who performe miraculous cures; some holy people, according to their biographies were visited by the Queen of Heaven herself. But the devil did no slumber, and doubts were already arising among men of the truth o these miracles. And just then there appeared in the north of Germany  terrible new heresy. `A huge star like to a torch' (that is, to  church) `fell on the sources of the waters and they became bitter. These heretics began blasphemously denying miracles. But those wh remained faithful were all the more ardent in their faith. The tears o humanity rose up to Him as before, awaited His coming, loved Him, hope for Him, yearned to suffer and die for Him as before. And so many age mankind had prayed with faith and fervor, `O Lord our God, hasten Th coming,' so many ages called upon Him, that in His infinite mercy H deigned to come down to His servants. Before that day He had come down He had visited some holy men, martyrs and hermits, as is written i their lives. Among us, Tyutchev, with absolute faith in the truth o his words, bore witness that"},
{"text":"  Bearing the Cross, in slavish dress   Weary and worn, the Heavenly Kin   Our mother, Russia, came to bless   And through our land went wandering."},
{"text":"And that certainly was so, I assure you."},
{"text":"\"And behold, He deigned to appear for a moment to the people, to th tortured, suffering people, sunk in iniquity, but loving Him lik children. My story is laid in Spain, in Seville, in the most terribl time of the Inquisition, when fires were lighted every day to the glor of God, and `in the splendid auto de f the wicked heretics wer burnt.' Oh, of course, this was not the coming in which He will appea according to His promise at the end of time in all His heavenly glory and which will be sudden `as lightning flashing from east to west.' No He visited His children only for a moment, and there where the flame were crackling round the heretics. In His infinite mercy He came onc more among men in that human shape in which He walked among men fo three years fifteen centuries ago. He came down to the `hot pavements of the southern town in which on the day before almost a hundre heretics had, ad majorem gloriam Dei, been burnt by the cardinal, th Grand Inquisitor, in a magnificent auto de f, in the presence of th king, the court, the knights, the cardinals, the most charming ladie of the court, and the whole population of Seville."},
{"text":"\"He came softly, unobserved, and yet, strange to say, everyon recognized Him. That might be one of the best passages in the poem.  mean, why they recognized Him. The people are irresistibly drawn t Him, they surround Him, they flock about Him, follow Him. He move silently in their midst with a gentle smile of infinite compassion. Th sun of love burns in His heart, light and power shine from His eyes and their radiance, shed on the people, stirs their hearts wit responsive love. He holds out His hands to them, blesses them, and  healing virtue comes from contact with Him, even with His garments. A old man in the crowd, blind from childhood, cries out, `O Lord, heal m and I shall see Thee!' and, as it were, scales fall from his eyes an the blind man sees Him. The crowd weeps and kisses the earth under Hi feet. Children throw flowers before Him, sing, and cry hosannah. `It i He--it is He!' all repeat. `It must be He, it can be no one but Him! He stops at the steps of the Seville cathedral at the moment when th weeping mourners are bringing in a little open white coffin. In it lie a child of seven, the only daughter of a prominent citizen. The dea child lies hidden in flowers. `He will raise your child,' the crow shouts to the weeping mother. The priest, coming to meet the coffin looks perplexed, and frowns, but the mother of the dead child throw herself at His feet with a wail. `If it is Thou, raise my child!' sh cries, holding out her hands to Him. The procession halts, the coffi is laid on the steps at His feet. He looks with compassion, and Hi lips once more softly pronounce, `Maiden, arise!' and the maide arises. The little girl sits up in the coffin and looks round, smilin with wide-open wondering eyes, holding a bunch of white roses they ha put in her hand."},
{"text":"\"There are cries, sobs, confusion among the people, and at that momen the cardinal himself, the Grand Inquisitor, passes by the cathedral. H is an old man, almost ninety, tall and erect, with a withered face an sunken eyes, in which there is still a gleam of light. He is no dressed in his gorgeous cardinal's robes, as he was the day before when he was burning the enemies of the Roman Church--at this moment h is wearing his coarse, old, monk's cassock. At a distance behind hi come his gloomy assistants and slaves and the `holy guard.' He stops a the sight of the crowd and watches it from a distance. He see everything; he sees them set the coffin down at His feet, sees th child rise up, and his face darkens. He knits his thick gray brows an his eyes gleam with a sinister fire. He holds out his finger and bid the guards take Him. And such is his power, so completely are th people cowed into submission and trembling obedience to him, that th crowd immediately makes way for the guards, and in the midst o deathlike silence they lay hands on Him and lead Him away. The crow instantly bows down to the earth, like one man, before the ol Inquisitor. He blesses the people in silence and passes on. The guard lead their prisoner to the close, gloomy vaulted prison in the ancien palace of the Holy Inquisition and shut Him in it. The day passes an is followed by the dark, burning, `breathless' night of Seville. Th air is `fragrant with laurel and lemon.' In the pitch darkness the iro door of the prison is suddenly opened and the Grand Inquisitor himsel comes in with a light in his hand. He is alone; the door is closed a once behind him. He stands in the doorway and for a minute or two gaze into His face. At last he goes up slowly, sets the light on the tabl and speaks."},
{"text":"\" `Is it Thou? Thou?' but receiving no answer, he adds at once, `Don' answer, be silent. What canst Thou say, indeed? I know too well wha Thou wouldst say. And Thou hast no right to add anything to what Tho hadst said of old. Why, then, art Thou come to hinder us? For Thou has come to hinder us, and Thou knowest that. But dost Thou know what wil be tomorrow? I know not who Thou art and care not to know whether it i Thou or only a semblance of Him, but tomorrow I shall condemn Thee an burn Thee at the stake as the worst of heretics. And the very peopl who have today kissed Thy feet, tomorrow at the faintest sign from m will rush to heap up the embers of Thy fire. Knowest Thou that? Yes maybe Thou knowest it,' he added with thoughtful penetration, never fo a moment taking his eyes off the Prisoner.\""},
{"text":"\"I don't quite understand, Ivan. What does it mean?\" Alyosha, who ha been listening in silence, said with a smile. \"Is it simply a wil fantasy, or a mistake on the part of the old man--some impossibl quiproquo?\""},
{"text":"\"Take it as the last,\" said Ivan, laughing, \"if you are so corrupted b modern realism and can't stand anything fantastic. If you like it to b a case of mistaken identity, let it be so. It is true,\" he went on laughing, \"the old man was ninety, and he might well be crazy over hi set idea. He might have been struck by the appearance of the Prisoner It might, in fact, be simply his ravings, the delusion of an old man o ninety, overexcited by the auto de f of a hundred heretics the da before. But does it matter to us after all whether it was a mistake o identity or a wild fantasy? All that matters is that the old man shoul speak out, should speak openly of what he has thought in silence fo ninety years.\""},
{"text":"\"And the Prisoner too is silent? Does He look at him and not say  word?\""},
{"text":"\"That's inevitable in any case,\" Ivan laughed again. \"The old man ha told Him He hasn't the right to add anything to what He has said o old. One may say it is the most fundamental feature of Roma Catholicism, in my opinion at least. `All has been given by Thee to th Pope,' they say, `and all, therefore, is still in the Pope's hands, an there is no need for Thee to come now at all. Thou must not meddle fo the time, at least.' That's how they speak and write too--the Jesuits at any rate. I have read it myself in the works of their theologians `Hast Thou the right to reveal to us one of the mysteries of that worl from which Thou hast come?' my old man asks Him, and answers th question for Him. `No, Thou hast not; that Thou mayest not add to wha has been said of old, and mayest not take from men the freedom whic Thou didst exalt when Thou wast on earth. Whatsoever Thou reveales anew will encroach on men's freedom of faith; for it will be manifes as a miracle, and the freedom of their faith was dearer to Thee tha anything in those days fifteen hundred years ago. Didst Thou not ofte say then, \"I will make you free\"? But now Thou hast seen these \"free\"men,' the old man adds suddenly, with a pensive smile. `Yes, we've pai dearly for it,' he goes on, looking sternly at Him, `but at last w have completed that work in Thy name. For fifteen centuries we hav been wrestling with Thy freedom, but now it is ended and over for good Dost Thou not believe that it's over for good? Thou lookest meekly a me and deignest not even to be wroth with me. But let me tell Thee tha now, today, people are more persuaded than ever that they have perfec freedom, yet they have brought their freedom to us and laid it humbl at our feet. But that has been our doing. Was this what Thou didst? Wa this Thy freedom?' \""},
{"text":"\"I don't understand again,\" Alyosha broke in. \"Is he ironical, is h jesting?\""},
{"text":"\"Not a bit of it! He claims it as a merit for himself and his Churc that at last they have vanquished freedom and have done so to make me happy. `For now' (he is speaking of the Inquisition, of course) `fo the first time it has become possible to think of the happiness of men Man was created a rebel; and how can rebels be happy? Thou was warned,' he says to Him. `Thou hast had no lack of admonitions an warnings, but Thou didst not listen to those warnings; Thou dids reject the only way by which men might be made happy. But, fortunately departing Thou didst hand on the work to us. Thou hast promised, Tho hast established by Thy word, Thou hast given to us the right to bin and to unbind, and now, of course, Thou canst not think of taking i away. Why, then, hast Thou come to hinder us?' \""},
{"text":"\"And what's the meaning of `no lack of admonitions and warnings'?\"asked Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"Why, that's the chief part of what the old man must say.\""},
{"text":"\" `The wise and dread spirit, the spirit of self-destruction an nonexistence,' the old man goes on, `the great spirit talked with The in the wilderness, and we are told in the books that he \"tempted\" Thee Is that so? And could anything truer be said than what he revealed t Thee in three questions and what Thou didst reject, and what in th books is called \"the temptation\"? And yet if there has ever been o earth a real stupendous miracle, it took place on that day, on the da of the three temptations. The statement of those three questions wa itself the miracle. If it were possible to imagine simply for the sak of argument that those three questions of the dread spirit had perishe utterly from the books, and that we had to restore them and to inven them anew, and to do so had gathered together all the wise men of th earth--rulers, chief priests, learned men, philosophers, poets--an had set them the task to invent three questions, such as would not onl fit the occasion, but express in three words, three human phrases, th whole future history of the world and of humanity--dost Thou believ that all the wisdom of the earth united could have invented anything i depth and force equal to the three questions which were actually put t Thee then by the wise and mighty spirit in the wilderness? From thos questions alone, from the miracle of their statement, we can see tha we have here to do not with the fleeting human intelligence, but wit the absolute and eternal. For in those three questions the whol subsequent history of mankind is, as it were, brought together into on whole, and foretold, and in them are united all the unsolved historica contradictions of human nature. At the time it could not be so clear since the future was unknown; but now that fifteen hundred years hav passed, we see that everything in those three questions was so justl divined and foretold, and has been so truly fulfilled, that nothing ca be added to them or taken from them."},
{"text":"\" `Judge Thyself who was right--Thou or he who questioned Thee then Remember the first question; its meaning, in other words, was this \"Thou wouldst go into the world, and art going with empty hands, wit some promise of freedom which men in their simplicity and their natura unruliness cannot even understand, which they fear and dread--fo nothing has ever been more insupportable for a man and a human societ than freedom. But seest Thou these stones in this parched and barre wilderness? Turn them into bread, and mankind will run after Thee lik a flock of sheep, grateful and obedient, though forever trembling, les Thou withdraw Thy hand and deny them Thy bread.\" But Thou wouldst no deprive man of freedom and didst reject the offer, thinking, what i that freedom worth, if obedience is bought with bread? Thou didst repl that man lives not by bread alone. But dost Thou know that for the sak of that earthly bread the spirit of the earth will rise up against The and will strive with Thee and overcome Thee, and all will follow him crying, \"Who can compare with this beast? He has given us fire fro heaven!\" Dost Thou know that the ages will pass, and humanity wil proclaim by the lips of their sages that there is no crime, an therefore no sin; there is only hunger? \"Feed men, and then ask of the virtue!\" that's what they'll write on the banner, which they will rais against Thee, and with which they will destroy Thy temple. Where Th temple stood will rise a new building; the terrible tower of Babel wil be built again, and though, like the one of old, it will not b finished, yet Thou mightest have prevented that new tower and have cu short the sufferings of men for a thousand years; for they will com back to us after a thousand years of agony with their tower. They wil seek us again, hidden underground in the catacombs, for we shall b again persecuted and tortured. They will find us and cry to us, \"Fee us, for those who have promised us fire from heaven haven't given it!\"And then we shall finish building their tower, for he finishes th building who feeds them. And we alone shall feed them in Thy name declaring falsely that it is in Thy name. Oh, never, never can the feed themselves without us! No science will give them bread so long a they remain free. In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, \"Make us your slaves, but feed us.\" They will understan themselves, at last, that freedom and bread enough for all ar inconceivable together, for never, never will they be able to shar between them! They will be convinced, too, that they can never be free for they are weak, vicious, worthless and rebellious. Thou dids promise them the bread of Heaven, but, I repeat again, can it compar with earthly bread in the eyes of the weak, ever sinful and ignobl race of man? And if for the sake of the bread of Heaven thousands shal follow Thee, what is to become of the millions and tens of thousands o millions of creatures who will not have the strength to forego th earthly bread for the sake of the heavenly? Or dost Thou care only fo the tens of thousands of the great and strong, while the millions numerous as the sands of the sea, who are weak but love Thee, mus exist only for the sake of the great and strong? No, we care for th weak too. They are sinful and rebellious, but in the end they too wil become obedient. They will marvel at us and look on us as gods, becaus we are ready to endure the freedom which they have found so dreadfu and to rule over them--so awful it will seem to them to be free. Bu we shall tell them that we are Thy servants and rule them in Thy name We shall deceive them again, for we will not let Thee come to us again That deception will be our suffering, for we shall be forced to lie."},
{"text":"\" `This is the significance of the first question in the wilderness and this is what Thou hast rejected for the sake of that freedom whic Thou hast exalted above everything. Yet in this question lies hid th great secret of this world. Choosing \"bread,\" Thou wouldst hav satisfied the universal and everlasting craving of humanity--to fin someone to worship. So long as man remains free he strives for nothin so incessantly and so painfully as to find someone to worship. But ma seeks to worship what is established beyond dispute, so that all me would agree at once to worship it. For these pitiful creatures ar concerned not only to find what one or the other can worship, but t find something that all would believe in and worship; what is essentia is that all may be together in it. This craving for community o worship is the chief misery of every man individually and of al humanity from the beginning of time. For the sake of common worshi they've slain each other with the sword. They have set up gods an challenged one another, \"Put away your gods and come and worship ours or we will kill you and your gods!\" And so it will be to the end of th world, even when gods disappear from the earth; they will fall dow before idols just the same. Thou didst know, Thou couldst not but hav known, this fundamental secret of human nature, but Thou didst rejec the one infallible banner which was offered Thee to make all men bo down to Thee alone--the banner of earthly bread; and Thou has rejected it for the sake of freedom and the bread of Heaven. Behol what Thou didst further. And all again in the name of freedom! I tel Thee that man is tormented by no greater anxiety than to find someon quickly to whom he can hand over that gift of freedom with which th ill-fated creature is born. But only one who can appease thei conscience can take over their freedom. In bread there was offered The an invincible banner; give bread, and man will worship thee, fo nothing is more certain than bread. But if someone else gain possession of his conscience--oh! then he will cast away Thy bread an follow after him who has ensnared his conscience. In that Thou was right. For the secret of man's being is not only to live but to hav something to live for. Without a stable conception of the object o life, man would not consent to go on living, and would rather destro himself than remain on earth, though he had bread in abundance. That i true. But what happened? Instead of taking men's freedom from them Thou didst make it greater than ever! Didst Thou forget that ma prefers peace, and even death, to freedom of choice in the knowledge o good and evil? Nothing is more seductive for man than his freedom o conscience, but nothing is a greater cause of suffering. And behold instead of giving a firm foundation for setting the conscience of ma at rest forever, Thou didst choose all that is exceptional, vague an enigmatic; Thou didst choose what was utterly beyond the strength o men, acting as though Thou didst not love them at all--Thou who dids come to give Thy life for them! Instead of taking possession of men' freedom, Thou didst increase it, and burdened the spiritual kingdom o mankind with its sufferings forever. Thou didst desire man's free love that he should follow Thee freely, enticed and taken captive by Thee In place of the rigid ancient law, man must hereafter with free hear decide for himself what is good and what is evil, having only Thy imag before him as his guide. But didst Thou not know that he would at las reject even Thy image and Thy truth, if he is weighed down with th fearful burden of free choice? They will cry aloud at last that th truth is not in Thee, for they could not have been left in greate confusion and suffering than Thou hast caused, laying upon them so man cares and unanswerable problems."},
{"text":"\" `So that, in truth, Thou didst Thyself lay the foundation for th destruction of Thy kingdom, and no one is more to blame for it. Ye what was offered Thee? There are three powers, three powers alone, abl to conquer and to hold captive forever the conscience of these impoten rebels for their happiness--those forces are miracle, mystery an authority. Thou hast rejected all three and hast set the example fo doing so. When the wise and dread spirit set Thee on the pinnacle o the temple and said to Thee, \"If Thou wouldst know whether Thou art th Son of God then cast Thyself down, for it is written: the angels shal hold him up lest he fall and bruise himself, and Thou shalt know the whether Thou art the Son of God and shalt prove then how great is Th faith in Thy Father.\" But Thou didst refuse and wouldst not cas Thyself down. Oh, of course, Thou didst proudly and well, like God; bu the weak, unruly race of men, are they gods? Oh, Thou didst know the that in taking one step, in making one movement to cast Thyself down Thou wouldst be tempting God and have lost all Thy faith in Him, an wouldst have been dashed to pieces against that earth which Thou dids come to save. And the wise spirit that tempted Thee would hav rejoiced. But I ask again, are there many like Thee? And couldst Tho believe for one moment that men, too, could face such a temptation? I the nature of men such, that they can reject miracle, and at the grea moments of their life, the moments of their deepest, most agonizin spiritual difficulties, cling only to the free verdict of the heart Oh, Thou didst know that Thy deed would be recorded in books, would b handed down to remote times and the utmost ends of the earth, and Tho didst hope that man, following Thee, would cling to God and not ask fo a miracle. But Thou didst not know that when man rejects miracle h rejects God too; for man seeks not so much God as the miraculous. An as man cannot bear to be without the miraculous, he will create ne miracles of his own for himself, and will worship deeds of sorcery an witchcraft, though he might be a hundred times over a rebel, hereti and infidel. Thou didst not come down from the Cross when they shoute to Thee, mocking and reviling Thee, \"Come down from the cross and w will believe that Thou art He.\" Thou didst not come down, for agai Thou wouldst not enslave man by a miracle, and didst crave faith give freely, not based on miracle. Thou didst crave for free love and no the base raptures of the slave before the might that has overawed hi forever. But Thou didst think too highly of men therein, for they ar slaves, of course, though rebellious by nature. Look round and judge fifteen centuries have passed, look upon them. Whom hast Thou raised u to Thyself? I swear, man is weaker and baser by nature than Thou has believed him! Can he, can he do what Thou didst? By showing him so muc respect, Thou didst, as it were, cease to feel for him, for Thou dids ask far too much from him--Thou who hast loved him more than Thyself Respecting him less, Thou wouldst have asked less of him. That woul have been more like love, for his burden would have been lighter. He i weak and vile. What though he is everywhere now rebelling against ou power, and proud of his rebellion? It is the pride of a child and  schoolboy. They are little children rioting and barring out the teache at school. But their childish delight will end; it will cost them dear They will cast down temples and drench the earth with blood. But the will see at last, the foolish children, that, though they are rebels they are impotent rebels, unable to keep up their own rebellion. Bathe in their foolish tears, they will recognize at last that He who create them rebels must have meant to mock at them. They will say this i despair, and their utterance will be a blasphemy which will make the more unhappy still, for man's nature cannot bear blasphemy, and in th end always avenges it on itself. And so unrest, confusion an unhappiness--that is the present lot of man after Thou didst bear s much for their freedom! The great prophet tells in vision and in image that he saw all those who took part in the first resurrection and tha there were of each tribe twelve thousand. But if there were so many o them, they must have been not men but gods. They had borne Thy cross they had endured scores of years in the barren, hungry wilderness living upon locusts and roots--and Thou mayest indeed point with prid at those children of freedom, of free love, of free and splendi sacrifice for Thy name. But remember that they were only som thousands; and what of the rest? And how are the other weak ones t blame, because they could not endure what the strong have endured? Ho is the weak soul to blame that it is unable to receive such terribl gifts? Canst Thou have simply come to the elect and for the elect? Bu if so, it is a mystery and we cannot understand it. And if it is  mystery, we too have a right to preach a mystery, and to teach the that it's not the free judgment of their hearts, not love that matters but a mystery which they must follow blindly, even against thei conscience. So we have done. We have corrected Thy work and hav founded it upon miracle, mystery and authority. And men rejoiced tha they were again led like sheep, and that the terrible gift that ha brought them such suffering was, at last, lifted from their hearts Were we right teaching them this? Speak! Did we not love mankind, s meekly acknowledging their feebleness, lovingly lightening thei burden, and permitting their weak nature even sin with our sanction Why hast Thou come now to hinder us? And why dost Thou look silentl and searchingly at me with Thy mild eyes? Be angry. I don't want Th love, for I love Thee not. And what use is it for me to hide anythin from Thee? Don't I know to Whom I am speaking? All that I can say i known to Thee already. And is it for me to conceal from Thee ou mystery? Perhaps it is Thy will to hear it from my lips. Listen, then We are not working with Thee, but with him--that is our mystery. It' long--eight centuries--since we have been on his side and not o Thine. Just eight centuries ago, we took from him what Thou dids reject with scorn, that last gift he offered Thee, showing Thee all th kingdoms of the earth. We took from him Rome and the sword of Caesar and proclaimed ourselves sole rulers of the earth, though hitherto w have not been able to complete our work. But whose fault is that? Oh the work is only beginning, but it has begun. It has long to awai completion and the earth has yet much to suffer, but we shall triump and shall be Caesars, and then we shall plan the universal happiness o man. But Thou mightest have taken even then the sword of Caesar. Wh didst Thou reject that last gift? Hadst Thou accepted that last counse of the mighty spirit, Thou wouldst have accomplished all that man seek on earth--that is, someone to worship, someone to keep his conscience and some means of uniting all in one unanimous and harmonious ant-heap for the craving for universal unity is the third and last anguish o men. Mankind as a whole has always striven to organize a universa state. There have been many great nations with great histories, but th more highly they were developed the more unhappy they were, for the felt more acutely than other people the craving for worldwide union The great conquerors, Timours and Ghenghis-Khans, whirled lik hurricanes over the face of the earth striving to subdue its people and they too were but the unconscious expression of the same cravin for universal unity. Hadst Thou taken the world and Caesar's purple Thou wouldst have founded the universal state and have given universa peace. For who can rule men if not he who holds their conscience an their bread in his hands? We have taken the sword of Caesar, and i taking it, of course, have rejected Thee and followed him. Oh, ages ar yet to come of the confusion of free thought, of their science an cannibalism. For having begun to build their tower of Babel without us they will end, of course, with cannibalism. But then the beast wil crawl to us and lick our feet and spatter them with tears of blood. An we shall sit upon the beast and raise the cup, and on it will b written, \"Mystery.\" But then, and only then, the reign of peace an happiness will come for men. Thou art proud of Thine elect, but Tho hast only the elect, while we give rest to all. And besides, how man of those elect, those mighty ones who could become elect, have grow weary waiting for Thee, and have transferred and will transfer th powers of their spirit and the warmth of their heart to the other camp and end by raising their free banner against Thee. Thou didst Thysel lift up that banner. But with us all will be happy and will no mor rebel nor destroy one another as under Thy freedom. Oh, we shal persuade them that they will only become free when they renounce thei freedom to us and submit to us. And shall we be right or shall we b lying? They will be convinced that we are right, for they will remembe the horrors of slavery and confusion to which Thy freedom brought them Freedom, free thought and science, will lead them into such straits an will bring them face to face with such marvels and insoluble mysteries that some of them, the fierce and rebellious, will destroy themselves others, rebellious but weak, will destroy one another, while the rest weak and unhappy, will crawl fawning to our feet and whine to us: \"Yes you were right, you alone possess His mystery, and we come back to you save us from ourselves!\""},
{"text":"\" `Receiving bread from us, they will see clearly that we take th bread made by their hands from them, to give it to them, without an miracle. They will see that we do not change the stones to bread, bu in truth they will be more thankful for taking it from our hands tha for the bread itself! For they will remember only too well that in ol days, without our help, even the bread they made turned to stones i their hands, while since they have come back to us, the very stone have turned to bread in their hands. Too, too well will they know th value of complete submission! And until men know that, they will b unhappy. Who is most to blame for their not knowing it?--speak! Wh scattered the flock and sent it astray on unknown paths? But the floc will come together again and will submit once more, and then it will b once for all. Then we shall give them the quiet humble happiness o weak creatures such as they are by nature. Oh, we shall persuade the at last not to be proud, for Thou didst lift them up and thereby taugh them to be proud. We shall show them that they are weak, that they ar only pitiful children, but that childlike happiness is the sweetest o all. They will become timid and will look to us and huddle close to u in fear, as chicks to the hen. They will marvel at us and will b awestricken before us, and will be proud at our being so powerful an clever, that we have been able to subdue such a turbulent flock o thousands of millions. They will tremble impotently before our wrath their minds will grow fearful, they will be quick to shed tears lik women and children, but they will be just as ready at a sign from us t pass to laughter and rejoicing, to happy mirth and childish song. Yes we shall set them to work, but in their leisure hours we shall mak their life like a child's game, with children's songs and innocen dance. Oh, we shall allow them even sin, they are weak and helpless and they will love us like children because we allow them to sin. W shall tell them that every sin will be expiated, if it is done with ou permission, that we allow them to sin because we love them, and th punishment for these sins we take upon ourselves. And we shall take i upon ourselves, and they will adore us as their saviors who have take on themselves their sins before God. And they will have no secrets fro us. We shall allow or forbid them to live with their wives an mistresses, to have or not to have children--according to whether the have been obedient or disobedient--and they will submit to us gladl and cheerfully. The most painful secrets of their conscience, all, al they will bring to us, and we shall have an answer for all. And the will be glad to believe our answer, for it will save them from th great anxiety and terrible agony they endure at present in making  free decision for themselves. And all will be happy, all the million of creatures except the hundred thousand who rule over them. For onl we, we who guard the mystery, shall be unhappy. There will be thousand of millions of happy babes, and a hundred thousand sufferers who hav taken upon themselves the curse of the knowledge of good and evil Peacefully they will die, peacefully they will expire in Thy name, an beyond the grave they will find nothing but death. But we shall kee the secret, and for their happiness we shall allure them with th reward of heaven and eternity. Though if there were anything in th other world, it certainly would not be for such as they. It i prophesied that Thou wilt come again in victory, Thou wilt come wit Thy chosen, the proud and strong, but we will say that they have onl saved themselves, but we have saved all. We are told that the harlo who sits upon the beast, and holds in her hands the mystery, shall b put to shame, that the weak will rise up again, and will rend her roya purple and will strip naked her loathsome body. But then I will stan up and point out to Thee the thousand millions of happy children wh have known no sin. And we who have taken their sins upon us for thei happiness will stand up before Thee and say: \"Judge us if Thou cans and darest.\" Know that I fear Thee not. Know that I too have been i the wilderness, I too have lived on roots and locusts, I too prized th freedom with which Thou hast blessed men, and I too was striving t stand among Thy elect, among the strong and powerful, thirsting \"t make up the number.\" But I awakened and would not serve madness.  turned back and joined the ranks of those who have corrected Thy work I left the proud and went back to the humble, for the happiness of th humble. What I say to Thee will come to pass, and our dominion will b built up. I repeat, tomorrow Thou shalt see that obedient flock who a a sign from me will hasten to heap up the hot cinders about the pile o which I shall burn Thee for coming to hinder us. For if anyone has eve deserved our fires, it is Thou. Tomorrow I shall burn Thee. Dixi.' \""},
{"text":"Ivan stopped. He was carried away as he talked, and spoke wit excitement; when he had finished, he suddenly smiled."},
{"text":"Alyosha had listened in silence; towards the end he was greatly move and seemed several times on the point of interrupting, but restraine himself. Now his words came with a rush."},
{"text":"\"But ... that's absurd!\" he cried, flushing. \"Your poem is in prais of Jesus, not in blame of Him--as you meant it to be. And who wil believe you about freedom? Is that the way to understand it? That's no the idea of it in the Orthodox Church. ... That's Rome, and not eve the whole of Rome, it's false--those are the worst of the Catholics the Inquisitors, the Jesuits! ... And there could not be such  fantastic creature as your Inquisitor. What are these sins of mankin they take on themselves? Who are these keepers of the mystery who hav taken some curse upon themselves for the happiness of mankind? Whe have they been seen? We know the Jesuits, they are spoken ill of, bu surely they are not what you describe? They are not that at all, not a all. ... They are simply the Romish army for the earthly sovereignt of the world in the future, with the Pontiff of Rome for Emperor .. that's their ideal, but there's no sort of mystery or lofty melanchol about it. ... It's simple lust of power, of filthy earthly gain, o domination--something like a universal serfdom with them a masters--that's all they stand for. They don't even believe in Go perhaps. Your suffering Inquisitor is a mere fantasy.\""},
{"text":"\"Stay, stay,\" laughed Ivan, \"how hot you are! A fantasy you say, let i be so! Of course it's a fantasy. But allow me to say: do you reall think that the Roman Catholic movement of the last centuries i actually nothing but the lust of power, of filthy earthly gain? Is tha Father Passy's teaching?\""},
{"text":"\"No, no, on the contrary, Father Passy did once say something rathe the same as you ... but of course it's not the same, not a bit th same,\" Alyosha hastily corrected himself."},
{"text":"\"A precious admission, in spite of your `not a bit the same.' I ask yo why your Jesuits and Inquisitors have united simply for vile materia gain? Why can there not be among them one martyr oppressed by grea sorrow and loving humanity? You see, only suppose that there was on such man among all those who desire nothing but filthy materia gain--if there's only one like my old Inquisitor, who had himsel eaten roots in the desert and made frenzied efforts to subdue his fles to make himself free and perfect. But yet all his life he love humanity, and suddenly his eyes were opened, and he saw that it is n great moral blessedness to attain perfection and freedom, if at th same time one gains the conviction that millions of God's creature have been created as a mockery, that they will never be capable o using their freedom, that these poor rebels can never turn into giant to complete the tower, that it was not for such geese that the grea idealist dreamt his dream of harmony. Seeing all that he turned bac and joined--the clever people. Surely that could have happened?\""},
{"text":"\"Joined whom, what clever people?\" cried Alyosha, completely carrie away. \"They have no such great cleverness and no mysteries an secrets. ... Perhaps nothing but Atheism, that's all their secret Your Inquisitor does not believe in God, that's his secret!\""},
{"text":"\"What if it is so! At last you have guessed it. It's perfectly true it's true that that's the whole secret, but isn't that suffering, a least for a man like that, who has wasted his whole life in the deser and yet could not shake off his incurable love of humanity? In his ol age he reached the clear conviction that nothing but the advice of th great dread spirit could build up any tolerable sort of life for th feeble, unruly, `incomplete, empirical creatures created in jest.' An so, convinced of this, he sees that he must follow the counsel of th wise spirit, the dread spirit of death and destruction, and therefor accept lying and deception, and lead men consciously to death an destruction, and yet deceive them all the way so that they may no notice where they are being led, that the poor blind creatures may a least on the way think themselves happy. And note, the deception is i the name of Him in Whose ideal the old man had so fervently believe all his life long. Is not that tragic? And if only one such stood a the head of the whole army `filled with the lust of power only for th sake of filthy gain'--would not one such be enough to make a tragedy More than that, one such standing at the head is enough to create th actual leading idea of the Roman Church with all its armies an Jesuits, its highest idea. I tell you frankly that I firmly believ that there has always been such a man among those who stood at the hea of the movement. Who knows, there may have been some such even amon the Roman Popes. Who knows, perhaps the spirit of that accursed old ma who loves mankind so obstinately in his own way, is to be found eve now in a whole multitude of such old men, existing not by chance but b agreement, as a secret league formed long ago for the guarding of th mystery, to guard it from the weak and the unhappy, so as to make the happy. No doubt it is so, and so it must be indeed. I fancy that eve among the Masons there's something of the same mystery at the bottom and that that's why the Catholics so detest the Masons as their rival breaking up the unity of the idea, while it is so essential that ther should be one flock and one shepherd. ... But from the way I defen my idea I might be an author impatient of your criticism. Enough o it.\""},
{"text":"\"You are perhaps a Mason yourself!\" broke suddenly from Alyosha. \"Yo don't believe in God,\" he added, speaking this time very sorrowfully He fancied besides that his brother was looking at him ironically. \"Ho does your poem end?\" he asked, suddenly looking down. \"Or was it th end?\""},
{"text":"\"I meant to end it like this. When the Inquisitor ceased speaking h waited some time for his Prisoner to answer him. His silence weighe down upon him. He saw that the Prisoner had listened intently all th time, looking gently in his face and evidently not wishing to reply The old man longed for Him to say something, however bitter an terrible. But He suddenly approached the old man in silence and softl kissed him on his bloodless aged lips. That was all His answer. The ol man shuddered. His lips moved. He went to the door, opened it, and sai to Him: `Go, and come no more ... come not at all, never, never!' An he let Him out into the dark alleys of the town. The Prisoner wen away.\""},
{"text":"\"And the old man?\""},
{"text":"\"The kiss glows in his heart, but the old man adheres to his idea.\""},
{"text":"\"And you with him, you too?\" cried Alyosha, mournfully."},
{"text":"Ivan laughed."},
{"text":"\"Why, it's all nonsense, Alyosha. It's only a senseless poem of  senseless student, who could never write two lines of verse. Why do yo take it so seriously? Surely you don't suppose I am going straight of to the Jesuits, to join the men who are correcting His work? Good Lord it's no business of mine. I told you, all I want is to live on t thirty, and then ... dash the cup to the ground!\""},
{"text":"\"But the little sticky leaves, and the precious tombs, and the blu sky, and the woman you love! How will you live, how will you lov them?\" Alyosha cried sorrowfully. \"With such a hell in your heart an your head, how can you? No, that's just what you are going away for, t join them ... if not, you will kill yourself, you can't endure it!\""},
{"text":"\"There is a strength to endure everything,\" Ivan said with a col smile."},
{"text":"\"What strength?\""},
{"text":"\"The strength of the Karamazovs--the strength of the Karamazo baseness.\""},
{"text":"\"To sink into debauchery, to stifle your soul with corruption, yes?\""},
{"text":"\"Possibly even that ... only perhaps till I am thirty I shall escap it, and then--\""},
{"text":"\"How will you escape it? By what will you escape it? That's impossibl with your ideas.\""},
{"text":"\"In the Karamazov way, again.\""},
{"text":"\" `Everything is lawful,' you mean? Everything is lawful, is that it?\""},
{"text":"Ivan scowled, and all at once turned strangely pale."},
{"text":"\"Ah, you've caught up yesterday's phrase, which so offende Misov--and which Dmitri pounced upon so naively, and paraphrased!\" h smiled queerly. \"Yes, if you like, `everything is lawful' since th word has been said. I won't deny it. And Mitya's version isn't bad.\""},
{"text":"Alyosha looked at him in silence."},
{"text":"\"I thought that going away from here I have you at least,\" Ivan sai suddenly, with unexpected feeling; \"but now I see that there is n place for me even in your heart, my dear hermit. The formula, `all i lawful,' I won't renounce--will you renounce me for that, yes?\""},
{"text":"Alyosha got up, went to him and softly kissed him on the lips."},
{"text":"\"That's plagiarism,\" cried Ivan, highly delighted. \"You stole that fro my poem. Thank you though. Get up, Alyosha, it's time we were going both of us.\""},
{"text":"They went out, but stopped when they reached the entrance of th restaurant."},
{"text":"\"Listen, Alyosha,\" Ivan began in a resolute voice, \"if I am really abl to care for the sticky little leaves I shall only love them remembering you. It's enough for me that you are somewhere here, and  shan't lose my desire for life yet. Is that enough for you? Take it a a declaration of love if you like. And now you go to the right and I t the left. And it's enough, do you hear, enough. I mean even if I don' go away tomorrow (I think I certainly shall go) and we meet again don't say a word more on these subjects. I beg that particularly. An about Dmitri too, I ask you specially, never speak to me again,\" h added, with sudden irritation; \"it's all exhausted, it has all bee said over and over again, hasn't it? And I'll make you one promise i return for it. When at thirty, I want to `dash the cup to the ground, wherever I may be I'll come to have one more talk with you, even thoug it were from America, you may be sure of that. I'll come on purpose. I will be very interesting to have a look at you, to see what you'll b by that time. It's rather a solemn promise, you see. And we really ma be parting for seven years or ten. Come, go now to your Pate Seraphicus, he is dying. If he dies without you, you will be angry wit me for having kept you. Goodbye, kiss me once more; that's right, no go.\""},
{"text":"Ivan turned suddenly and went his way without looking back. It was jus as Dmitri had left Alyosha the day before, though the parting had bee very different. The strange resemblance flashed like an arrow throug Alyosha's mind in the distress and dejection of that moment. He waite a little, looking after his brother. He suddenly noticed that Iva swayed as he walked and that his right shoulder looked lower than hi left. He had never noticed it before. But all at once he turned too and almost ran to the monastery. It was nearly dark, and he felt almos frightened; something new was growing up in him for which he could no account. The wind had risen again as on the previous evening, and th ancient pines murmured gloomily about him when he entered the hermitag copse. He almost ran. \"Pater Seraphicus--he got that name fro somewhere--where from?\" Alyosha wondered. \"Ivan, poor Ivan, and whe shall I see you again? ... Here is the hermitage. Yes, yes, that h is, Pater Seraphicus, he will save me--from him and forever!\""},
{"text":"Several times afterwards he wondered how he could on leaving Ivan s completely forget his brother Dmitri, though he had that morning, onl a few hours before, so firmly resolved to find him and not to give u doing so, even should he be unable to return to the monastery tha night."},
{"text":" VI"},
{"text":"For Awhile a Very Obscure One"},
{"text":"And Ivan, on parting from Alyosha, went home to Fyodor Pavlovitch' house. But, strange to say, he was overcome by insufferable depression which grew greater at every step he took towards the house. There wa nothing strange in his being depressed; what was strange was that Iva could not have said what was the cause of it. He had often bee depressed before, and there was nothing surprising at his feeling so a such a moment, when he had broken off with everything that had brough him here, and was preparing that day to make a new start and enter upo a new, unknown future. He would again be as solitary as ever, an though he had great hopes, and great--too great--expectations fro life, he could not have given any definite account of his hopes, hi expectations, or even his desires."},
{"text":"Yet at that moment, though the apprehension of the new and unknow certainly found place in his heart, what was worrying him was somethin quite different. \"Is it loathing for my father's house?\" he wondered \"Quite likely; I am so sick of it; and though it's the last time  shall cross its hateful threshold, still I loathe it. ... No, it' not that either. Is it the parting with Alyosha and the conversation  had with him? For so many years I've been silent with the whole worl and not deigned to speak, and all of a sudden I reel off a rigmarol like that.\" It certainly might have been the youthful vexation o youthful inexperience and vanity--vexation at having failed to expres himself, especially with such a being as Alyosha, on whom his heart ha certainly been reckoning. No doubt that came in, that vexation, it mus have done indeed; but yet that was not it, that was not it either. \" feel sick with depression and yet I can't tell what I want. Better no think, perhaps.\""},
{"text":"Ivan tried \"not to think,\" but that, too, was no use. What made hi depression so vexatious and irritating was that it had a kind o casual, external character--he felt that. Some person or thing seeme to be standing out somewhere, just as something will sometimes obtrud itself upon the eye, and though one may be so busy with work o conversation that for a long time one does not notice it, yet i irritates and almost torments one till at last one realizes, an removes the offending object, often quite a trifling and ridiculou one--some article left about in the wrong place, a handkerchief on th floor, a book not replaced on the shelf, and so on."},
{"text":"At last, feeling very cross and ill-humored, Ivan arrived home, an suddenly, about fifteen paces from the garden gate, he guessed what wa fretting and worrying him."},
{"text":"On a bench in the gateway the valet Smerdyakov was sitting enjoying th coolness of the evening, and at the first glance at him Ivan knew tha the valet Smerdyakov was on his mind, and that it was this man that hi soul loathed. It all dawned upon him suddenly and became clear. Jus before, when Alyosha had been telling him of his meeting wit Smerdyakov, he had felt a sudden twinge of gloom and loathing, whic had immediately stirred responsive anger in his heart. Afterwards, a he talked, Smerdyakov had been forgotten for the time; but still he ha been in his mind, and as soon as Ivan parted with Alyosha and wa walking home, the forgotten sensation began to obtrude itself again \"Is it possible that a miserable, contemptible creature like that ca worry me so much?\" he wondered, with insufferable irritation."},
{"text":"It was true that Ivan had come of late to feel an intense dislike fo the man, especially during the last few days. He had even begun t notice in himself a growing feeling that was almost of hatred for th creature. Perhaps this hatred was accentuated by the fact that whe Ivan first came to the neighborhood he had felt quite differently. The he had taken a marked interest in Smerdyakov, and had even thought hi very original. He had encouraged him to talk to him, although he ha always wondered at a certain incoherence, or rather restlessness, i his mind, and could not understand what it was that so continually an insistently worked upon the brain of \"the contemplative.\" The discussed philosophical questions and even how there could have bee light on the first day when the sun, moon, and stars were only create on the fourth day, and how that was to be understood. But Ivan soon sa that, though the sun, moon, and stars might be an interesting subject yet that it was quite secondary to Smerdyakov, and that he was lookin for something altogether different. In one way and another, he began t betray a boundless vanity, and a wounded vanity, too, and that Iva disliked. It had first given rise to his aversion. Later on, there ha been trouble in the house. Grushenka had come on the scene, and ther had been the scandals with his brother Dmitri--they discussed that too. But though Smerdyakov always talked of that with great excitement it was impossible to discover what he desired to come of it. There was in fact, something surprising in the illogicality and incoherence o some of his desires, accidentally betrayed and always vaguel expressed. Smerdyakov was always inquiring, putting certain indirec but obviously premeditated questions, but what his object was he di not explain, and usually at the most important moment he would brea off and relapse into silence or pass to another subject. But wha finally irritated Ivan most and confirmed his dislike for him was th peculiar, revolting familiarity which Smerdyakov began to show more an more markedly. Not that he forgot himself and was rude; on th contrary, he always spoke very respectfully, yet he had obviously begu to consider--goodness knows why!--that there was some sort o understanding between him and Ivan Fyodorovitch. He always spoke in  tone that suggested that those two had some kind of compact, som secret between them, that had at some time been expressed on bot sides, only known to them and beyond the comprehension of those aroun them. But for a long while Ivan did not recognize the real cause of hi growing dislike and he had only lately realized what was at the root o it."},
{"text":"With a feeling of disgust and irritation he tried to pass in at th gate without speaking or looking at Smerdyakov. But Smerdyakov ros from the bench, and from that action alone, Ivan knew instantly that h wanted particularly to talk to him. Ivan looked at him and stopped, an the fact that he did stop, instead of passing by, as he meant to th minute before, drove him to fury. With anger and repulsion he looked a Smerdyakov's emasculate, sickly face, with the little curls combe forward on his forehead. His left eye winked and he grinned as if t say, \"Where are you going? You won't pass by; you see that we tw clever people have something to say to each other.\""},
{"text":"Ivan shook. \"Get away, miserable idiot. What have I to do with you?\"was on the tip of his tongue, but to his profound astonishment he hear himself say, \"Is my father still asleep, or has he waked?\""},
{"text":"He asked the question softly and meekly, to his own surprise, and a once, again to his own surprise, sat down on the bench. For an instan he felt almost frightened; he remembered it afterwards. Smerdyako stood facing him, his hands behind his back, looking at him wit assurance and almost severity."},
{"text":"\"His honor is still asleep,\" he articulated deliberately (\"You were th first to speak, not I,\" he seemed to say). \"I am surprised at you sir,\" he added, after a pause, dropping his eyes affectedly, settin his right foot forward, and playing with the tip of his polished boot."},
{"text":"\"Why are you surprised at me?\" Ivan asked abruptly and sullenly, doin his utmost to restrain himself, and suddenly realizing, with disgust that he was feeling intense curiosity and would not, on any account have gone away without satisfying it."},
{"text":"\"Why don't you go to Tchermashnya, sir?\" Smerdyakov suddenly raised hi eyes and smiled familiarly. \"Why I smile you must understand o yourself, if you are a clever man,\" his screwed-up left eye seemed t say."},
{"text":"\"Why should I go to Tchermashnya?\" Ivan asked in surprise."},
{"text":"Smerdyakov was silent again."},
{"text":"\"Fyodor Pavlovitch himself has so begged you to,\" he said at last slowly and apparently attaching no significance to his answer. \"I pu you off with a secondary reason,\" he seemed to suggest, \"simply to sa something.\""},
{"text":"\"Damn you! Speak out what you want!\" Ivan cried angrily at last passing from meekness to violence."},
{"text":"Smerdyakov drew his right foot up to his left, pulled himself up, bu still looked at him with the same serenity and the same little smile."},
{"text":"\"Substantially nothing--but just by way of conversation.\""},
{"text":"Another silence followed. They did not speak for nearly a minute. Iva knew that he ought to get up and show anger, and Smerdyakov stoo before him and seemed to be waiting as though to see whether he woul be angry or not. So at least it seemed to Ivan. At last he moved to ge up. Smerdyakov seemed to seize the moment."},
{"text":"\"I'm in an awful position, Ivan Fyodorovitch. I don't know how to hel myself,\" he said resolutely and distinctly, and at his last word h sighed. Ivan Fyodorovitch sat down again."},
{"text":"\"They are both utterly crazy, they are no better than little children,\"Smerdyakov went on. \"I am speaking of your parent and your brothe Dmitri Fyodorovitch. Here Fyodor Pavlovitch will get up directly an begin worrying me every minute, `Has she come? Why hasn't she come? and so on up till midnight and even after midnight. And if Agrafen Alexandrovna doesn't come (for very likely she does not mean to come a all) then he will be at me again tomorrow morning, `Why hasn't sh come? When will she come?'--as though I were to blame for it. On th other side it's no better. As soon as it gets dark, or even before your brother will appear with his gun in his hands: `Look out, yo rogue, you soup-maker. If you miss her and don't let me know she' been--I'll kill you before anyone.' When the night's over, in th morning, he, too, like Fyodor Pavlovitch, begins worrying me to death `Why hasn't she come? Will she come soon?' And he, too, thinks me t blame because his lady hasn't come. And every day and every hour the get angrier and angrier, so that I sometimes think I shall kill mysel in a fright. I can't depend upon them, sir.\""},
{"text":"\"And why have you meddled? Why did you begin to spy for Dmitr Fyodorovitch?\" said Ivan irritably."},
{"text":"\"How could I help meddling? Though, indeed, I haven't meddled at all if you want to know the truth of the matter. I kept quiet from the ver beginning, not daring to answer; but he pitched on me to be hi servant. He has had only one thing to say since: `I'll kill you, yo scoundrel, if you miss her,' I feel certain, sir, that I shall have  long fit tomorrow.\""},
{"text":"\"What do you mean by `a long fit'?\""},
{"text":"\"A long fit, lasting a long time--several hours, or perhaps a day o two. Once it went on for three days. I fell from the garret that time The struggling ceased and then began again, and for three days  couldn't come back to my senses. Fyodor Pavlovitch sent fo Herzenstube, the doctor here, and he put ice on my head and trie another remedy, too. ... I might have died.\""},
{"text":"\"But they say one can't tell with epilepsy when a fit is coming. Wha makes you say you will have one tomorrow?\" Ivan inquired, with  peculiar, irritable curiosity."},
{"text":"\"That's just so. You can't tell beforehand.\""},
{"text":"\"Besides, you fell from the garret then.\""},
{"text":"\"I climb up to the garret every day. I might fall from the garret agai tomorrow. And, if not, I might fall down the cellar steps. I have to g into the cellar every day, too.\""},
{"text":"Ivan took a long look at him."},
{"text":"\"You are talking nonsense, I see, and I don't quite understand you,\" h said softly, but with a sort of menace. \"Do you mean to pretend to b ill tomorrow for three days, eh?\""},
{"text":"Smerdyakov, who was looking at the ground again, and playing with th toe of his right foot, set the foot down, moved the left one forward and, grinning, articulated:"},
{"text":"\"If I were able to play such a trick, that is, pretend to have  fit--and it would not be difficult for a man accustomed to them-- should have a perfect right to use such a means to save myself fro death. For even if Agrafena Alexandrovna comes to see his father whil I am ill, his honor can't blame a sick man for not telling him. He'd b ashamed to.\""},
{"text":"\"Hang it all!\" Ivan cried, his face working with anger, \"why are yo always in such a funk for your life? All my brother Dmitri's threat are only hasty words and mean nothing. He won't kill you; it's not yo he'll kill!\""},
{"text":"\"He'd kill me first of all, like a fly. But even more than that, I a afraid I shall be taken for an accomplice of his when he does somethin crazy to his father.\""},
{"text":"\"Why should you be taken for an accomplice?\""},
{"text":"\"They'll think I am an accomplice, because I let him know the signal as a great secret.\""},
{"text":"\"What signals? Whom did you tell? Confound you, speak more plainly.\""},
{"text":"\"I'm bound to admit the fact,\" Smerdyakov drawled with pedanti composure, \"that I have a secret with Fyodor Pavlovitch in thi business. As you know yourself (if only you do know it) he has fo several days past locked himself in as soon as night or even evenin comes on. Of late you've been going upstairs to your room early ever evening, and yesterday you did not come down at all, and so perhaps yo don't know how carefully he has begun to lock himself in at night, an even if Grigory Vassilyevitch comes to the door he won't open to hi till he hears his voice. But Grigory Vassilyevitch does not come because I wait upon him alone in his room now. That's the arrangemen he made himself ever since this to-do with Agrafena Alexandrovna began But at night, by his orders, I go away to the lodge so that I don't ge to sleep till midnight, but am on the watch, getting up and walkin about the yard, waiting for Agrafena Alexandrovna to come. For the las few days he's been perfectly frantic expecting her. What he argues is she is afraid of him, Dmitri Fyodorovitch (Mitya, as he calls him) `and so,' says he, `she'll come the back-way, late at night, to me. Yo look out for her,' says he, `till midnight and later; and if she doe come, you run up and knock at my door or at the window from the garden Knock at first twice, rather gently, and then three times more quickly then,' says he, `I shall understand at once that she has come, and wil open the door to you quietly.' Another signal he gave me in cas anything unexpected happens. At first, two knocks, and then, after a interval, another much louder. Then he will understand that somethin has happened suddenly and that I must see him, and he will open to m so that I can go and speak to him. That's all in case Agrafen Alexandrovna can't come herself, but sends a message. Besides, Dmitr Fyodorovitch might come, too, so I must let him know he is near. Hi honor is awfully afraid of Dmitri Fyodorovitch, so that even i Agrafena Alexandrovna had come and were locked in with him, and Dmitr Fyodorovitch were to turn up anywhere near at the time, I should b bound to let him know at once, knocking three times. So that the firs signal of five knocks means Agrafena Alexandrovna has come, while th second signal of three knocks means `something important to tell you. His honor has shown me them several times and explained them. And as i the whole universe no one knows of these signals but myself and hi honor, so he'd open the door without the slightest hesitation an without calling out (he is awfully afraid of calling out aloud). Well those signals are known to Dmitri Fyodorovitch too, now.\""},
{"text":"\"How are they known? Did you tell him? How dared you tell him?\""},
{"text":"\"It was through fright I did it. How could I dare to keep it back fro him? Dmitri Fyodorovitch kept persisting every day, `You are deceivin me, you are hiding something from me! I'll break both your legs fo you.' So I told him those secret signals that he might see my slavis devotion, and might be satisfied that I was not deceiving him, but wa telling him all I could.\""},
{"text":"\"If you think that he'll make use of those signals and try to get in don't let him in.\""},
{"text":"\"But if I should be laid up with a fit, how can I prevent him coming i then, even if I dared prevent him, knowing how desperate he is?\""},
{"text":"\"Hang it! How can you be so sure you are going to have a fit, confoun you? Are you laughing at me?\""},
{"text":"\"How could I dare laugh at you? I am in no laughing humor with thi fear on me. I feel I am going to have a fit. I have a presentiment Fright alone will bring it on.\""},
{"text":"\"Confound it! If you are laid up, Grigory will be on the watch. Le Grigory know beforehand; he will be sure not to let him in.\""},
{"text":"\"I should never dare to tell Grigory Vassilyevitch about the signal without orders from my master. And as for Grigory Vassilyevitch hearin him and not admitting him, he has been ill ever since yesterday, an Marfa Ignatyevna intends to give him medicine tomorrow. They've jus arranged it. It's a very strange remedy of hers. Marfa Ignatyevna know of a preparation and always keeps it. It's a strong thing made fro some herb. She has the secret of it, and she always gives it to Grigor Vassilyevitch three times a year when his lumbago's so bad he is almos paralyzed by it. Then she takes a towel, wets it with the stuff, an rubs his whole back for half an hour till it's quite red and swollen and what's left in the bottle she gives him to drink with a specia prayer; but not quite all, for on such occasions she leaves some fo herself, and drinks it herself. And as they never take strong drink,  assure you they both drop asleep at once and sleep sound a very lon time. And when Grigory Vassilyevitch wakes up he is perfectly wel after it, but Marfa Ignatyevna always has a headache from it. So, i Marfa Ignatyevna carries out her intention tomorrow, they won't hea anything and hinder Dmitri Fyodorovitch. They'll be asleep.\""},
{"text":"\"What a rigmarole! And it all seems to happen at once, as though i were planned. You'll have a fit and they'll both be unconscious,\" crie Ivan. \"But aren't you trying to arrange it so?\" broke from hi suddenly, and he frowned threateningly."},
{"text":"\"How could I? ... And why should I, when it all depends on Dmitr Fyodorovitch and his plans? ... If he means to do anything, he'll d it; but if not, I shan't be thrusting him upon his father.\""},
{"text":"\"And why should he go to father, especially on the sly, if, as you sa yourself, Agrafena Alexandrovna won't come at all?\" Ivan went on turning white with anger. \"You say that yourself, and all the whil I've been here, I've felt sure it was all the old man's fancy, and th creature won't come to him. Why should Dmitri break in on him if sh doesn't come? Speak, I want to know what you are thinking!\""},
{"text":"\"You know yourself why he'll come. What's the use of what I think? Hi honor will come simply because he is in a rage or suspicious on accoun of my illness perhaps, and he'll dash in, as he did yesterday throug impatience to search the rooms, to see whether she hasn't escaped hi on the sly. He is perfectly well aware, too, that Fyodor Pavlovitch ha a big envelope with three thousand roubles in it, tied up with ribbo and sealed with three seals. On it is written in his own hand, `To m angel Grushenka, if she will come,' to which he added three days later `for my little chicken.' There's no knowing what that might do.\""},
{"text":"\"Nonsense!\" cried Ivan, almost beside himself. \"Dmitri won't come t steal money and kill my father to do it. He might have killed hi yesterday on account of Grushenka, like the frantic, savage fool he is but he won't steal.\""},
{"text":"\"He is in very great need of money now--the greatest need, Iva Fyodorovitch. You don't know in what need he is,\" Smerdyakov explained with perfect composure and remarkable distinctness. \"He looks on tha three thousand as his own, too. He said so to me himself. `My fathe still owes me just three thousand,' he said. And besides that consider, Ivan Fyodorovitch, there is something else perfectly true It's as good as certain, so to say, that Agrafena Alexandrovna wil force him, if only she cares to, to marry her--the master himself,  mean, Fyodor Pavlovitch--if only she cares to, and of course she ma care to. All I've said is that she won't come, but maybe she's lookin for more than that--I mean to be mistress here. I know myself tha Samsonov, her merchant, was laughing with her about it, telling he quite openly that it would not be at all a stupid thing to do. An she's got plenty of sense. She wouldn't marry a beggar like Dmitr Fyodorovitch. So, taking that into consideration, Ivan Fyodorovitch reflect that then neither Dmitri Fyodorovitch nor yourself and you brother, Alexey Fyodorovitch, would have anything after the master' death, not a rouble, for Agrafena Alexandrovna would marry him simpl to get hold of the whole, all the money there is. But if your fathe were to die now, there'd be some forty thousand for sure, even fo Dmitri Fyodorovitch whom he hates so, for he's made no will. .. Dmitri Fyodorovitch knows all that very well.\""},
{"text":"A sort of shudder passed over Ivan's face. He suddenly flushed."},
{"text":"\"Then why on earth,\" he suddenly interrupted Smerdyakov, \"do you advis me to go to Tchermashnya? What did you mean by that? If I go away, yo see what will happen here.\" Ivan drew his breath with difficulty."},
{"text":"\"Precisely so,\" said Smerdyakov, softly and reasonably, watching Iva intently, however."},
{"text":"\"What do you mean by `precisely so'?\" Ivan questioned him, with  menacing light in his eyes, restraining himself with difficulty."},
{"text":"\"I spoke because I felt sorry for you. If I were in your place I shoul simply throw it all up ... rather than stay on in such a position,\"answered Smerdyakov, with the most candid air looking at Ivan' flashing eyes. They were both silent."},
{"text":"\"You seem to be a perfect idiot, and what's more ... an awfu scoundrel, too.\" Ivan rose suddenly from the bench. He was about t pass straight through the gate, but he stopped short and turned t Smerdyakov. Something strange followed. Ivan, in a sudden paroxysm, bi his lip, clenched his fists, and, in another minute, would have flun himself on Smerdyakov. The latter, anyway, noticed it at the sam moment, started, and shrank back. But the moment passed withou mischief to Smerdyakov, and Ivan turned in silence, as it seemed i perplexity, to the gate."},
{"text":"\"I am going away to Moscow tomorrow, if you care to know--earl tomorrow morning. That's all!\" he suddenly said aloud angrily, an wondered himself afterwards what need there was to say this then t Smerdyakov."},
{"text":"\"That's the best thing you can do,\" he responded, as though he ha expected to hear it; \"except that you can always be telegraphed fo from Moscow, if anything should happen here.\""},
{"text":"Ivan stopped again, and again turned quickly to Smerdyakov. But  change had passed over him, too. All his familiarity and carelessnes had completely disappeared. His face expressed attention an expectation, intent but timid and cringing."},
{"text":"\"Haven't you something more to say--something to add?\" could be rea in the intent gaze he fixed on Ivan."},
{"text":"\"And couldn't I be sent for from Tchermashnya, too--in case anythin happened?\" Ivan shouted suddenly, for some unknown reason raising hi voice."},
{"text":"\"From Tchermashnya, too ... you could be sent for,\" Smerdyako muttered, almost in a whisper, looking disconcerted, but gazin intently into Ivan's eyes."},
{"text":"\"Only Moscow is farther and Tchermashnya is nearer. Is it to save m spending money on the fare, or to save my going so far out of my way that you insist on Tchermashnya?\""},
{"text":"\"Precisely so ...\" muttered Smerdyakov, with a breaking voice. H looked at Ivan with a revolting smile, and again made ready to dra back. But to his astonishment Ivan broke into a laugh, and went throug the gate still laughing. Anyone who had seen his face at that momen would have known that he was not laughing from lightness of heart, an he could not have explained himself what he was feeling at tha instant. He moved and walked as though in a nervous frenzy."},
{"text":" VII"},
{"text":"\"It's Always Worth While Speaking to a Clever Man\""},
{"text":"And in the same nervous frenzy, too, he spoke. Meeting Fyodo Pavlovitch in the drawing-room directly he went in, he shouted to him waving his hands, \"I am going upstairs to my room, not in to you Goodbye!\" and passed by, trying not even to look at his father. Ver possibly the old man was too hateful to him at that moment; but such a unceremonious display of hostility was a surprise even to Fyodo Pavlovitch. And the old man evidently wanted to tell him something a once and had come to meet him in the drawing-room on purpose. Receivin this amiable greeting, he stood still in silence and with an ironica air watched his son going upstairs, till he passed out of sight."},
{"text":"\"What's the matter with him?\" he promptly asked Smerdyakov, who ha followed Ivan."},
{"text":"\"Angry about something. Who can tell?\" the valet muttered evasively."},
{"text":"\"Confound him! Let him be angry then. Bring in the samovar, and ge along with you. Look sharp! No news?\""},
{"text":"Then followed a series of questions such as Smerdyakov had jus complained of to Ivan, all relating to his expected visitor, and thes questions we will omit. Half an hour later the house was locked, an the crazy old man was wandering along through the rooms in excite expectation of hearing every minute the five knocks agreed upon. No and then he peered out into the darkness, seeing nothing."},
{"text":"It was very late, but Ivan was still awake and reflecting. He sat u late that night, till two o'clock. But we will not give an account o his thoughts, and this is not the place to look into that soul--it turn will come. And even if one tried, it would be very hard to give a account of them, for there were no thoughts in his brain, but somethin very vague, and, above all, intense excitement. He felt himself that h had lost his bearings. He was fretted, too, by all sorts of strange an almost surprising desires; for instance, after midnight he suddenly ha an intense irresistible inclination to go down, open the door, go t the lodge and beat Smerdyakov. But if he had been asked why, he coul not have given any exact reason, except perhaps that he loathed th valet as one who had insulted him more gravely than anyone in th world. On the other hand, he was more than once that night overcome b a sort of inexplicable humiliating terror, which he felt positivel paralyzed his physical powers. His head ached and he was giddy.  feeling of hatred was rankling in his heart, as though he meant t avenge himself on someone. He even hated Alyosha, recalling th conversation he had just had with him. At moments he hated himsel intensely. Of Katerina Ivanovna he almost forgot to think, and wondere greatly at this afterwards, especially as he remembered perfectly tha when he had protested so valiantly to Katerina Ivanovna that he woul go away next day to Moscow, something had whispered in his heart \"That's nonsense, you are not going, and it won't be so easy to tea yourself away as you are boasting now.\""},
{"text":"Remembering that night long afterwards, Ivan recalled with peculia repulsion how he had suddenly got up from the sofa and had stealthily as though he were afraid of being watched, opened the door, gone out o the staircase and listened to Fyodor Pavlovitch stirring down below had listened a long while--some five minutes--with a sort of strang curiosity, holding his breath while his heart throbbed. And why he ha done all this, why he was listening, he could not have said. Tha \"action\" all his life afterwards he called \"infamous,\" and at th bottom of his heart, he thought of it as the basest action of his life For Fyodor Pavlovitch himself he felt no hatred at that moment, but wa simply intensely curious to know how he was walking down there belo and what he must be doing now. He wondered and imagined how he must b peeping out of the dark windows and stopping in the middle of the room listening, listening--for someone to knock. Ivan went out on to th stairs twice to listen like this."},
{"text":"About two o'clock when everything was quiet, and even Fyodor Pavlovitc had gone to bed, Ivan had got into bed, firmly resolved to fall aslee at once, as he felt fearfully exhausted. And he did fall asleep a once, and slept soundly without dreams, but waked early, at seve o'clock, when it was broad daylight. Opening his eyes, he was surprise to feel himself extraordinarily vigorous. He jumped up at once an dressed quickly; then dragged out his trunk and began packin immediately. His linen had come back from the laundress the previou morning. Ivan positively smiled at the thought that everything wa helping his sudden departure. And his departure certainly was sudden Though Ivan had said the day before (to Katerina Ivanovna, Alyosha, an Smerdyakov) that he was leaving next day, yet he remembered that he ha no thought of departure when he went to bed, or, at least, had no dreamed that his first act in the morning would be to pack his trunk At last his trunk and bag were ready. It was about nine o'clock whe Marfa Ignatyevna came in with her usual inquiry, \"Where will your hono take your tea, in your own room or downstairs?\" He looked almos cheerful, but there was about him, about his words and gestures something hurried and scattered. Greeting his father affably, and eve inquiring specially after his health, though he did not wait to hea his answer to the end, he announced that he was starting off in an hou to return to Moscow for good, and begged him to send for the horses His father heard this announcement with no sign of surprise, and forgo in an unmannerly way to show regret at losing him. Instead of doing so he flew into a great flutter at the recollection of some importan business of his own."},
{"text":"\"What a fellow you are! Not to tell me yesterday! Never mind; we'l manage it all the same. Do me a great service, my dear boy. Go t Tchermashnya on the way. It's only to turn to the left from the statio at Volovya, only another twelve versts and you come to Tchermashnya.\""},
{"text":"\"I'm sorry, I can't. It's eighty versts to the railway and the trai starts for Moscow at seven o'clock tonight. I can only just catch it.\""},
{"text":"\"You'll catch it tomorrow or the day after, but today turn off t Tchermashnya. It won't put you out much to humor your father! If  hadn't had something to keep me here, I would have run over myself lon ago, for I've some business there in a hurry. But here I ... it's no the time for me to go now. ... You see, I've two pieces of copse lan there. The Maslovs, an old merchant and his son, will give eigh thousand for the timber. But last year I just missed a purchaser wh would have given twelve. There's no getting anyone about here to bu it. The Maslovs have it all their own way. One has to take what they'l give, for no one here dare bid against them. The priest at Ilyinsko wrote to me last Thursday that a merchant called Gorstkin, a man  know, had turned up. What makes him valuable is that he is not fro these parts, so he is not afraid of the Maslovs. He says he will giv me eleven thousand for the copse. Do you hear? But he'll only be here the priest writes, for a week altogether, so you must go at once an make a bargain with him.\""},
{"text":"\"Well, you write to the priest; he'll make the bargain.\""},
{"text":"\"He can't do it. He has no eye for business. He is a perfect treasure I'd give him twenty thousand to take care of for me without a receipt but he has no eye for business, he is a perfect child, a crow coul deceive him. And yet he is a learned man, would you believe it? Thi Gorstkin looks like a peasant, he wears a blue kaftan, but he is  regular rogue. That's the common complaint. He is a liar. Sometimes h tells such lies that you wonder why he is doing it. He told me the yea before last that his wife was dead and that he had married another, an would you believe it, there was not a word of truth in it? His wife ha never died at all, she is alive to this day and gives him a beatin twice a week. So what you have to find out is whether he is lying o speaking the truth, when he says he wants to buy it and would giv eleven thousand.\""},
{"text":"\"I shall be no use in such a business. I have no eye either.\""},
{"text":"\"Stay, wait a bit! You will be of use, for I will tell you the signs b which you can judge about Gorstkin. I've done business with him a lon time. You see, you must watch his beard; he has a nasty, thin, re beard. If his beard shakes when he talks and he gets cross, it's al right, he is saying what he means, he wants to do business. But if h strokes his beard with his left hand and grins--he is trying to chea you. Don't watch his eyes, you won't find out anything from his eyes he is a deep one, a rogue--but watch his beard! I'll give you a not and you show it to him. He's called Gorstkin, though his real name i Lyagavy;[132]4 but don't call him so, he will be offended. If you com to an understanding with him, and see it's all right, write here a once. You need only write: `He's not lying.' Stand out for eleve thousand; one thousand you can knock off, but not more. Just think there's a difference between eight thousand and eleven thousand. It' as good as picking up three thousand; it's not so easy to find  purchaser, and I'm in desperate need of money. Only let me know it' serious, and I'll run over and fix it up. I'll snatch the time somehow But what's the good of my galloping over, if it's all a notion of th priest's? Come, will you go?\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, I can't spare the time. You must excuse me.\""},
{"text":"\"Come, you might oblige your father. I shan't forget it. You've n heart, any of you--that's what it is? What's a day or two to you Where are you going now--to Venice? Your Venice will keep another tw days. I would have sent Alyosha, but what use is Alyosha in a thin like that? I send you just because you are a clever fellow. Do yo suppose I don't see that? You know nothing about timber, but you've go an eye. All that is wanted is to see whether the man is in earnest.  tell you, watch his beard--if his beard shakes you know he is i earnest.\""},
{"text":"\"You force me to go to that damned Tchermashnya yourself, then?\" crie Ivan, with a malignant smile."},
{"text":"Fyodor Pavlovitch did not catch, or would not catch, the malignancy but he caught the smile."},
{"text":"\"Then you'll go, you'll go? I'll scribble the note for you at once.\""},
{"text":"\"I don't know whether I shall go. I don't know. I'll decide on th way.\""},
{"text":"\"Nonsense! Decide at once. My dear fellow, decide! If you settle th matter, write me a line; give it to the priest and he'll send it on t me at once. And I won't delay you more than that. You can go to Venice The priest will give you horses back to Volovya station.\""},
{"text":"The old man was quite delighted. He wrote the note, and sent for th horses. A light lunch was brought in, with brandy. When Fyodo Pavlovitch was pleased, he usually became expansive, but today h seemed to restrain himself. Of Dmitri, for instance, he did not say  word. He was quite unmoved by the parting, and seemed, in fact, at  loss for something to say. Ivan noticed this particularly. \"He must b bored with me,\" he thought. Only when accompanying his son out on t the steps, the old man began to fuss about. He would have kissed him but Ivan made haste to hold out his hand, obviously avoiding the kiss His father saw it at once, and instantly pulled himself up."},
{"text":"\"Well, good luck to you, good luck to you!\" he repeated from the steps \"You'll come again some time or other? Mind you do come. I shall alway be glad to see you. Well, Christ be with you!\""},
{"text":"Ivan got into the carriage."},
{"text":"\"Goodbye, Ivan! Don't be too hard on me!\" the father called for th last time."},
{"text":"The whole household came out to take leave--Smerdyakov, Marfa an Grigory. Ivan gave them ten roubles each. When he had seated himself i the carriage, Smerdyakov jumped up to arrange the rug."},
{"text":"\"You see ... I am going to Tchermashnya,\" broke suddenly from Ivan Again, as the day before, the words seemed to drop of themselves, an he laughed, too, a peculiar, nervous laugh. He remembered it lon after."},
{"text":"\"It's a true saying then, that `it's always worth while speaking to  clever man,' \" answered Smerdyakov firmly, looking significantly a Ivan."},
{"text":"The carriage rolled away. Nothing was clear in Ivan's soul, but h looked eagerly around him at the fields, at the hills, at the trees, a a flock of geese flying high overhead in the bright sky. And all of  sudden he felt very happy. He tried to talk to the driver, and he fel intensely interested in an answer the peasant made him; but a minut later he realized that he was not catching anything, and that he ha not really even taken in the peasant's answer. He was silent, and i was pleasant even so. The air was fresh, pure and cool, the sky bright The images of Alyosha and Katerina Ivanovna floated into his mind. Bu he softly smiled, blew softly on the friendly phantoms, and they fle away. \"There's plenty of time for them,\" he thought. They reached th station quickly, changed horses, and galloped to Volovya. \"Why is i worth while speaking to a clever man? What did he mean by that?\" Th thought seemed suddenly to clutch at his breathing. \"And why did I tel him I was going to Tchermashnya?\" They reached Volovya station. Iva got out of the carriage, and the drivers stood round him bargainin over the journey of twelve versts to Tchermashnya. He told them t harness the horses. He went into the station house, looked round glanced at the overseer's wife, and suddenly went back to the entrance."},
{"text":"\"I won't go to Tchermashnya. Am I too late to reach the railway b seven, brothers?\""},
{"text":"\"We shall just do it. Shall we get the carriage out?\""},
{"text":"\"At once. Will any one of you be going to the town tomorrow?\""},
{"text":"\"To be sure. Mitri here will.\""},
{"text":"\"Can you do me a service, Mitri? Go to my father's, to Fyodo Pavlovitch Karamazov, and tell him I haven't gone to Tchermashnya. Ca you?\""},
{"text":"\"Of course I can. I've known Fyodor Pavlovitch a long time.\""},
{"text":"\"And here's something for you, for I dare say he won't give yo anything,\" said Ivan, laughing gayly."},
{"text":"\"You may depend on it he won't.\" Mitya laughed too. \"Thank you, sir I'll be sure to do it.\""},
{"text":"At seven o'clock Ivan got into the train and set off to Moscow \"Awa with the past. I've done with the old world forever, and may I have n news, no echo, from it. To a new life, new places and no looking back!\"But instead of delight his soul was filled with such gloom, and hi heart ached with such anguish, as he had never known in his lif before. He was thinking all the night. The train flew on, and only a daybreak, when he was approaching Moscow, he suddenly roused himsel from his meditation."},
{"text":"\"I am a scoundrel,\" he whispered to himself."},
{"text":"Fyodor Pavlovitch remained well satisfied at having seen his son off For two hours afterwards he felt almost happy, and sat drinking brandy But suddenly something happened which was very annoying and unpleasan for everyone in the house, and completely upset Fyodor Pavlovitch' equanimity at once. Smerdyakov went to the cellar for something an fell down from the top of the steps. Fortunately, Marfa Ignatyevna wa in the yard and heard him in time. She did not see the fall, but hear his scream--the strange, peculiar scream, long familiar to her--th scream of the epileptic falling in a fit. They could not tell whethe the fit had come on him at the moment he was descending the steps, s that he must have fallen unconscious, or whether it was the fall an the shock that had caused the fit in Smerdyakov, who was known to b liable to them. They found him at the bottom of the cellar steps writhing in convulsions and foaming at the mouth. It was thought a first that he must have broken something--an arm or a leg--and hur himself, but \"God had preserved him,\" as Marfa Ignatyevna expresse it--nothing of the kind had happened. But it was difficult to get hi out of the cellar. They asked the neighbors to help and managed i somehow. Fyodor Pavlovitch himself was present at the whole ceremony He helped, evidently alarmed and upset. The sick man did not regai consciousness; the convulsions ceased for a time, but then began again and everyone concluded that the same thing would happen, as ha happened a year before, when he accidentally fell from the garret. The remembered that ice had been put on his head then. There was still ic in the cellar, and Marfa Ignatyevna had some brought up. In th evening, Fyodor Pavlovitch sent for Doctor Herzenstube, who arrived a once. He was a most estimable old man, and the most careful an conscientious doctor in the province. After careful examination, h concluded that the fit was a very violent one and might have seriou consequences; that meanwhile he, Herzenstube, did not fully understan it, but that by tomorrow morning, if the present remedies wer unavailing, he would venture to try something else. The invalid wa taken to the lodge, to a room next to Grigory's and Marfa Ignatyevna's."},
{"text":"Then Fyodor Pavlovitch had one misfortune after another to put up wit that day. Marfa Ignatyevna cooked the dinner, and the soup, compare with Smerdyakov's, was \"no better than dishwater,\" and the fowl was s dried up that it was impossible to masticate it. To her master' bitter, though deserved, reproaches, Marfa Ignatyevna replied that th fowl was a very old one to begin with, and that she had never bee trained as a cook. In the evening there was another trouble in stor for Fyodor Pavlovitch; he was informed that Grigory, who had not bee well for the last three days, was completely laid up by his lumbago Fyodor Pavlovitch finished his tea as early as possible and locke himself up alone in the house. He was in terrible excitement an suspense. That evening he reckoned on Grushenka's coming almost as  certainty. He had received from Smerdyakov that morning an assuranc \"that she had promised to come without fail.\" The incorrigible ol man's heart throbbed with excitement; he paced up and down his empt rooms listening. He had to be on the alert. Dmitri might be on th watch for her somewhere, and when she knocked on the window (Smerdyako had informed him two days before that he had told her where and how t knock) the door must be opened at once. She must not be a second in th passage, for fear--which God forbid!--that she should be frightene and run away. Fyodor Pavlovitch had much to think of, but never had hi heart been steeped in such voluptuous hopes. This time he could sa almost certainly that she would come!"},
{"text":"ook VI"},
{"text":"The Russian Monk"},
{"text":" I"},
{"text":"Father Zossima and His Visitors"},
{"text":"When with an anxious and aching heart Alyosha went into his elder' cell, he stood still almost astonished. Instead of a sick man at hi last gasp, perhaps unconscious, as he had feared to find him, he sa him sitting up in his chair and, though weak and exhausted, his fac was bright and cheerful, he was surrounded by visitors and engaged in  quiet and joyful conversation. But he had only got up from his bed  quarter of an hour before Alyosha's arrival; his visitors had gathere together in his cell earlier, waiting for him to wake, having receive a most confident assurance from Father Passy that \"the teacher woul get up, and as he had himself promised in the morning, converse onc more with those dear to his heart.\" This promise and indeed every wor of the dying elder Father Passy put implicit trust in. If he had see him unconscious, if he had seen him breathe his last, and yet had hi promise that he would rise up and say goodbye to him, he would not hav believed perhaps even in death, but would still have expected the dea man to recover and fulfill his promise. In the morning as he lay dow to sleep, Father Zossima had told him positively: \"I shall not di without the delight of another conversation with you, beloved of m heart. I shall look once more on your dear face and pour out my hear to you once again.\" The monks, who had gathered for this probably las conversation with Father Zossima, had all been his devoted friends fo many years. There were four of them: Father Iosif and Father Passy Father Mihal, the warden of the hermitage, a man not very old and fa from being learned. He was of humble origin, of strong will an steadfast faith, of austere appearance, but of deep tenderness, thoug he obviously concealed it as though he were almost ashamed of it. Th fourth, Father Anfim, was a very old and humble little monk of th poorest peasant class. He was almost illiterate, and very quiet scarcely speaking to anyone. He was the humblest of the humble, an looked as though he had been frightened by something great and awfu beyond the scope of his intelligence. Father Zossima had a grea affection for this timorous man, and always treated him with marke respect, though perhaps there was no one he had known to whom he ha said less, in spite of the fact that he had spent years wandering abou holy Russia with him. That was very long ago, forty years before, whe Father Zossima first began his life as a monk in a poor and littl monastery at Kostroma, and when, shortly after, he had accompanie Father Anfim on his pilgrimage to collect alms for their poo monastery."},
{"text":"The whole party were in the bedroom which, as we mentioned before, wa very small, so that there was scarcely room for the four of them (i addition to Porfiry, the novice, who stood) to sit round Father Zossim on chairs brought from the sitting-room. It was already beginning t get dark, the room was lighted up by the lamps and the candles befor the icons."},
{"text":"Seeing Alyosha standing embarrassed in the doorway, Father Zossim smiled at him joyfully and held out his hand."},
{"text":"\"Welcome, my quiet one, welcome, my dear, here you are too. I knew yo would come.\""},
{"text":"Alyosha went up to him, bowed down before him to the ground and wept Something surged up from his heart, his soul was quivering, he wante to sob."},
{"text":"\"Come, don't weep over me yet,\" Father Zossima smiled, laying his righ hand on his head. \"You see I am sitting up talking; maybe I shall liv another twenty years yet, as that dear good woman from Vishegorye, wit her little Lizaveta in her arms, wished me yesterday. God bless th mother and the little girl Lizaveta,\" he crossed himself. \"Porfiry, di you take her offering where I told you?\""},
{"text":"He meant the sixty copecks brought him the day before by th good-humored woman to be given \"to someone poorer than me.\" Suc offerings, always of money gained by personal toil, are made by way o penance voluntarily undertaken. The elder had sent Porfiry the evenin before to a widow, whose house had been burnt down lately, and wh after the fire had gone with her children begging alms. Porfir hastened to reply that he had given the money, as he had bee instructed, \"from an unknown benefactress.\""},
{"text":"\"Get up, my dear boy,\" the elder went on to Alyosha. \"Let me look a you. Have you been home and seen your brother?\" It seemed strange t Alyosha that he asked so confidently and precisely, about one of hi brothers only--but which one? Then perhaps he had sent him out bot yesterday and today for the sake of that brother."},
{"text":"\"I have seen one of my brothers,\" answered Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"I mean the elder one, to whom I bowed down.\""},
{"text":"\"I only saw him yesterday and could not find him today,\" said Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"Make haste to find him, go again tomorrow and make haste, leav everything and make haste. Perhaps you may still have time to preven something terrible. I bowed down yesterday to the great suffering i store for him.\""},
{"text":"He was suddenly silent and seemed to be pondering. The words wer strange. Father Iosif, who had witnessed the scene yesterday, exchange glances with Father Passy. Alyosha could not resist asking:"},
{"text":"\"Father and teacher,\" he began with extreme emotion, \"your words ar too obscure. ... What is this suffering in store for him?\""},
{"text":"\"Don't inquire. I seemed to see something terrible yesterday ... a though his whole future were expressed in his eyes. A look came int his eyes--so that I was instantly horror-stricken at what that man i preparing for himself. Once or twice in my life I've seen such a loo in a man's face ... reflecting as it were his future fate, and tha fate, alas, came to pass. I sent you to him, Alexey, for I thought you brotherly face would help him. But everything and all our fates ar from the Lord. `Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, i abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.' Remembe that. You, Alexey, I've many times silently blessed for your face, kno that,\" added the elder with a gentle smile. \"This is what I think o you, you will go forth from these walls, but will live like a monk i the world. You will have many enemies, but even your foes will lov you. Life will bring you many misfortunes, but you will find you happiness in them, and will bless life and will make others bles it--which is what matters most. Well, that is your character. Father and teachers,\" he addressed his friends with a tender smile, \"I hav never till today told even him why the face of this youth is so dear t me. Now I will tell you. His face has been as it were a remembrance an a prophecy for me. At the dawn of my life when I was a child I had a elder brother who died before my eyes at seventeen. And later on in th course of my life I gradually became convinced that that brother ha been for a guidance and a sign from on high for me. For had he not com into my life, I should never perhaps, so I fancy at least, have becom a monk and entered on this precious path. He appeared first to me in m childhood, and here, at the end of my pilgrimage, he seems to have com to me over again. It is marvelous, fathers and teachers, that Alexey who has some, though not a great, resemblance in face, seems to me s like him spiritually, that many times I have taken him for that youn man, my brother, mysteriously come back to me at the end of m pilgrimage, as a reminder and an inspiration. So that I positivel wondered at so strange a dream in myself. Do you hear this, Porfiry?\"he turned to the novice who waited on him. \"Many times I've seen i your face as it were a look of mortification that I love Alexey mor than you. Now you know why that was so, but I love you too, know that and many times I grieved at your mortification. I should like to tel you, dear friends, of that youth, my brother, for there has been n presence in my life more precious, more significant and touching. M heart is full of tenderness, and I look at my whole life at this momen as though living through it again.\"  __________________________________________________________________"},
{"text":"Here I must observe that this last conversation of Father Zossima wit the friends who visited him on the last day of his life has been partl preserved in writing. Alexey Fyodorovitch Karamazov wrote it down fro memory, some time after his elder's death. But whether this was onl the conversation that took place then, or whether he added to it hi notes of parts of former conversations with his teacher, I canno determine. In his account, Father Zossima's talk goes on withou interruption, as though he told his life to his friends in the form o a story, though there is no doubt, from other accounts of it, that th conversation that evening was general. Though the guests did no interrupt Father Zossima much, yet they too talked, perhaps even tol something themselves. Besides, Father Zossima could not have carried o an uninterrupted narrative, for he was sometimes gasping for breath his voice failed him, and he even lay down to rest on his bed, thoug he did not fall asleep and his visitors did not leave their seats. Onc or twice the conversation was interrupted by Father Passy's readin the Gospel. It is worthy of note, too, that no one of them suppose that he would die that night, for on that evening of his life after hi deep sleep in the day he seemed suddenly to have found new strength which kept him up through this long conversation. It was like a las effort of love which gave him marvelous energy; only for a little time however, for his life was cut short immediately. ... But of tha later. I will only add now that I have preferred to confine myself t the account given by Alexey Fyodorovitch Karamazov. It will be shorte and not so fatiguing, though of course, as I must repeat, Alyosha too a great deal from previous conversations and added them to it."},
{"text":"Notes of the Life of the deceased Priest and Monk, the Elder Zossima taken from his own words by Alexey Fyodorovitch Karamazov."},
{"text":"Biographical Notes"},
{"text":"(a) Father Zossima's Brother"},
{"text":"Beloved fathers and teachers, I was born in a distant province in th north, in the town of V. My father was a gentleman by birth, but of n great consequence or position. He died when I was only two years old and I don't remember him at all. He left my mother a small house buil of wood, and a fortune, not large, but sufficient to keep her and he children in comfort. There were two of us, my elder brother Markel an I. He was eight years older than I was, of hasty irritable temperament but kindhearted and never ironical. He was remarkably silent especially at home with me, his mother, and the servants. He did wel at school, but did not get on with his schoolfellows, though he neve quarreled, at least so my mother has told me. Six months before hi death, when he was seventeen, he made friends with a political exil who had been banished from Moscow to our town for freethinking, and le a solitary existence there. He was a good scholar who had gaine distinction in philosophy in the university. Something made him take  fancy to Markel, and he used to ask him to see him. The young man woul spend whole evenings with him during that winter, till the exile wa summoned to Petersburg to take up his post again at his own request, a he had powerful friends."},
{"text":"It was the beginning of Lent, and Markel would not fast, he was rud and laughed at it. \"That's all silly twaddle, and there is no God,\" h said, horrifying my mother, the servants, and me too. For though I wa only nine, I too was aghast at hearing such words. We had fou servants, all serfs. I remember my mother selling one of the four, th cook Afimya, who was lame and elderly, for sixty paper roubles, an hiring a free servant to take her place."},
{"text":"In the sixth week in Lent, my brother, who was never strong and had  tendency to consumption, was taken ill. He was tall but thin an delicate-looking, and of very pleasing countenance. I suppose he caugh cold, anyway the doctor, who came, soon whispered to my mother that i was galloping consumption, that he would not live through the spring My mother began weeping, and, careful not to alarm my brother, sh entreated him to go to church, to confess and take the sacrament, as h was still able to move about. This made him angry, and he sai something profane about the church. He grew thoughtful, however; h guessed at once that he was seriously ill, and that that was why hi mother was begging him to confess and take the sacrament. He had bee aware, indeed, for a long time past, that he was far from well, and ha a year before coolly observed at dinner to our mother and me, \"My lif won't be long among you, I may not live another year,\" which seemed no like a prophecy."},
{"text":"Three days passed and Holy Week had come. And on Tuesday morning m brother began going to church. \"I am doing this simply for your sake mother, to please and comfort you,\" he said. My mother wept with jo and grief. \"His end must be near,\" she thought, \"if there's such  change in him.\" But he was not able to go to church long, he took t his bed, so he had to confess and take the sacrament at home."},
{"text":"It was a late Easter, and the days were bright, fine, and full o fragrance. I remember he used to cough all night and sleep badly, bu in the morning he dressed and tried to sit up in an armchair. That' how I remember him sitting, sweet and gentle, smiling, his face brigh and joyous, in spite of his illness. A marvelous change passed ove him, his spirit seemed transformed. The old nurse would come in an say, \"Let me light the lamp before the holy image, my dear.\" And onc he would not have allowed it and would have blown it out."},
{"text":"\"Light it, light it, dear, I was a wretch to have prevented you doin it. You are praying when you light the lamp, and I am praying when  rejoice seeing you. So we are praying to the same God.\""},
{"text":"Those words seemed strange to us, and mother would go to her room an weep, but when she went in to him she wiped her eyes and looke cheerful. \"Mother, don't weep, darling,\" he would say, \"I've long t live yet, long to rejoice with you, and life is glad and joyful.\""},
{"text":"\"Ah, dear boy, how can you talk of joy when you lie feverish at night coughing as though you would tear yourself to pieces.\""},
{"text":"\"Don't cry, mother,\" he would answer, \"life is paradise, and we are al in paradise, but we won't see it, if we would, we should have heaven o earth the next day.\""},
{"text":"Everyone wondered at his words, he spoke so strangely and positively we were all touched and wept. Friends came to see us. \"Dear ones,\" h would say to them, \"what have I done that you should love me so, ho can you love anyone like me, and how was it I did not know, I did no appreciate it before?\""},
{"text":"When the servants came in to him he would say continually, \"Dear, kin people, why are you doing so much for me, do I deserve to be waited on If it were God's will for me to live, I would wait on you, for all me should wait on one another.\""},
{"text":"Mother shook her head as she listened. \"My darling, it's your illnes makes you talk like that.\""},
{"text":"\"Mother, darling,\" he would say, \"there must be servants and masters but if so I will be the servant of my servants, the same as they are t me. And another thing, mother, every one of us has sinned against al men, and I more than any.\""},
{"text":"Mother positively smiled at that, smiled through her tears. \"Why, ho could you have sinned against all men, more than all? Robbers an murderers have done that, but what sin have you committed yet, that yo hold yourself more guilty than all?\""},
{"text":"\"Mother, little heart of mine,\" he said (he had begun using suc strange caressing words at that time), \"little heart of mine, my joy believe me, everyone is really responsible to all men for all men an for everything. I don't know how to explain it to you, but I feel it i so, painfully even. And how is it we went on then living, getting angr and not knowing?\""},
{"text":"So he would get up every day, more and more sweet and joyous and ful of love. When the doctor, an old German called Eisenschmidt, came:"},
{"text":"\"Well, doctor, have I another day in this world?\" he would ask, joking."},
{"text":"\"You'll live many days yet,\" the doctor would answer, \"and months an years too.\""},
{"text":"\"Months and years!\" he would exclaim. \"Why reckon the days? One day i enough for a man to know all happiness. My dear ones, why do w quarrel, try to outshine each other and keep grudges against eac other? Let's go straight into the garden, walk and play there, love appreciate, and kiss each other, and glorify life.\""},
{"text":"\"Your son cannot last long,\" the doctor told my mother, as sh accompanied him to the door. \"The disease is affecting his brain.\""},
{"text":"The windows of his room looked out into the garden, and our garden wa a shady one, with old trees in it which were coming into bud. The firs birds of spring were flitting in the branches, chirruping and singin at the windows. And looking at them and admiring them, he bega suddenly begging their forgiveness too: \"Birds of heaven, happy birds forgive me, for I have sinned against you too.\" None of us coul understand that at the time, but he shed tears of joy. \"Yes,\" he said \"there was such a glory of God all about me: birds, trees, meadows sky; only I lived in shame and dishonored it all and did not notice th beauty and glory.\""},
{"text":"\"You take too many sins on yourself,\" mother used to say, weeping."},
{"text":"\"Mother, darling, it's for joy, not for grief I am crying. Though  can't explain it to you, I like to humble myself before them, for  don't know how to love them enough. If I have sinned against everyone yet all forgive me, too, and that's heaven. Am I not in heaven now?\""},
{"text":"And there was a great deal more I don't remember. I remember I wen once into his room when there was no one else there. It was a brigh evening, the sun was setting, and the whole room was lighted up. H beckoned me, and I went up to him. He put his hands on my shoulders an looked into my face tenderly, lovingly; he said nothing for a minute only looked at me like that."},
{"text":"\"Well,\" he said, \"run and play now, enjoy life for me too.\""},
{"text":"I went out then and ran to play. And many times in my life afterwards  remembered even with tears how he told me to enjoy life for him too There were many other marvelous and beautiful sayings of his, though w did not understand them at the time. He died the third week afte Easter. He was fully conscious though he could not talk; up to his las hour he did not change. He looked happy, his eyes beamed and sought us he smiled at us, beckoned us. There was a great deal of talk even i the town about his death. I was impressed by all this at the time, bu not too much so, though I cried a good deal at his funeral. I was youn then, a child, but a lasting impression, a hidden feeling of it all remained in my heart, ready to rise up and respond when the time came So indeed it happened."},
{"text":"(b) Of the Holy Scriptures in the Life of Father Zossima"},
{"text":"I was left alone with my mother. Her friends began advising her to sen me to Petersburg as other parents did. \"You have only one son now,\"they said, \"and have a fair income, and you will be depriving hi perhaps of a brilliant career if you keep him here.\" They suggested  should be sent to Petersburg to the Cadet Corps, that I migh afterwards enter the Imperial Guard. My mother hesitated for a lon time, it was awful to part with her only child, but she made up he mind to it at last, though not without many tears, believing she wa acting for my happiness. She brought me to Petersburg and put me int the Cadet Corps, and I never saw her again. For she too died thre years afterwards. She spent those three years mourning and grieving fo both of us."},
{"text":"From the house of my childhood I have brought nothing but preciou memories, for there are no memories more precious than those of earl childhood in one's first home. And that is almost always so if there i any love and harmony in the family at all. Indeed, precious memorie may remain even of a bad home, if only the heart knows how to find wha is precious. With my memories of home I count, too, my memories of th Bible, which, child as I was, I was very eager to read at home. I had  book of Scripture history then with excellent pictures, called  Hundred and Four Stories from the Old and New Testament, and I learne to read from it. I have it lying on my shelf now, I keep it as  precious relic of the past. But even before I learned to read,  remember first being moved to devotional feeling at eight years old. M mother took me alone to mass (I don't remember where my brother was a the time) on the Monday before Easter. It was a fine day, and  remember today, as though I saw it now, how the incense rose from th censer and softly floated upwards and, overhead in the cupola, mingle in rising waves with the sunlight that streamed in at the littl window. I was stirred by the sight, and for the first time in my life  consciously received the seed of God's word in my heart. A youth cam out into the middle of the church carrying a big book, so large that a the time I fancied he could scarcely carry it. He laid it on th reading desk, opened it, and began reading, and suddenly for the firs time I understood something read in the church of God. In the land o Uz, there lived a man, righteous and God-fearing, and he had grea wealth, so many camels, so many sheep and asses, and his childre feasted, and he loved them very much and prayed for them. \"It may b that my sons have sinned in their feasting.\" Now the devil came befor the Lord together with the sons of God, and said to the Lord that h had gone up and down the earth and under the earth. \"And hast tho considered my servant Job?\" God asked of him. And God boasted to th devil, pointing to his great and holy servant. And the devil laughed a God's words. \"Give him over to me and Thou wilt see that Thy servan will murmur against Thee and curse Thy name.\" And God gave up the jus man He loved so, to the devil. And the devil smote his children and hi cattle and scattered his wealth, all of a sudden like a thunderbol from heaven. And Job rent his mantle and fell down upon the ground an cried aloud, \"Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall  return into the earth; the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away Blessed be the name of the Lord forever and ever.\""},
{"text":"Fathers and teachers, forgive my tears now, for all my childhood rise up again before me, and I breathe now as I breathed then, with th breast of a little child of eight, and I feel as I did then, awe an wonder and gladness. The camels at that time caught my imagination, an Satan, who talked like that with God, and God who gave His servant u to destruction, and His servant crying out: \"Blessed be Thy nam although Thou dost punish me,\" and then the soft and sweet singing i the church: \"Let my prayer rise up before Thee,\" and again incense fro the priest's censer and the kneeling and the prayer. Ever sinc then--only yesterday I took it up--I've never been able to read tha sacred tale without tears. And how much that is great, mysterious an unfathomable there is in it! Afterwards I heard the words of mocker and blame, proud words, \"How could God give up the most loved of Hi saints for the diversion of the devil, take from him his children smite him with sore boils so that he cleansed the corruption from hi sores with a potsherd--and for no object except to boast to the devil `See what My saint can suffer for My sake.' \" But the greatness of i lies just in the fact that it is a mystery--that the passing earthl show and the eternal verity are brought together in it. In the face o the earthly truth, the eternal truth is accomplished. The Creator, jus as on the first days of creation He ended each day with praise: \"Tha is good that I have created,\" looks upon Job and again praises Hi creation. And Job, praising the Lord, serves not only Him but all Hi creation for generations and generations, and forever and ever, sinc for that he was ordained. Good heavens, what a book it is, and wha lessons there are in it! What a book the Bible is, what a miracle, wha strength is given with it to man! It is like a mold cast of the worl and man and human nature, everything is there, and a law for everythin for all the ages. And what mysteries are solved and revealed! Go raises Job again, gives him wealth again. Many years pass by, and h has other children and loves them. But how could he love those new one when those first children are no more, when he has lost them Remembering them, how could he be fully happy with those new ones however dear the new ones might be? But he could, he could. It's th great mystery of human life that old grief passes gradually into quiet tender joy. The mild serenity of age takes the place of the riotou blood of youth. I bless the rising sun each day, and, as before, m hearts sings to meet it, but now I love even more its setting, its lon slanting rays and the soft, tender, gentle memories that come wit them, the dear images from the whole of my long, happy life--and ove all the Divine Truth, softening, reconciling, forgiving! My life i ending, I know that well, but every day that is left me I feel how m earthly life is in touch with a new infinite, unknown, that approachin life, the nearness of which sets my soul quivering with rapture, m mind glowing and my heart weeping with joy."},
{"text":"Friends and teachers, I have heard more than once, and of late one ma hear it more often, that the priests, and above all the villag priests, are complaining on all sides of their miserable income an their humiliating lot. They plainly state, even in print--I've read i myself--that they are unable to teach the Scriptures to the peopl because of the smallness of their means, and if Lutherans and heretic come and lead the flock astray, they let them lead them astray becaus they have so little to live upon. May the Lord increase the sustenanc that is so precious to them, for their complaint is just, too. But of  truth I say, if anyone is to blame in the matter, half the fault i ours. For he may be short of time, he may say truly that he i overwhelmed all the while with work and services, but still it's no all the time, even he has an hour a week to remember God. And he doe not work the whole year round. Let him gather round him once a week some hour in the evening, if only the children at first--the father will hear of it and they too will begin to come. There's no need t build halls for this, let him take them into his own cottage. The won't spoil his cottage, they would only be there one hour. Let hi open that book and begin reading it without grand words o superciliousness, without condescension to them, but gently and kindly being glad that he is reading to them and that they are listening wit attention, loving the words himself, only stopping from time to time t explain words that are not understood by the peasants. Don't b anxious, they will understand everything, the orthodox heart wil understand all! Let him read them about Abraham and Sarah, about Isaa and Rebecca, of how Jacob went to Laban and wrestled with the Lord i his dream and said, \"This place is holy\"--and he will impress th devout mind of the peasant. Let him read, especially to the children how the brothers sold Joseph, the tender boy, the dreamer and prophet into bondage, and told their father that a wild beast had devoured him and showed him his bloodstained clothes. Let him read them how th brothers afterwards journeyed into Egypt for corn, and Joseph, alread a great ruler, unrecognized by them, tormented them, accused them, kep his brother Benjamin, and all through love: \"I love you, and loving yo I torment you.\" For he remembered all his life how they had sold him t the merchants in the burning desert by the well, and how, wringing hi hands, he had wept and besought his brothers not to sell him as a slav in a strange land. And how, seeing them again after many years, h loved them beyond measure, but he harassed and tormented them in love He left them at last not able to bear the suffering of his heart, flun himself on his bed and wept. Then, wiping his tears away, he went ou to them joyful and told them, \"Brothers, I am your brother Joseph!\" Le him read them further how happy old Jacob was on learning that hi darling boy was still alive, and how he went to Egypt leaving his ow country, and died in a foreign land, bequeathing his great prophec that had lain mysteriously hidden in his meek and timid heart all hi life, that from his offspring, from Judah, will come the great hope o the world, the Messiah and Saviour."},
{"text":"Fathers and teachers, forgive me and don't be angry, that like a littl child I've been babbling of what you know long ago, and can teach me  hundred times more skillfully. I only speak from rapture, and forgiv my tears, for I love the Bible. Let him too weep, the priest of God and be sure that the hearts of his listeners will throb in response Only a little tiny seed is needed--drop it into the heart of th peasant and it won't die, it will live in his soul all his life, i will be hidden in the midst of his darkness and sin, like a brigh spot, like a great reminder. And there's no need of much teaching o explanation, he will understand it all simply. Do you suppose that th peasants don't understand? Try reading them the touching story of th fair Esther and the haughty Vashti; or the miraculous story of Jonah i the whale. Don't forget either the parables of Our Lord, choos especially from the Gospel of St. Luke (that is what I did), and the from the Acts of the Apostles the conversion of St. Paul (that yo mustn't leave out on any account), and from the Lives of the Saints for instance, the life of Alexey, the man of God and, greatest of all the happy martyr and the seer of God, Mary of Egypt--and you wil penetrate their hearts with these simple tales. Give one hour a week t it in spite of your poverty, only one little hour. And you will see fo yourselves that our people is gracious and grateful, and will repay yo a hundredfold. Mindful of the kindness of their priest and the movin words they have heard from him, they will of their own accord help hi in his fields and in his house, and will treat him with more respec than before--so that it will even increase his worldly well-being too The thing is so simple that sometimes one is even afraid to put it int words, for fear of being laughed at, and yet how true it is! One wh does not believe in God will not believe in God's people. He wh believes in God's people will see His Holiness too, even though he ha not believed in it till then. Only the people and their futur spiritual power will convert our atheists, who have torn themselve away from their native soil."},
{"text":"And what is the use of Christ's words, unless we set an example? Th people is lost without the Word of God, for its soul is athirst for th Word and for all that is good."},
{"text":"In my youth, long ago, nearly forty years ago, I traveled all ove Russia with Father Anfim, collecting funds for our monastery, and w stayed one night on the bank of a great navigable river with som fishermen. A good-looking peasant lad, about eighteen, joined us; h had to hurry back next morning to pull a merchant's barge along th bank. I noticed him looking straight before him with clear and tende eyes. It was a bright, warm, still, July night, a cool mist rose fro the broad river, we could hear the plash of a fish, the birds wer still, all was hushed and beautiful, everything praying to God. Only w two were not sleeping, the lad and I, and we talked of the beauty o this world of God's and of the great mystery of it. Every blade o grass, every insect, ant, and golden bee, all so marvelously know thei path, though they have not intelligence, they bear witness to th mystery of God and continually accomplish it themselves. I saw the dea lad's heart was moved. He told me that he loved the forest and th forest birds. He was a bird-catcher, knew the note of each of them could call each bird. \"I know nothing better than to be in the forest,\"said he, \"though all things are good.\""},
{"text":"\"Truly,\" I answered him, \"all things are good and fair, because all i truth. Look,\" said I, \"at the horse, that great beast that is so nea to man; or the lowly, pensive ox, which feeds him and works for him look at their faces, what meekness, what devotion to man, who ofte beats them mercilessly. What gentleness, what confidence and wha beauty! It's touching to know that there's no sin in them, for all, al except man, is sinless, and Christ has been with them before us.\""},
{"text":"\"Why,\" asked the boy, \"is Christ with them too?\""},
{"text":"\"It cannot but be so,\" said I, \"since the Word is for all. All creatio and all creatures, every leaf is striving to the Word, singing glory t God, weeping to Christ, unconsciously accomplishing this by the myster of their sinless life. Yonder,\" said I, \"in the forest wanders th dreadful bear, fierce and menacing, and yet innocent in it.\" And I tol him how once a bear came to a great saint who had taken refuge in  tiny cell in the wood. And the great saint pitied him, went up to hi without fear and gave him a piece of bread. \"Go along,\" said he \"Christ be with you,\" and the savage beast walked away meekly an obediently, doing no harm. And the lad was delighted that the bear ha walked away without hurting the saint, and that Christ was with hi too. \"Ah,\" said he, \"how good that is, how good and beautiful is al God's work!\" He sat musing softly and sweetly. I saw he understood. An he slept beside me a light and sinless sleep. May God bless youth! An I prayed for him as I went to sleep. Lord, send peace and light to Th people!"},
{"text":" II"},
{"text":"The Duel"},
{"text":"(c) Recollections of Father Zossima's Youth before he became a Monk The Duel"},
{"text":"I spent a long time, almost eight years, in the military cadet schoo at Petersburg, and in the novelty of my surroundings there, many of m childish impressions grew dimmer, though I forgot nothing. I picked u so many new habits and opinions that I was transformed into a cruel absurd, almost savage creature. A surface polish of courtesy an society manners I did acquire together with the French language."},
{"text":"But we all, myself included, looked upon the soldiers in our service a cattle. I was perhaps worse than the rest in that respect, for I was s much more impressionable than my companions. By the time we left th school as officers, we were ready to lay down our lives for the hono of the regiment, but no one of us had any knowledge of the real meanin of honor, and if anyone had known it, he would have been the first t ridicule it. Drunkenness, debauchery and devilry were what we almos prided ourselves on. I don't say that we were bad by nature, all thes young men were good fellows, but they behaved badly, and I worst o all. What made it worse for me was that I had come into my own money and so I flung myself into a life of pleasure, and plunged headlon into all the recklessness of youth."},
{"text":"I was fond of reading, yet strange to say, the Bible was the one book  never opened at that time, though I always carried it about with me and I was never separated from it; in very truth I was keeping tha book \"for the day and the hour, for the month and the year,\" though  knew it not."},
{"text":"After four years of this life, I chanced to be in the town of K. wher our regiment was stationed at the time. We found the people of the tow hospitable, rich and fond of entertainments. I met with a cordia reception everywhere, as I was of a lively temperament and was known t be well off, which always goes a long way in the world. And then  circumstance happened which was the beginning of it all."},
{"text":"I formed an attachment to a beautiful and intelligent young girl o noble and lofty character, the daughter of people much respected. The were well-to-do people of influence and position. They always gave me  cordial and friendly reception. I fancied that the young lady looked o me with favor and my heart was aflame at such an idea. Later on I sa and fully realized that I perhaps was not so passionately in love wit her at all, but only recognized the elevation of her mind an character, which I could not indeed have helped doing. I was prevented however, from making her an offer at the time by my selfishness, I wa loath to part with the allurements of my free and licentious bachelo life in the heyday of my youth, and with my pockets full of money.  did drop some hint as to my feelings however, though I put off takin any decisive step for a time. Then, all of a sudden, we were ordere off for two months to another district."},
{"text":"On my return two months later, I found the young lady already marrie to a rich neighboring landowner, a very amiable man, still young thoug older than I was, connected with the best Petersburg society, which  was not, and of excellent education, which I also was not. I was s overwhelmed at this unexpected circumstance that my mind was positivel clouded. The worst of it all was that, as I learned then, the youn landowner had been a long while betrothed to her, and I had met hi indeed many times in her house, but blinded by my conceit I had notice nothing. And this particularly mortified me; almost everybody had know all about it, while I knew nothing. I was filled with sudde irrepressible fury. With flushed face I began recalling how often I ha been on the point of declaring my love to her, and as she had no attempted to stop me or to warn me, she must, I concluded, have bee laughing at me all the time. Later on, of course, I reflected an remembered that she had been very far from laughing at me; on th contrary, she used to turn off any lovemaking on my part with a jes and begin talking of other subjects; but at that moment I was incapabl of reflecting and was all eagerness for revenge. I am surprised t remember that my wrath and revengeful feelings were extremely repugnan to my own nature, for being of an easy temper, I found it difficult t be angry with anyone for long, and so I had to work myself u artificially and became at last revolting and absurd."},
{"text":"I waited for an opportunity and succeeded in insulting my \"rival\" i the presence of a large company. I insulted him on a perfectl extraneous pretext, jeering at his opinion upon an important publi event--it was in the year 1826[133]5-- and my jeer was, so peopl said, clever and effective. Then I forced him to ask for a explanation, and behaved so rudely that he accepted my challenge i spite of the vast inequality between us, as I was younger, a person o no consequence, and of inferior rank. I learned afterwards for a fac that it was from a jealous feeling on his side also that my challeng was accepted; he had been rather jealous of me on his wife's accoun before their marriage; he fancied now that if he submitted to b insulted by me and refused to accept my challenge, and if she heard o it, she might begin to despise him and waver in her love for him.  soon found a second in a comrade, an ensign of our regiment. In thos days though duels were severely punished, yet dueling was a kind o fashion among the officers--so strong and deeply rooted will a bruta prejudice sometimes be."},
{"text":"It was the end of June, and our meeting was to take place at seve o'clock the next day on the outskirts of the town--and then somethin happened that in very truth was the turning-point of my life. In th evening, returning home in a savage and brutal humor, I flew into  rage with my orderly Afanasy, and gave him two blows in the face wit all my might, so that it was covered with blood. He had not long bee in my service and I had struck him before, but never with suc ferocious cruelty. And, believe me, though it's forty years ago,  recall it now with shame and pain. I went to bed and slept for abou three hours; when I waked up the day was breaking. I got up--I did no want to sleep any more--I went to the window--opened it, it looke out upon the garden; I saw the sun rising; it was warm and beautiful the birds were singing."},
{"text":"\"What's the meaning of it?\" I thought. \"I feel in my heart as it wer something vile and shameful. Is it because I am going to shed blood No,\" I thought, \"I feel it's not that. Can it be that I am afraid o death, afraid of being killed? No, that's not it, that's not it a all.\" ... And all at once I knew what it was: it was because I ha beaten Afanasy the evening before! It all rose before my mind, it al was as it were repeated over again; he stood before me and I wa beating him straight on the face and he was holding his arms stiffl down, his head erect, his eyes fixed upon me as though on parade. H staggered at every blow and did not even dare to raise his hands t protect himself. That is what a man has been brought to, and that was  man beating a fellow creature! What a crime! It was as though a shar dagger had pierced me right through. I stood as if I were struck dumb while the sun was shining, the leaves were rejoicing and the birds wer trilling the praise of God. ... I hid my face in my hands, fell on m bed and broke into a storm of tears. And then I remembered my brothe Markel and what he said on his deathbed to his servants: \"My dear ones why do you wait on me, why do you love me, am I worth your waiting o me?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, am I worth it?\" flashed through my mind. \"After all what am  worth, that another man, a fellow creature, made in the likeness an image of God, should serve me?\" For the first time in my life thi question forced itself upon me. He had said, \"Mother, my little heart in truth we are each responsible to all for all, it's only that me don't know this. If they knew it, the world would be a paradise a once.\""},
{"text":"\"God, can that too be false?\" I thought as I wept. \"In truth, perhaps I am more than all others responsible for all, a greater sinner tha all men in the world.\" And all at once the whole truth in its ful light appeared to me; what was I going to do? I was going to kill  good, clever, noble man, who had done me no wrong, and by depriving hi wife of happiness for the rest of her life, I should be torturing an killing her too. I lay thus in my bed with my face in the pillow heedless how the time was passing. Suddenly my second, the ensign, cam in with the pistols to fetch me."},
{"text":"\"Ah,\" said he, \"it's a good thing you are up already, it's time we wer off, come along!\""},
{"text":"I did not know what to do and hurried to and fro undecided; we went ou to the carriage, however."},
{"text":"\"Wait here a minute,\" I said to him. \"I'll be back directly, I hav forgotten my purse.\""},
{"text":"And I ran back alone, to Afanasy's little room."},
{"text":"\"Afanasy,\" I said, \"I gave you two blows on the face yesterday, forgiv me,\" I said."},
{"text":"He started as though he were frightened, and looked at me; and I sa that it was not enough, and on the spot, in my full officer's uniform I dropped at his feet and bowed my head to the ground."},
{"text":"\"Forgive me,\" I said."},
{"text":"Then he was completely aghast."},
{"text":"\"Your honor ... sir, what are you doing? Am I worth it?\""},
{"text":"And he burst out crying as I had done before, hid this face in hi hands, turned to the window and shook all over with his sobs. I fle out to my comrade and jumped into the carriage."},
{"text":"\"Ready,\" I cried. \"Have you ever seen a conqueror?\" I asked him. \"Her is one before you.\""},
{"text":"I was in ecstasy, laughing and talking all the way, I don't remembe what about."},
{"text":"He looked at me. \"Well, brother, you are a plucky fellow, you'll kee up the honor of the uniform, I can see.\""},
{"text":"So we reached the place and found them there, waiting us. We wer placed twelve paces apart; he had the first shot. I stood gayly looking him full in the face; I did not twitch an eyelash, I looke lovingly at him, for I knew what I would do. His shot just grazed m cheek and ear."},
{"text":"\"Thank God,\" I cried, \"no man has been killed,\" and I seized my pistol turned back and flung it far away into the wood. \"That's the place fo you,\" I cried."},
{"text":"I turned to my adversary."},
{"text":"\"Forgive me, young fool that I am, sir,\" I said, \"for my unprovoke insult to you and for forcing you to fire at me. I am ten times wors than you and more, maybe. Tell that to the person whom you hold deares in the world.\""},
{"text":"I had no sooner said this than they all three shouted at me."},
{"text":"\"Upon my word,\" cried my adversary, annoyed, \"if you did not want t fight, why did not you let me alone?\""},
{"text":"\"Yesterday I was a fool, today I know better,\" I answered him gayly."},
{"text":"\"As to yesterday, I believe you, but as for today, it is difficult t agree with your opinion,\" said he."},
{"text":"\"Bravo,\" I cried, clapping my hands. \"I agree with you there too.  have deserved it!\""},
{"text":"\"Will you shoot, sir, or not?\""},
{"text":"\"No, I won't,\" I said; \"if you like, fire at me again, but it would b better for you not to fire.\""},
{"text":"The seconds, especially mine, were shouting too: \"Can you disgrace th regiment like this, facing your antagonist and begging his forgiveness If I'd only known this!\""},
{"text":"I stood facing them all, not laughing now."},
{"text":"\"Gentlemen,\" I said, \"is it really so wonderful in these days to find  man who can repent of his stupidity and publicly confess hi wrongdoing?\""},
{"text":"\"But not in a duel,\" cried my second again."},
{"text":"\"That's what's so strange,\" I said. \"For I ought to have owned my faul as soon as I got here, before he had fired a shot, before leading hi into a great and deadly sin; but we have made our life so grotesque that to act in that way would have been almost impossible, for onl after I have faced his shot at the distance of twelve paces could m words have any significance for him, and if I had spoken before, h would have said, `He is a coward, the sight of the pistols ha frightened him, no use to listen to him.' Gentlemen,\" I cried suddenly speaking straight from my heart, \"look around you at the gifts of God the clear sky, the pure air, the tender grass, the birds; nature i beautiful and sinless, and we, only we, are sinful and foolish, and w don't understand that life is heaven, for we have only to understan that and it will at once be fulfilled in all its beauty, we shal embrace each other and weep.\""},
{"text":"I would have said more but I could not; my voice broke with th sweetness and youthful gladness of it, and there was such bliss in m heart as I had never known before in my life."},
{"text":"\"All this as rational and edifying,\" said my antagonist, \"and in an case you are an original person.\""},
{"text":"\"You may laugh,\" I said to him, laughing too, \"but afterwards you wil approve of me.\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, I am ready to approve of you now,\" said he; \"will you shake hands for I believe you are genuinely sincere.\""},
{"text":"\"No,\" I said, \"not now, later on when I have grown worthier and deserv your esteem, then shake hands and you will do well.\""},
{"text":"We went home, my second upbraiding me all the way, while I kissed him All my comrades heard of the affair at once and gathered together t pass judgment on me the same day."},
{"text":"\"He has disgraced the uniform,\" they said; \"let him resign hi commission.\""},
{"text":"Some stood up for me: \"He faced the shot,\" they said."},
{"text":"\"Yes, but he was afraid of his other shot and begged for forgiveness.\""},
{"text":"\"If he had been afraid of being shot, he would have shot his own pisto first before asking forgiveness, while he flung it loaded into th forest. No, there's something else in this, something original.\""},
{"text":"I enjoyed listening and looking at them. \"My dear friends an comrades,\" said I, \"don't worry about my resigning my commission, for  have done so already. I have sent in my papers this morning and as soo as I get my discharge I shall go into a monastery--it's with tha object I am leaving the regiment.\""},
{"text":"When I had said this every one of them burst out laughing."},
{"text":"\"You should have told us of that first, that explains everything, w can't judge a monk.\""},
{"text":"They laughed and could not stop themselves, and not scornfully, bu kindly and merrily. They all felt friendly to me at once, even thos who had been sternest in their censure, and all the following month before my discharge came, they could not make enough of me. \"Ah, yo monk,\" they would say. And everyone said something kind to me, the began trying to dissuade me, even to pity me: \"What are you doing t yourself?\""},
{"text":"\"No,\" they would say, \"he is a brave fellow, he faced fire and coul have fired his own pistol too, but he had a dream the night before tha he should become a monk, that's why he did it.\""},
{"text":"It was the same thing with the society of the town. Till then I ha been kindly received, but had not been the object of special attention and now all came to know me at once and invited me; they laughed at me but they loved me. I may mention that although everybody talked openl of our duel, the authorities took no notice of it, because m antagonist was a near relation of our general, and as there had been n bloodshed and no serious consequences, and as I resigned my commission they took it as a joke. And I began then to speak aloud and fearlessly regardless of their laughter, for it was always kindly and not spitefu laughter. These conversations mostly took place in the evenings, in th company of ladies; women particularly liked listening to me then an they made the men listen."},
{"text":"\"But how can I possibly be responsible for all?\" everyone would laug in my face. \"Can I, for instance, be responsible for you?\""},
{"text":"\"You may well not know it,\" I would answer, \"since the whole world ha long been going on a different line, since we consider the veriest lie as truth and demand the same lies from others. Here I have for once i my life acted sincerely and, well, you all look upon me as a madman Though you are friendly to me, yet, you see, you all laugh at me.\""},
{"text":"\"But how can we help being friendly to you?\" said my hostess, laughing The room was full of people. All of a sudden the young lady rose, o whose account the duel had been fought and whom only lately I ha intended to be my future wife. I had not noticed her coming into th room. She got up, came to me and held out her hand."},
{"text":"\"Let me tell you,\" she said, \"that I am the first not to laugh at you but on the contrary I thank you with tears and express my respect fo you for your action then.\""},
{"text":"Her husband, too, came up and then they all approached me and almos kissed me. My heart was filled with joy, but my attention wa especially caught by a middle-aged man who came up to me with th others. I knew him by name already, but had never made his acquaintanc nor exchanged a word with him till that evening."},
{"text":"(d) The Mysterious Visitor"},
{"text":"He had long been an official in the town; he was in a prominen position, respected by all, rich and had a reputation for benevolence He subscribed considerable sums to the almshouse and the orphan asylum he was very charitable, too, in secret, a fact which only became know after his death. He was a man of about fifty, almost stern i appearance and not much given to conversation. He had been marrie about ten years and his wife, who was still young, had borne him thre children. Well, I was sitting alone in my room the following evening when my door suddenly opened and this gentleman walked in."},
{"text":"I must mention, by the way, that I was no longer living in my forme quarters. As soon as I resigned my commission, I took rooms with an ol lady, the widow of a government clerk. My landlady's servant waite upon me, for I had moved into her rooms simply because on my retur from the duel I had sent Afanasy back to the regiment, as I fel ashamed to look him in the face after my last interview with him. S prone is the man of the world to be ashamed of any righteous action."},
{"text":"\"I have,\" said my visitor, \"with great interest listened to yo speaking in different houses the last few days and I wanted at last t make your personal acquaintance, so as to talk to you more intimately Can you, dear sir, grant me this favor?\""},
{"text":"\"I can, with the greatest pleasure, and I shall look upon it as a honor.\" I said this, though I felt almost dismayed, so greatly was  impressed from the first moment by the appearance of this man. Fo though other people had listened to me with interest and attention, n one had come to me before with such a serious, stern and concentrate expression. And now he had come to see me in my own rooms. He sat down."},
{"text":"\"You are, I see, a man of great strength of character,\" he said; \"a you have dared to serve the truth, even when by doing so you riske incurring the contempt of all.\""},
{"text":"\"Your praise is, perhaps, excessive,\" I replied."},
{"text":"\"No, it's not excessive,\" he answered; \"believe me, such a course o action is far more difficult than you think. It is that which ha impressed me, and it is only on that account that I have come to you,\"he continued. \"Tell me, please, that is if you are not annoyed by m perhaps unseemly curiosity, what were your exact sensations, if you ca recall them, at the moment when you made up your mind to as forgiveness at the duel. Do not think my question frivolous; on th contrary, I have in asking the question a secret motive of my own which I will perhaps explain to you later on, if it is God's will tha we should become more intimately acquainted.\""},
{"text":"All the while he was speaking, I was looking at him straight into th face and I felt all at once a complete trust in him and great curiosit on my side also, for I felt that there was some strange secret in hi soul."},
{"text":"\"You ask what were my exact sensations at the moment when I asked m opponent's forgiveness,\" I answered; \"but I had better tell you fro the beginning what I have not yet told anyone else.\" And I describe all that had passed between Afanasy and me, and how I had bowed down t the ground at his feet. \"From that you can see for yourself,\"  concluded, \"that at the time of the duel it was easier for me, for  had made a beginning already at home, and when once I had started o that road, to go farther along it was far from being difficult, bu became a source of joy and happiness.\""},
{"text":"I liked the way he looked at me as he listened. \"All that,\" he said \"is exceedingly interesting. I will come to see you again and again.\""},
{"text":"And from that time forth he came to see me nearly every evening. And w should have become greater friends, if only he had ever talked o himself. But about himself he scarcely ever said a word, ye continually asked me about myself. In spite of that I became very fon of him and spoke with perfect frankness to him about all my feelings \"for,\" thought I, \"what need have I to know his secrets, since I ca see without that that he is a good man? Moreover, though he is such  serious man and my senior, he comes to see a youngster like me an treats me as his equal.\" And I learned a great deal that was profitabl from him, for he was a man of lofty mind."},
{"text":"\"That life is heaven,\" he said to me suddenly, \"that I have long bee thinking about\"; and all at once he added, \"I think of nothing els indeed.\" He looked at me and smiled. \"I am more convinced of it tha you are, I will tell you later why.\""},
{"text":"I listened to him and thought that he evidently wanted to tell m something."},
{"text":"\"Heaven,\" he went on, \"lies hidden within all of us--here it lie hidden in me now, and if I will it, it will be revealed to me tomorro and for all time.\""},
{"text":"I looked at him; he was speaking with great emotion and gazin mysteriously at me, as if he were questioning me."},
{"text":"\"And that we are all responsible to all for all, apart from our ow sins, you were quite right in thinking that, and it is wonderful ho you could comprehend it in all its significance at once. And in ver truth, so soon as men understand that, the Kingdom of Heaven will b for them not a dream, but a living reality.\""},
{"text":"\"And when,\" I cried out to him bitterly, \"when will that come to pass and will it ever come to pass? Is not it simply a dream of ours?\""},
{"text":"\"What then, you don't believe it,\" he said. \"You preach it and don' believe it yourself. Believe me, this dream, as you call it, will com to pass without doubt; it will come, but not now, for every process ha its law. It's a spiritual, psychological process. To transform th world, to recreate it afresh, men must turn into another pat psychologically. Until you have become really, in actual fact,  brother to everyone, brotherhood will not come to pass. No sort o scientific teaching, no kind of common interest, will ever teach men t share property and privileges with equal consideration for all Everyone will think his share too small and they will be alway envying, complaining and attacking one another. You ask when it wil come to pass; it will come to pass, but first we have to go through th period of isolation.\""},
{"text":"\"What do you mean by isolation?\" I asked him."},
{"text":"\"Why, the isolation that prevails everywhere, above all in our age--i has not fully developed, it has not reached its limit yet. For everyon strives to keep his individuality as apart as possible, wishes t secure the greatest possible fullness of life for himself; but meantim all his efforts result not in attaining fullness of life bu self-destruction, for instead of self-realization he ends by arrivin at complete solitude. All mankind in our age have split up into units they all keep apart, each in his own groove; each one holds aloof hides himself and hides what he has, from the rest, and he ends b being repelled by others and repelling them. He heaps up riches b himself and thinks, `How strong I am now and how secure,' and in hi madness he does not understand that the more he heaps up, the more h sinks into self-destructive impotence. For he is accustomed to rel upon himself alone and to cut himself off from the whole; he ha trained himself not to believe in the help of others, in men and i humanity, and only trembles for fear he should lose his money and th privileges that he has won for himself. Everywhere in these days me have, in their mockery, ceased to understand that the true security i to be found in social solidarity rather than in isolated individua effort. But this terrible individualism must inevitably have an end and all will suddenly understand how unnaturally they are separate from one another. It will be the spirit of the time, and people wil marvel that they have sat so long in darkness without seeing the light And then the sign of the Son of Man will be seen in the heavens. .. But, until then, we must keep the banner flying. Sometimes even if h has to do it alone, and his conduct seems to be crazy, a man must se an example, and so draw men's souls out of their solitude, and spu them to some act of brotherly love, that the great idea may not die.\""},
{"text":"Our evenings, one after another, were spent in such stirring an fervent talk. I gave up society and visited my neighbors much les frequently. Besides, my vogue was somewhat over. I say this, not a blame, for they still loved me and treated me good-humoredly, bu there's no denying that fashion is a great power in society. I began t regard my mysterious visitor with admiration, for besides enjoying hi intelligence, I began to perceive that he was brooding over some pla in his heart, and was preparing himself perhaps for a great deed Perhaps he liked my not showing curiosity about his secret, not seekin to discover it by direct question nor by insinuation. But I noticed a last, that he seemed to show signs of wanting to tell me something This had become quite evident, indeed, about a month after he firs began to visit me."},
{"text":"\"Do you know,\" he said to me once, \"that people are very inquisitiv about us in the town and wonder why I come to see you so often. But le them wonder, for soon all will be explained.\""},
{"text":"Sometimes an extraordinary agitation would come over him, and almos always on such occasions he would get up and go away. Sometimes h would fix a long piercing look upon me, and I thought, \"He will sa something directly now.\" But he would suddenly begin talking o something ordinary and familiar. He often complained of headache too."},
{"text":"One day, quite unexpectedly indeed, after he had been talking wit great fervor a long time, I saw him suddenly turn pale, and his fac worked convulsively, while he stared persistently at me."},
{"text":"\"What's the matter?\" I said; \"do you feel ill?\"--he had just bee complaining of headache."},
{"text":"\"I ... do you know ... I murdered someone.\""},
{"text":"He said this and smiled with a face as white as chalk. \"Why is it he i smiling?\" The thought flashed through my mind before I realize anything else. I too turned pale."},
{"text":"\"What are you saying?\" I cried."},
{"text":"\"You see,\" he said, with a pale smile, \"how much it has cost me to sa the first word. Now I have said it, I feel I've taken the first ste and shall go on.\""},
{"text":"For a long while I could not believe him, and I did not believe him a that time, but only after he had been to see me three days running an told me all about it. I thought he was mad, but ended by bein convinced, to my great grief and amazement. His crime was a great an terrible one."},
{"text":"Fourteen years before, he had murdered the widow of a landowner,  wealthy and handsome young woman who had a house in our town. He fel passionately in love with her, declared his feeling and tried t persuade her to marry him. But she had already given her heart t another man, an officer of noble birth and high rank in the service who was at that time away at the front, though she was expecting hi soon to return. She refused his offer and begged him not to come an see her. After he had ceased to visit her, he took advantage of hi knowledge of the house to enter at night through the garden by th roof, at great risk of discovery. But, as often happens, a crim committed with extraordinary audacity is more successful than others."},
{"text":"Entering the garret through the skylight, he went down the ladder knowing that the door at the bottom of it was sometimes, through th negligence of the servants, left unlocked. He hoped to find it so, an so it was. He made his way in the dark to her bedroom, where a ligh was burning. As though on purpose, both her maids had gone off to  birthday-party in the same street, without asking leave. The othe servants slept in the servants' quarters or in the kitchen on th ground-floor. His passion flamed up at the sight of her asleep, an then vindictive, jealous anger took possession of his heart, and like  drunken man, beside himself, he thrust a knife into her heart, so tha she did not even cry out. Then with devilish and criminal cunning h contrived that suspicion should fall on the servants. He was so base a to take her purse, to open her chest with keys from under her pillow and to take some things from it, doing it all as it might have bee done by an ignorant servant, leaving valuable papers and taking onl money. He took some of the larger gold things, but left smalle articles that were ten times as valuable. He took with him, too, som things for himself as remembrances, but of that later. Having done thi awful deed, he returned by the way he had come."},
{"text":"Neither the next day, when the alarm was raised, nor at any time afte in his life, did anyone dream of suspecting that he was the criminal No one indeed knew of his love for her, for he was always reserved an silent and had no friend to whom he would have opened his heart. He wa looked upon simply as an acquaintance, and not a very intimate one, o the murdered woman, as for the previous fortnight he had not eve visited her. A serf of hers called Pyotr was at once suspected, an every circumstance confirmed the suspicion. The man knew--indeed hi mistress did not conceal the fact--that having to send one of he serfs as a recruit she had decided to send him, as he had no relation and his conduct was unsatisfactory. People had heard him angril threatening to murder her when he was drunk in a tavern. Two day before her death, he had run away, staying no one knew where in th town. The day after the murder, he was found on the road leading out o the town, dead drunk, with a knife in his pocket, and his right han happened to be stained with blood. He declared that his nose had bee bleeding, but no one believed him. The maids confessed that they ha gone to a party and that the street-door had been left open till the returned. And a number of similar details came to light, throwin suspicion on the innocent servant."},
{"text":"They arrested him, and he was tried for the murder; but a week afte the arrest, the prisoner fell sick of a fever and died unconscious i the hospital. There the matter ended and the judges and the authoritie and everyone in the town remained convinced that the crime had bee committed by no one but the servant who had died in the hospital. An after that the punishment began."},
{"text":"My mysterious visitor, now my friend, told me that at first he was no in the least troubled by pangs of conscience. He was miserable a lon time, but not for that reason; only from regret that he had killed th woman he loved, that she was no more, that in killing her he had kille his love, while the fire of passion was still in his veins. But of th innocent blood he had shed, of the murder of a fellow creature, h scarcely thought. The thought that his victim might have become th wife of another man was insupportable to him, and so, for a long time he was convinced in his conscience that he could not have acte otherwise."},
{"text":"At first he was worried at the arrest of the servant, but his illnes and death soon set his mind at rest, for the man's death was apparentl (so he reflected at the time) not owing to his arrest or his fright but a chill he had taken on the day he ran away, when he had lain al night dead drunk on the damp ground. The theft of the money and othe things troubled him little, for he argued that the theft had not bee committed for gain but to avert suspicion. The sum stolen was small and he shortly afterwards subscribed the whole of it, and much more towards the funds for maintaining an almshouse in the town. He did thi on purpose to set his conscience at rest about the theft, and it's  remarkable fact that for a long time he really was at peace--he tol me this himself. He entered then upon a career of great activity in th service, volunteered for a difficult and laborious duty, which occupie him two years, and being a man of strong will almost forgot the past Whenever he recalled it, he tried not to think of it at all. He becam active in philanthropy too, founded and helped to maintain man institutions in the town, did a good deal in the two capitals, and i both Moscow and Petersburg was elected a member of philanthropi societies."},
{"text":"At last, however, he began brooding over the past, and the strain of i was too much for him. Then he was attracted by a fine and intelligen girl and soon after married her, hoping that marriage would dispel hi lonely depression, and that by entering on a new life and scrupulousl doing his duty to his wife and children, he would escape from ol memories altogether. But the very opposite of what he expecte happened. He began, even in the first month of his marriage, to b continually fretted by the thought, \"My wife loves me--but what if sh knew?\" When she first told him that she would soon bear him a child, h was troubled. \"I am giving life, but I have taken life.\" Children came \"How dare I love them, teach and educate them, how can I talk to the of virtue? I have shed blood.\" They were splendid children, he longe to caress them; \"and I can't look at their innocent candid faces, I a unworthy.\""},
{"text":"At last he began to be bitterly and ominously haunted by the blood o his murdered victim, by the young life he had destroyed, by the bloo that cried out for vengeance. He had begun to have awful dreams. But being a man of fortitude, he bore his suffering a long time, thinking \"I shall expiate everything by this secret agony.\" But that hope, too was vain; the longer it went on, the more intense was his suffering."},
{"text":"He was respected in society for his active benevolence, though everyon was overawed by his stern and gloomy character. But the more he wa respected, the more intolerable it was for him. He confessed to me tha he had thoughts of killing himself. But he began to be haunted b another idea--an idea which he had at first regarded as impossible an unthinkable, though at last it got such a hold on his heart that h could not shake it off. He dreamed of rising up, going out an confessing in the face of all men that he had committed murder. Fo three years this dream had pursued him, haunting him in differen forms. At last he believed with his whole heart that if he confesse his crime, he would heal his soul and would be at peace forever. Bu this belief filled his heart with terror, for how could he carry i out? And then came what happened at my duel."},
{"text":"\"Looking at you, I have made up my mind.\""},
{"text":"I looked at him."},
{"text":"\"Is it possible,\" I cried, clasping my hands, \"that such a trivia incident could give rise to such a resolution in you?\""},
{"text":"\"My resolution has been growing for the last three years,\" he answered \"and your story only gave the last touch to it. Looking at you,  reproached myself and envied you.\" He said this to me almost sullenly."},
{"text":"\"But you won't be believed,\" I observed; \"it's fourteen years ago.\""},
{"text":"\"I have proofs, great proofs. I shall show them.\""},
{"text":"Then I cried and kissed him."},
{"text":"\"Tell me one thing, one thing,\" he said (as though it all depended upo me), \"my wife, my children! My wife may die of grief, and though m children won't lose their rank and property, they'll be a convict' children and forever! And what a memory, what a memory of me I shal leave in their hearts!\""},
{"text":"I said nothing."},
{"text":"\"And to part from them, to leave them forever? It's forever, you know forever!\""},
{"text":"I sat still and repeated a silent prayer. I got up at last, I fel afraid."},
{"text":"\"Well?\" He looked at me."},
{"text":"\"Go!\" said I, \"confess. Everything passes, only the truth remains. You children will understand, when they grow up, the nobility of you resolution.\""},
{"text":"He left me that time as though he had made up his mind. Yet for mor than a fortnight afterwards, he came to me every evening, stil preparing himself, still unable to bring himself to the point. He mad my heart ache. One day he would come determined and say fervently:"},
{"text":"\"I know it will be heaven for me, heaven, the moment I confess Fourteen years I've been in hell. I want to suffer. I will take m punishment and begin to live. You can pass through the world doin wrong, but there's no turning back. Now I dare not love my neighbor no even my own children. Good God, my children will understand, perhaps what my punishment has cost me and will not condemn me! God is not i strength but in truth.\""},
{"text":"\"All will understand your sacrifice,\" I said to him, \"if not at once they will understand later; for you have served truth, the highe truth, not of the earth.\""},
{"text":"And he would go away seeming comforted, but next day he would com again, bitter, pale, sarcastic."},
{"text":"\"Every time I come to you, you look at me so inquisitively as though t say, `He has still not confessed!' Wait a bit, don't despise me to much. It's not such an easy thing to do, as you would think. Perhaps  shall not do it at all. You won't go and inform against me then, wil you?\""},
{"text":"And far from looking at him with indiscreet curiosity, I was afraid t look at him at all. I was quite ill from anxiety, and my heart was ful of tears. I could not sleep at night."},
{"text":"\"I have just come from my wife,\" he went on. \"Do you understand wha the word `wife' means? When I went out, the children called to me `Goodbye, father, make haste back to read The Children's Magazine wit us.' No, you don't understand that! No one is wise from another man' woe.\""},
{"text":"His eyes were glittering, his lips were twitching. Suddenly he struc the table with his fist so that everything on it danced--it was th first time he had done such a thing, he was such a mild man."},
{"text":"\"But need I?\" he exclaimed, \"must I? No one has been condemned, no on has been sent to Siberia in my place, the man died of fever. And I'v been punished by my sufferings for the blood I shed. And I shan't b believed, they won't believe my proofs. Need I confess, need I? I a ready to go on suffering all my life for the blood I have shed, if onl my wife and children may be spared. Will it be just to ruin them wit me? Aren't we making a mistake? What is right in this case? And wil people recognize it, will they appreciate it, will they respect it?\""},
{"text":"\"Good Lord!\" I thought to myself, \"he is thinking of other people' respect at such a moment!\" And I felt so sorry for him then, that  believe I would have shared his fate if it could have comforted him.  saw he was beside himself. I was aghast, realizing with my heart a well as my mind what such a resolution meant."},
{"text":"\"Decide my fate!\" he exclaimed again."},
{"text":"\"Go and confess,\" I whispered to him. My voice failed me, but  whispered it firmly. I took up the New Testament from the table, th Russian translation, and showed him the Gospel of St. John, chapter xi verse 24:"},
{"text":"  \"Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall int   the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringet   forth much fruit.\""},
{"text":"I had just been reading that verse when he came in. He read it."},
{"text":"\"That's true,\" he said, but he smiled bitterly. \"It's terrible th things you find in those books,\" he said, after a pause. \"It's eas enough to thrust them upon one. And who wrote them? Can they have bee written by men?\""},
{"text":"\"The Holy Spirit wrote them,\" said I."},
{"text":"\"It's easy for you to prate,\" he smiled again, this time almost wit hatred."},
{"text":"I took the book again, opened it in another place and showed him th Epistle to the Hebrews, chapter x verse 31. He read:"},
{"text":"  \"It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.\""},
{"text":"He read it and simply flung down the book. He was trembling all over."},
{"text":"\"An awful text,\" he said. \"There's no denying you've picked out fittin ones.\" He rose from the chair. \"Well!\" he said, \"goodbye, perhaps  shan't come again ... we shall meet in heaven. So I have been fo fourteen years `in the hands of the living God,' that's how one mus think of those fourteen years. Tomorrow I will beseech those hands t let me go.\""},
{"text":"I wanted to take him in my arms and kiss him, but I did not dare--hi face was contorted and somber. He went away."},
{"text":"\"Good God,\" I thought, \"what has he gone to face!\" I fell on my knee before the icon and wept for him before the Holy Mother of God, ou swift defender and helper. I was half an hour praying in tears, and i was late, about midnight. Suddenly I saw the door open and he came i again. I was surprised."},
{"text":"\"Where have you been?\" I asked him."},
{"text":"\"I think,\" he said, \"I've forgotten something ... my handkerchief,  think. ... Well, even if I've not forgotten anything, let me stay  little.\""},
{"text":"He sat down. I stood over him."},
{"text":"\"You sit down, too,\" said he."},
{"text":"I sat down. We sat still for two minutes; he looked intently at me an suddenly smiled--I remembered that--then he got up, embraced m warmly and kissed me."},
{"text":"\"Remember,\" he said, \"how I came to you a second time. Do you hear remember it!\""},
{"text":"And he went out."},
{"text":"\"Tomorrow,\" I thought."},
{"text":"And so it was. I did not know that evening that the next day was hi birthday. I had not been out for the last few days, so I had no chanc of hearing it from anyone. On that day he always had a great gathering everyone in the town went to it. It was the same this time. Afte dinner he walked into the middle of the room, with a paper in hi hand--a formal declaration to the chief of his department who wa present. This declaration he read aloud to the whole assembly. I contained a full account of the crime, in every detail."},
{"text":"\"I cut myself off from men as a monster. God has visited me,\" he sai in conclusion. \"I want to suffer for my sin!\""},
{"text":"Then he brought out and laid on the table all the things he had bee keeping for fourteen years, that he thought would prove his crime, th jewels belonging to the murdered woman which he had stolen to diver suspicion, a cross and a locket taken from her neck with a portrait o her betrothed in the locket, her notebook and two letters; one from he betrothed, telling her that he would soon be with her, and he unfinished answer left on the table to be sent off next day. He carrie off these two letters--what for? Why had he kept them for fourtee years afterwards instead of destroying them as evidence against him?"},
{"text":"And this is what happened: everyone was amazed and horrified, everyon refused to believe it and thought that he was deranged, though al listened with intense curiosity. A few days later it was fully decide and agreed in every house that the unhappy man was mad. The lega authorities could not refuse to take the case up, but they too droppe it. Though the trinkets and letters made them ponder, they decided tha even if they did turn out to be authentic, no charge could be based o those alone. Besides, she might have given him those things as  friend, or asked him to take care of them for her. I heard afterwards however, that the genuineness of the things was proved by the friend and relations of the murdered woman, and that there was no doubt abou them. Yet nothing was destined to come of it, after all."},
{"text":"Five days later, all had heard that he was ill and that his life was i danger. The nature of his illness I can't explain, they said it was a affection of the heart. But it became known that the doctors had bee induced by his wife to investigate his mental condition also, and ha come to the conclusion that it was a case of insanity. I betraye nothing, though people ran to question me. But when I wanted to visi him, I was for a long while forbidden to do so, above all by his wife."},
{"text":"\"It's you who have caused his illness,\" she said to me; \"he was alway gloomy, but for the last year people noticed that he was peculiarl excited and did strange things, and now you have been the ruin of him Your preaching has brought him to this; for the last month he wa always with you.\""},
{"text":"Indeed, not only his wife but the whole town were down upon me an blamed me. \"It's all your doing,\" they said. I was silent and indee rejoiced at heart, for I saw plainly God's mercy to the man who ha turned against himself and punished himself. I could not believe in hi insanity."},
{"text":"They let me see him at last, he insisted upon saying goodbye to me.  went in to him and saw at once, that not only his days, but his hour were numbered. He was weak, yellow, his hands trembled, he gasped fo breath, but his face was full of tender and happy feeling."},
{"text":"\"It is done!\" he said. \"I've long been yearning to see you, why didn' you come?\""},
{"text":"I did not tell him that they would not let me see him."},
{"text":"\"God has had pity on me and is calling me to Himself. I know I a dying, but I feel joy and peace for the first time after so many years There was heaven in my heart from the moment I had done what I had t do. Now I dare to love my children and to kiss them. Neither my wif nor the judges, nor anyone has believed it. My children will neve believe it either. I see in that God's mercy to them. I shall die, an my name will be without a stain for them. And now I feel God near, m heart rejoices as in Heaven ... I have done my duty.\""},
{"text":"He could not speak, he gasped for breath, he pressed my hand warmly looking fervently at me. We did not talk for long, his wife kep peeping in at us. But he had time to whisper to me:"},
{"text":"\"Do you remember how I came back to you that second time, at midnight I told you to remember it. You know what I came back for? I came t kill you!\""},
{"text":"I started."},
{"text":"\"I went out from you then into the darkness, I wandered about th streets, struggling with myself. And suddenly I hated you so that  could hardly bear it. Now, I thought, he is all that binds me, and h is my judge. I can't refuse to face my punishment tomorrow, for h knows all. It was not that I was afraid you would betray me (I neve even thought of that), but I thought, `How can I look him in the fac if I don't confess?' And if you had been at the other end of the earth but alive, it would have been all the same, the thought was unendurabl that you were alive knowing everything and condemning me. I hated yo as though you were the cause, as though you were to blame fo everything. I came back to you then, remembering that you had a dagge lying on your table. I sat down and asked you to sit down, and for  whole minute I pondered. If I had killed you, I should have been ruine by that murder even if I had not confessed the other. But I didn' think about that at all, and I didn't want to think of it at tha moment. I only hated you and longed to revenge myself on you fo everything. The Lord vanquished the devil in my heart. But let me tel you, you were never nearer death.\""},
{"text":"A week later he died. The whole town followed him to the grave. Th chief priest made a speech full of feeling. All lamented the terribl illness that had cut short his days. But all the town was up in arm against me after the funeral, and people even refused to see me. Some at first a few and afterwards more, began indeed to believe in th truth of his story, and they visited me and questioned me with grea interest and eagerness, for man loves to see the downfall and disgrac of the righteous. But I held my tongue, and very shortly after, I lef the town, and five months later by God's grace I entered upon the saf and blessed path, praising the unseen finger which had guided me s clearly to it. But I remember in my prayer to this day, the servant o God, Mihail, who suffered so greatly."},
{"text":" III"},
{"text":"Conversations and Exhortations of Father Zossima"},
{"text":"(e) The Russian Monk and his possible Significance"},
{"text":"Fathers and teachers, what is the monk? In the cultivated world th word is nowadays pronounced by some people with a jeer, and by other it is used as a term of abuse, and this contempt for the monk i growing. It is true, alas, it is true, that there are many sluggards gluttons, profligates and insolent beggars among monks. Educated peopl point to these: \"You are idlers, useless members of society, you liv on the labor of others, you are shameless beggars.\" And yet how man meek and humble monks there are, yearning for solitude and ferven prayer in peace! These are less noticed, or passed over in silence. An how surprised men would be if I were to say that from these meek monks who yearn for solitary prayer, the salvation of Russia will com perhaps once more! For they are in truth made ready in peace and quie \"for the day and the hour, the month and the year.\" Meanwhile, in thei solitude, they keep the image of Christ fair and undefiled, in th purity of God's truth, from the times of the Fathers of old, th Apostles and the martyrs. And when the time comes they will show it t the tottering creeds of the world. That is a great thought. That sta will rise out of the East."},
{"text":"That is my view of the monk, and is it false? is it too proud? Look a the worldly and all who set themselves up above the people of God, ha not God's image and His truth been distorted in them? They hav science; but in science there is nothing but what is the object o sense. The spiritual world, the higher part of man's being is rejecte altogether, dismissed with a sort of triumph, even with hatred. Th world has proclaimed the reign of freedom, especially of late, but wha do we see in this freedom of theirs? Nothing but slavery an self-destruction! For the world says:"},
{"text":"\"You have desires and so satisfy them, for you have the same rights a the most rich and powerful. Don't be afraid of satisfying them and eve multiply your desires.\" That is the modern doctrine of the world. I that they see freedom. And what follows from this right o multiplication of desires? In the rich, isolation and spiritua suicide; in the poor, envy and murder; for they have been given rights but have not been shown the means of satisfying their wants. The maintain that the world is getting more and more united, more and mor bound together in brotherly community, as it overcomes distance an sets thoughts flying through the air."},
{"text":"Alas, put no faith in such a bond of union. Interpreting freedom as th multiplication and rapid satisfaction of desires, men distort their ow nature, for many senseless and foolish desires and habits an ridiculous fancies are fostered in them. They live only for mutua envy, for luxury and ostentation. To have dinners, visits, carriages rank and slaves to wait on one is looked upon as a necessity, for whic life, honor and human feeling are sacrificed, and men even commi suicide if they are unable to satisfy it. We see the same thing amon those who are not rich, while the poor drown their unsatisfied need an their envy in drunkenness. But soon they will drink blood instead o wine, they are being led on to it. I ask you is such a man free? I kne one \"champion of freedom\" who told me himself that, when he wa deprived of tobacco in prison, he was so wretched at the privation tha he almost went and betrayed his cause for the sake of getting tobacc again! And such a man says, \"I am fighting for the cause of humanity.\""},
{"text":"How can such a one fight? what is he fit for? He is capable perhaps o some action quickly over, but he cannot hold out long. And it's n wonder that instead of gaining freedom they have sunk into slavery, an instead of serving the cause of brotherly love and the union o humanity have fallen, on the contrary, into dissension and isolation as my mysterious visitor and teacher said to me in my youth. An therefore the idea of the service of humanity, of brotherly love an the solidarity of mankind, is more and more dying out in the world, an indeed this idea is sometimes treated with derision. For how can a ma shake off his habits? What can become of him if he is in such bondag to the habit of satisfying the innumerable desires he has created fo himself? He is isolated, and what concern has he with the rest o humanity? They have succeeded in accumulating a greater mass o objects, but the joy in the world has grown less."},
{"text":"The monastic way is very different. Obedience, fasting and prayer ar laughed at, yet only through them lies the way to real, true freedom.  cut off my superfluous and unnecessary desires, I subdue my proud an wanton will and chastise it with obedience, and with God's help  attain freedom of spirit and with it spiritual joy. Which is mos capable of conceiving a great idea and serving it--the rich man in hi isolation or the man who has freed himself from the tyranny of materia things and habits? The monk is reproached for his solitude, \"You hav secluded yourself within the walls of the monastery for your ow salvation, and have forgotten the brotherly service of humanity!\" Bu we shall see which will be most zealous in the cause of brotherly love For it is not we, but they, who are in isolation, though they don't se that. Of old, leaders of the people came from among us, and why shoul they not again? The same meek and humble ascetics will rise up and g out to work for the great cause. The salvation of Russia comes from th people. And the Russian monk has always been on the side of the people We are isolated only if the people are isolated. The people believe a we do, and an unbelieving reformer will never do anything in Russia even if he is sincere in heart and a genius. Remember that! The peopl will meet the atheist and overcome him, and Russia will be one an orthodox. Take care of the peasant and guard his heart. Go on educatin him quietly. That's your duty as monks, for the peasant has God in hi heart."},
{"text":"(f) Of Masters and Servants, and of whether it is possible for them t be Brothers in the Spirit"},
{"text":"Of course, I don't deny that there is sin in the peasants too. And th fire of corruption is spreading visibly, hourly, working from abov downwards. The spirit of isolation is coming upon the people too Moneylenders and devourers of the commune are rising up. Already th merchant grows more and more eager for rank, and strives to sho himself cultured though he has not a trace of culture, and to this en meanly despises his old traditions, and is even ashamed of the faith o his fathers. He visits princes, though he is only a peasant corrupted The peasants are rotting in drunkenness and cannot shake off the habit And what cruelty to their wives, to their children even! All fro drunkenness! I've seen in the factories children of nine years old frail, rickety, bent and already depraved. The stuffy workshop, the di of machinery, work all day long, the vile language and the drink, th drink--is that what a little child's heart needs? He needs sunshine childish play, good examples all about him, and at least a little love There must be no more of this, monks, no more torturing of children rise up and preach that, make haste, make haste!"},
{"text":"But God will save Russia, for though the peasants are corrupted an cannot renounce their filthy sin, yet they know it is cursed by God an that they do wrong in sinning. So that our people still believe i righteousness, have faith in God and weep tears of devotion."},
{"text":"It is different with the upper classes. They, following science, wan to base justice on reason alone, but not with Christ, as before, an they have already proclaimed that there is no crime, that there is n sin. And that's consistent, for if you have no God what is the meanin of crime? In Europe the people are already rising up against the ric with violence, and the leaders of the people are everywhere leadin them to bloodshed, and teaching them that their wrath is righteous. Bu their \"wrath is accursed, for it is cruel.\" But God will save Russia a He has saved her many times. Salvation will come from the people, fro their faith and their meekness."},
{"text":"Fathers and teachers, watch over the people's faith and this will no be a dream. I've been struck all my life in our great people by thei dignity, their true and seemly dignity. I've seen it myself, I ca testify to it, I've seen it and marveled at it, I've seen it in spit of the degraded sins and poverty-stricken appearance of our peasantry They are not servile, and even after two centuries of serfdom they ar free in manner and bearing, yet without insolence, and not revengefu and not envious. \"You are rich and noble, you are clever and talented well, be so, God bless you. I respect you, but I know that I too am  man. By the very fact that I respect you without envy I prove m dignity as a man.\""},
{"text":"In truth if they don't say this (for they don't know how to say thi yet), that is how they act. I have seen it myself, I have known i myself, and, would you believe it, the poorer our Russian peasant is the more noticeable is that serene goodness, for the rich among the are for the most part corrupted already, and much of that is due to ou carelessness and indifference. But God will save His people, for Russi is great in her humility. I dream of seeing, and seem to see clearl already, our future. It will come to pass, that even the most corrup of our rich will end by being ashamed of his riches before the poor and the poor, seeing his humility, will understand and give way befor him, will respond joyfully and kindly to his honorable shame. Believ me that it will end in that; things are moving to that. Equality is t be found only in the spiritual dignity of man, and that will only b understood among us. If we were brothers, there would be fraternity but before that, they will never agree about the division of wealth. W preserve the image of Christ, and it will shine forth like a preciou diamond to the whole world. So may it be, so may it be!"},
{"text":"Fathers and teachers, a touching incident befell me once. In m wanderings I met in the town of K. my old orderly, Afanasy. It wa eight years since I had parted from him. He chanced to see me in th marketplace, recognized me, ran up to me, and how delighted he was! H simply pounced on me: \"Master dear, is it you? Is it really you I see?\"He took me home with him."},
{"text":"He was no longer in the army, he was married and already had two littl children. He and his wife earned their living as costermongers in th marketplace. His room was poor, but bright and clean. He made me si down, set the samovar, sent for his wife, as though my appearance wer a festival for them. He brought me his children: \"Bless them, Father.\""},
{"text":"\"Is it for me to bless them? I am only a humble monk. I will pray fo them. And for you, Afanasy Pavlovitch, I have prayed every day sinc that day, for it all came from you,\" said I. And I explained that t him as well as I could. And what do you think? The man kept gazing a me and could not believe that I, his former master, an officer, was no before him in such a guise and position; it made him shed tears."},
{"text":"\"Why are you weeping?\" said I, \"better rejoice over me, dear friend whom I can never forget, for my path is a glad and joyful one.\""},
{"text":"He did not say much, but kept sighing and shaking his head over m tenderly."},
{"text":"\"What has became of your fortune?\" he asked."},
{"text":"\"I gave it to the monastery,\" I answered; \"we live in common.\""},
{"text":"After tea I began saying goodbye, and suddenly he brought out half  rouble as an offering to the monastery, and another half-rouble I sa him thrusting hurriedly into my hand: \"That's for you in you wanderings, it may be of use to you, Father.\""},
{"text":"I took his half-rouble, bowed to him and his wife, and went ou rejoicing. And on my way I thought: \"Here we are both now, he at hom and I on the road, sighing and shaking our heads, no doubt, and ye smiling joyfully in the gladness of our hearts, remembering how Go brought about our meeting.\""},
{"text":"I have never seen him again since then. I had been his master and he m servant, but now when we exchanged a loving kiss with softened hearts there was a great human bond between us. I have thought a great dea about that, and now what I think is this: Is it so inconceivable tha that grand and simple-hearted unity might in due time become universa among the Russian people? I believe that it will come to pass and tha the time is at hand."},
{"text":"And of servants I will add this: In old days when I was young I wa often angry with servants; \"the cook had served something too hot, th orderly had not brushed my clothes.\" But what taught me better then wa a thought of my dear brother's, which I had heard from him i childhood: \"Am I worth it, that another should serve me and be ordere about by me in his poverty and ignorance?\" And I wondered at the tim that such simple and self-evident ideas should be so slow to occur t our minds."},
{"text":"It is impossible that there should be no servants in the world, but ac so that your servant may be freer in spirit than if he were not  servant. And why cannot I be a servant to my servant and even let hi see it, and that without any pride on my part or any mistrust on his Why should not my servant be like my own kindred, so that I may tak him into my family and rejoice in doing so? Even now this can be done but it will lead to the grand unity of men in the future, when a ma will not seek servants for himself, or desire to turn his fello creatures into servants as he does now, but on the contrary, will lon with his whole heart to be the servant of all, as the Gospel teaches."},
{"text":"And can it be a dream, that in the end man will find his joy only i deeds of light and mercy, and not in cruel pleasures as now, i gluttony, fornication, ostentation, boasting and envious rivalry of on with the other? I firmly believe that it is not and that the time is a hand. People laugh and ask: \"When will that time come and does it loo like coming?\" I believe that with Christ's help we shall accomplis this great thing. And how many ideas there have been on earth in th history of man which were unthinkable ten years before they appeared Yet when their destined hour had come, they came forth and spread ove the whole earth. So it will be with us, and our people will shine fort in the world, and all men will say: \"The stone which the builder rejected has become the cornerstone of the building.\""},
{"text":"And we may ask the scornful themselves: If our hope is a dream, whe will you build up your edifice and order things justly by you intellect alone, without Christ? If they declare that it is they wh are advancing towards unity, only the most simple-hearted among the believe it, so that one may positively marvel at such simplicity. Of  truth, they have more fantastic dreams than we. They aim at justice but, denying Christ, they will end by flooding the earth with blood for blood cries out for blood, and he that taketh up the sword shal perish by the sword. And if it were not for Christ's covenant, the would slaughter one another down to the last two men on earth. An those two last men would not be able to restrain each other in thei pride, and the one would slay the other and then himself. And tha would come to pass, were it not for the promise of Christ that for th sake of the humble and meek the days shall be shortened."},
{"text":"While I was still wearing an officer's uniform after my duel, I talke about servants in general society, and I remember everyone was amaze at me. \"What!\" they asked, \"are we to make our servants sit down on th sofa and offer them tea?\" And I answered them: \"Why not, sometimes a least?\" Everyone laughed. Their question was frivolous and my answe was not clear; but the thought in it was to some extent right."},
{"text":"(g) Of Prayer, of Love, and of Contact with other Worlds"},
{"text":"Young man, be not forgetful of prayer. Every time you pray, if you prayer is sincere, there will be new feeling and new meaning in it which will give you fresh courage, and you will understand that praye is an education. Remember, too, every day, and whenever you can, repea to yourself, \"Lord, have mercy on all who appear before Thee today.\"For every hour and every moment thousands of men leave life on thi earth, and their souls appear before God. And how many of them depar in solitude, unknown, sad, dejected that no one mourns for them or eve knows whether they have lived or not! And behold, from the other end o the earth perhaps, your prayer for their rest will rise up to Go though you knew them not nor they you. How touching it must be to  soul standing in dread before the Lord to feel at that instant that for him too, there is one to pray, that there is a fellow creature lef on earth to love him too! And God will look on you both mor graciously, for if you have had so much pity on him, how much will H have pity Who is infinitely more loving and merciful than you! And H will forgive him for your sake."},
{"text":"Brothers, have no fear of men's sin. Love a man even in his sin, fo that is the semblance of Divine Love and is the highest love on earth Love all God's creation, the whole and every grain of sand in it. Lov every leaf, every ray of God's light. Love the animals, love th plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive th divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin t comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love th whole world with an all-embracing love. Love the animals: God has give them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled. Do not trouble it don't harass them, don't deprive them of their happiness, don't wor against God's intent. Man, do not pride yourself on superiority to th animals; they are without sin, and you, with your greatness, defile th earth by your appearance on it, and leave the traces of your foulnes after you--alas, it is true of almost every one of us! Love childre especially, for they too are sinless like the angels; they live t soften and purify our hearts and as it were to guide us. Woe to him wh offends a child! Father Anfim taught me to love children. The kind silent man used often on our wanderings to spend the farthings given u on sweets and cakes for the children. He could not pass by a chil without emotion. That's the nature of the man."},
{"text":"At some thoughts one stands perplexed, especially at the sight of men' sin, and wonders whether one should use force or humble love. Alway decide to use humble love. If you resolve on that once for all, you ma subdue the whole world. Loving humility is marvelously strong, th strongest of all things, and there is nothing else like it."},
{"text":"Every day and every hour, every minute, walk round yourself and watc yourself, and see that your image is a seemly one. You pass by a littl child, you pass by, spiteful, with ugly words, with wrathful heart; yo may not have noticed the child, but he has seen you, and your image unseemly and ignoble, may remain in his defenseless heart. You don' know it, but you may have sown an evil seed in him and it may grow, an all because you were not careful before the child, because you did no foster in yourself a careful, actively benevolent love. Brothers, lov is a teacher; but one must know how to acquire it, for it is hard t acquire, it is dearly bought, it is won slowly by long labor. For w must love not only occasionally, for a moment, but forever. Everyon can love occasionally, even the wicked can."},
{"text":"My brother asked the birds to forgive him; that sounds senseless, bu it is right; for all is like an ocean, all is flowing and blending;  touch in one place sets up movement at the other end of the earth. I may be senseless to beg forgiveness of the birds, but birds would b happier at your side--a little happier, anyway--and children and al animals, if you were nobler than you are now. It's all like an ocean,  tell you. Then you would pray to the birds too, consumed by a all-embracing love, in a sort of transport, and pray that they too wil forgive you your sin. Treasure this ecstasy, however senseless it ma seem to men."},
{"text":"My friends, pray to God for gladness. Be glad as children, as the bird of heaven. And let not the sin of men confound you in your doings. Fea not that it will wear away your work and hinder its being accomplished Do not say, \"Sin is mighty, wickedness is mighty, evil environment i mighty, and we are lonely and helpless, and evil environment is wearin us away and hindering our good work from being done.\" Fly from tha dejection, children! There is only one means of salvation, then tak yourself and make yourself responsible for all men's sins, that is th truth, you know, friends, for as soon as you sincerely make yoursel responsible for everything and for all men, you will see at once tha it is really so, and that you are to blame for everyone and for al things. But throwing your own indolence and impotence on others yo will end by sharing the pride of Satan and murmuring against God."},
{"text":"Of the pride of Satan what I think is this: it is hard for us on eart to comprehend it, and therefore it is so easy to fall into error and t share it, even imagining that we are doing something grand and fine Indeed, many of the strongest feelings and movements of our nature w cannot comprehend on earth. Let not that be a stumbling-block, an think not that it may serve as a justification to you for anything. Fo the Eternal Judge asks of you what you can comprehend and not what yo cannot. You will know that yourself hereafter, for you will behold al things truly then and will not dispute them. On earth, indeed, we ar as it were astray, and if it were not for the precious image of Chris before us, we should be undone and altogether lost, as was the huma race before the flood. Much on earth is hidden from us, but to make u for that we have been given a precious mystic sense of our living bon with the other world, with the higher heavenly world, and the roots o our thoughts and feelings are not here but in other worlds. That is wh the philosophers say that we cannot apprehend the reality of things o earth."},
{"text":"God took seeds from different worlds and sowed them on this earth, an His garden grew up and everything came up that could come up, but wha grows lives and is alive only through the feeling of its contact wit other mysterious worlds. If that feeling grows weak or is destroyed i you, the heavenly growth will die away in you. Then you will b indifferent to life and even grow to hate it. That's what I think."},
{"text":"(h) Can a Man judge his Fellow Creatures? Faith to the End"},
{"text":"Remember particularly that you cannot be a judge of anyone. For no on can judge a criminal, until he recognizes that he is just such  criminal as the man standing before him, and that he perhaps is mor than all men to blame for that crime. When he understands that, he wil be able to be a judge. Though that sounds absurd, it is true. If I ha been righteous myself, perhaps there would have been no crimina standing before me. If you can take upon yourself the crime of th criminal your heart is judging, take it at once, suffer for hi yourself, and let him go without reproach. And even if the law itsel makes you his judge, act in the same spirit so far as possible, for h will go away and condemn himself more bitterly than you have done. If after your kiss, he goes away untouched, mocking at you, do not le that be a stumbling-block to you. It shows his time has not yet come but it will come in due course. And if it come not, no matter; if no he, then another in his place will understand and suffer, and judge an condemn himself, and the truth will be fulfilled. Believe that, believ it without doubt; for in that lies all the hope and faith of th saints."},
{"text":"Work without ceasing. If you remember in the night as you go to sleep \"I have not done what I ought to have done,\" rise up at once and do it If the people around you are spiteful and callous and will not hea you, fall down before them and beg their forgiveness; for in truth yo are to blame for their not wanting to hear you. And if you cannot spea to them in their bitterness, serve them in silence and in humility never losing hope. If all men abandon you and even drive you away b force, then when you are left alone fall on the earth and kiss it water it with your tears and it will bring forth fruit even though n one has seen or heard you in your solitude. Believe to the end, even i all men went astray and you were left the only one faithful; bring you offering even then and praise God in your loneliness. And if two of yo are gathered together--then there is a whole world, a world of livin love. Embrace each other tenderly and praise God, for if only in yo two His truth has been fulfilled."},
{"text":"If you sin yourself and grieve even unto death for your sins or fo your sudden sin, then rejoice for others, rejoice for the righteou man, rejoice that if you have sinned, he is righteous and has no sinned."},
{"text":"If the evildoing of men moves you to indignation and overwhelmin distress, even to a desire for vengeance on the evildoers, shun abov all things that feeling. Go at once and seek suffering for yourself, a though you were yourself guilty of that wrong. Accept that sufferin and bear it and your heart will find comfort, and you will understan that you too are guilty, for you might have been a light to th evildoers, even as the one man sinless, and you were not a light t them. If you had been a light, you would have lightened the path fo others too, and the evildoer might perhaps have been saved by you light from his sin. And even though your light was shining, yet you se men were not saved by it, hold firm and doubt not the power of th heavenly light. Believe that if they were not saved, they will be save hereafter. And if they are not saved hereafter, then their sons will b saved, for your light will not die even when you are dead. Th righteous man departs, but his light remains. Men are always save after the death of the deliverer. Men reject their prophets and sla them, but they love their martyrs and honor those whom they have slain You are working for the whole, you are acting for the future. Seek n reward, for great is your reward on this earth: the spiritual joy whic is only vouchsafed to the righteous man. Fear not the great nor th mighty, but be wise and ever serene. Know the measure, know the times study that. When you are left alone, pray. Love to throw yourself o the earth and kiss it. Kiss the earth and love it with an unceasing consuming love. Love all men, love everything. Seek that rapture an ecstasy. Water the earth with the tears of your joy and love thos tears. Don't be ashamed of that ecstasy, prize it, for it is a gift o God and a great one; it is not given to many but only to the elect."},
{"text":"(i) Of Hell and Hell Fire, a Mystic Reflection"},
{"text":"Fathers and teachers, I ponder, \"What is hell?\" I maintain that it i the suffering of being unable to love. Once in infinite existence immeasurable in time and space, a spiritual creature was given on hi coming to earth, the power of saying, \"I am and I love.\" Once, onl once, there was given him a moment of active living love, and for tha was earthly life given him, and with it times and seasons. And tha happy creature rejected the priceless gift, prized it and loved it not scorned it and remained callous. Such a one, having left the earth sees Abraham's bosom and talks with Abraham as we are told in th parable of the rich man and Lazarus, and beholds heaven and can go u to the Lord. But that is just his torment, to rise up to the Lor without ever having loved, to be brought close to those who have love when he has despised their love. For he sees clearly and says t himself, \"Now I have understanding, and though I now thirst to love there will be nothing great, no sacrifice in my love, for my earthl life is over, and Abraham will not come even with a drop of livin water (that is the gift of earthly active life) to cool the fier thirst of spiritual love which burns in me now, though I despised it o earth; there is no more life for me and will be no more time! Eve though I would gladly give my life for others, it can never be, fo that life is passed which can be sacrificed for love, and now there i a gulf fixed between that life and this existence.\""},
{"text":"They talk of hell fire in the material sense. I don't go into tha mystery and I shun it. But I think if there were fire in materia sense, they would be glad of it, for I imagine that in material agony their still greater spiritual agony would be forgotten for a moment Moreover, that spiritual agony cannot be taken from them, for tha suffering is not external but within them. And if it could be take from them, I think it would be bitterer still for the unhapp creatures. For even if the righteous in Paradise forgave them beholding their torments, and called them up to heaven in thei infinite love, they would only multiply their torments, for they woul arouse in them still more keenly a flaming thirst for responsive active and grateful love which is now impossible. In the timidity of m heart I imagine, however, that the very recognition of thi impossibility would serve at last to console them. For accepting th love of the righteous together with the impossibility of repaying it by this submissiveness and the effect of this humility, they wil attain at last, as it were, to a certain semblance of that active lov which they scorned in life, to something like its outward expression. ... I am sorry, friends and brothers, that I cannot express thi clearly. But woe to those who have slain themselves on earth, woe t the suicides! I believe that there can be none more miserable the they. They tell us that it is a sin to pray for them and outwardly th Church, as it were, renounces them, but in my secret heart I believ that we may pray even for them. Love can never be an offense to Christ For such as those I have prayed inwardly all my life, I confess it fathers and teachers, and even now I pray for them every day."},
{"text":"Oh, there are some who remain proud and fierce even in hell, in spit of their certain knowledge and contemplation of the absolute truth there are some fearful ones who have given themselves over to Satan an his proud spirit entirely. For such, hell is voluntary and eve consuming; they are tortured by their own choice. For they have curse themselves, cursing God and life. They live upon their vindictive prid like a starving man in the desert sucking blood out of his own body But they are never satisfied, and they refuse forgiveness, they curs God Who calls them. They cannot behold the living God without hatred and they cry out that the God of life should be annihilated, that Go should destroy Himself and His own creation. And they will burn in th fire of their own wrath forever and yearn for death and annihilation But they will not attain to death. ..   __________________________________________________________________"},
{"text":"Here Alexey Fyodorovitch Karamazov's manuscript ends. I repeat, it i incomplete and fragmentary. Biographical details, for instance, cove only Father Zossima's earliest youth. Of his teaching and opinions w find brought together sayings evidently uttered on very differen occasions. His utterances during the last few hours have not been kep separate from the rest, but their general character can be gathere from what we have in Alexey Fyodorovitch's manuscript."},
{"text":"The elder's death came in the end quite unexpectedly. For althoug those who were gathered about him that last evening realized that hi death was approaching, yet it was difficult to imagine that it woul come so suddenly. On the contrary, his friends, as I observed already seeing him that night apparently so cheerful and talkative, wer convinced that there was at least a temporary change for the better i his condition. Even five minutes before his death, they said afterward wonderingly, it was impossible to foresee it. He seemed suddenly t feel an acute pain in his chest, he turned pale and pressed his hand to his heart. All rose from their seats and hastened to him. But thoug suffering, he still looked at them with a smile, sank slowly from hi chair on to his knees, then bowed his face to the ground, stretched ou his arms and as though in joyful ecstasy, praying and kissing th ground, quietly and joyfully gave up his soul to God."},
{"text":"The news of his death spread at once through the hermitage and reache the monastery. The nearest friends of the deceased and those whose dut it was from their position began to lay out the corpse according to th ancient ritual, and all the monks gathered together in the church. An before dawn the news of the death reached the town. By the morning al the town was talking of the event, and crowds were flocking from th town to the monastery. But this subject will be treated in the nex book; I will only add here that before a day had passed somethin happened so unexpected, so strange, upsetting, and bewildering in it effect on the monks and the townspeople, that after all these years that day of general suspense is still vividly remembered in the town."},
{"text": The body of Father Zossima was prepared for burial according to th established ritual. As is well known, the bodies of dead monks an hermits are not washed. In the words of the Church Ritual: \"If any on of the monks depart in the Lord, the monk designated (that is, whos office it is) shall wipe the body with warm water, making first th sign of the cross with a sponge on the forehead of the deceased, on th breast, on the hands and feet and on the knees, and that is enough.\"All this was done by Father Passy, who then clothed the deceased i his monastic garb and wrapped him in his cloak, which was, according t custom, somewhat slit to allow of its being folded about him in th form of a cross. On his head he put a hood with an eight-cornere cross. The hood was left open and the dead man's face was covered wit black gauze. In his hands was put an icon of the Saviour. Toward morning he was put in the coffin which had been made ready long before It was decided to leave the coffin all day in the cell, in the large room in which the elder used to receive his visitors and fellow monks As the deceased was a priest and monk of the strictest rule, th Gospel, not the Psalter, had to be read over his body by monks in hol orders. The reading was begun by Father Iosif immediately after th requiem service. Father Passy desired later on to read the Gospel al day and night over his dead friend, but for the present he, as well a the Father Superintendent of the Hermitage, was very busy and occupied for something extraordinary, an unheard-of, even \"unseemly\" excitemen and impatient expectation began to be apparent in the monks, and th visitors from the monastery hostels, and the crowds of people flockin from the town. And as time went on, this grew more and more marked Both the Superintendent and Father Passy did their utmost to calm th general bustle and agitation."},
{"text":"When it was fully daylight, some people began bringing their sick, i most cases children, with them from the town--as though they had bee waiting expressly for this moment to do so, evidently persuaded tha the dead elder's remains had a power of healing, which would b immediately made manifest in accordance with their faith. It was onl then apparent how unquestionably everyone in our town had accepte Father Zossima during his lifetime as a great saint. And those who cam were far from being all of the humbler classes."},
{"text":"This intense expectation on the part of believers displayed with suc haste, such openness, even with impatience and almost insistence impressed Father Passy as unseemly. Though he had long foresee something of the sort, the actual manifestation of the feeling wa beyond anything he had looked for. When he came across any of the monk who displayed this excitement, Father Passy began to reprove them \"Such immediate expectation of something extraordinary,\" he said \"shows a levity, possible to worldly people but unseemly in us.\""},
{"text":"But little attention was paid him and Father Passy noticed i uneasily. Yet he himself (if the whole truth must be told), secretly a the bottom of his heart, cherished almost the same hopes and could no but be aware of it, though he was indignant at the too impatien expectation around him, and saw in it light-mindedness and vanity Nevertheless, it was particularly unpleasant to him to meet certai persons, whose presence aroused in him great misgivings. In the crow in the dead man's cell he noticed with inward aversion (for which h immediately reproached himself) the presence of Rakitin and of the mon from Obdorsk, who was still staying in the monastery. Of both of the Father Passy felt for some reason suddenly suspicious--though indeed, he might well have felt the same about others."},
{"text":"The monk from Obdorsk was conspicuous as the most fussy in the excite crowd. He was to be seen everywhere; everywhere he was askin questions, everywhere he was listening, on all sides he was whisperin with a peculiar, mysterious air. His expression showed the greates impatience and even a sort of irritation."},
{"text":"As for Rakitin, he, as appeared later, had come so early to th hermitage at the special request of Madame Hohlakov. As soon as tha good-hearted but weak-minded woman, who could not herself have bee admitted to the hermitage, waked and heard of the death of Fathe Zossima, she was overtaken with such intense curiosity that sh promptly dispatched Rakitin to the hermitage, to keep a careful loo out and report to her by letter every half-hour or so \"everything tha takes place.\" She regarded Rakitin as a most religious and devout youn man. He was particularly clever in getting round people and assumin whatever part he thought most to their taste, if he detected th slightest advantage to himself from doing so."},
{"text":"It was a bright, clear day, and many of the visitors were throngin about the tombs, which were particularly numerous round the church an scattered here and there about the hermitage. As he walked round th hermitage, Father Passy remembered Alyosha and that he had not see him for some time, not since the night. And he had no sooner thought o him than he at once noticed him in the farthest corner of the hermitag garden, sitting on the tombstone of a monk who had been famous long ag for his saintliness. He sat with his back to the hermitage and his fac to the wall, and seemed to be hiding behind the tombstone. Going up t him, Father Passy saw that he was weeping quietly but bitterly, wit his face hidden in his hands, and that his whole frame was shaking wit sobs. Father Passy stood over him for a little."},
{"text":"\"Enough, dear son, enough, dear,\" he pronounced with feeling at last \"Why do you weep? Rejoice and weep not. Don't you know that this is th greatest of his days? Think only where he is now, at this moment!\""},
{"text":"Alyosha glanced at him, uncovering his face, which was swollen wit crying like a child's, but turned away at once without uttering a wor and hid his face in his hands again."},
{"text":"\"Maybe it is well,\" said Father Passy thoughtfully; \"weep if you must Christ has sent you those tears.\""},
{"text":"\"Your touching tears are but a relief to your spirit and will serve t gladden your dear heart,\" he added to himself, walking away fro Alyosha, and thinking lovingly of him. He moved away quickly, however for he felt that he too might weep looking at him."},
{"text":"Meanwhile the time was passing; the monastery services and the requiem for the dead followed in their due course. Father Passy again too Father Iosif's place by the coffin and began reading the Gospel. Bu before three o'clock in the afternoon that something took place t which I alluded at the end of the last book, something so unexpected b all of us and so contrary to the general hope, that, I repeat, thi trivial incident has been minutely remembered to this day in our tow and all the surrounding neighborhood. I may add here, for mysel personally, that I feel it almost repulsive to recall that event whic caused such frivolous agitation and was such a stumbling-block to many though in reality it was the most natural and trivial matter. I should of course, have omitted all mention of it in my story, if it had no exerted a very strong influence on the heart and soul of the chief though future, hero of my story, Alyosha, forming a crisis an turning-point in his spiritual development, giving a shock to hi intellect, which finally strengthened it for the rest of his life an gave it a definite aim."},
{"text":"And so, to return to our story. When before dawn they laid Fathe Zossima's body in the coffin and brought it into the front room, th question of opening the windows was raised among those who were aroun the coffin. But this suggestion made casually by someone was unanswere and almost unnoticed. Some of those present may perhaps have inwardl noticed it, only to reflect that the anticipation of decay an corruption from the body of such a saint was an actual absurdity calling for compassion (if not a smile) for the lack of faith and th frivolity it implied. For they expected something quite different."},
{"text":"And, behold, soon after midday there were signs of something, at firs only observed in silence by those who came in and out and wer evidently each afraid to communicate the thought in his mind. But b three o'clock those signs had become so clear and unmistakable, tha the news swiftly reached all the monks and visitors in the hermitage promptly penetrated to the monastery, throwing all the monks int amazement, and finally, in the shortest possible time, spread to th town, exciting everyone in it, believers and unbelievers alike. Th unbelievers rejoiced, and as for the believers some of them rejoice even more than the unbelievers, for \"men love the downfall and disgrac of the righteous,\" as the deceased elder had said in one of hi exhortations."},
{"text":"The fact is that a smell of decomposition began to come from th coffin, growing gradually more marked, and by three o'clock it wa quite unmistakable. In all the past history of our monastery, no suc scandal could be recalled, and in no other circumstances could such  scandal have been possible, as showed itself in unseemly disorde immediately after this discovery among the very monks themselves Afterwards, even many years afterwards, some sensible monks were amaze and horrified, when they recalled that day, that the scandal could hav reached such proportions. For in the past, monks of very holy life ha died, God-fearing old men, whose saintliness was acknowledged by all yet from their humble coffins, too, the breath of corruption had come naturally, as from all dead bodies, but that had caused no scandal no even the slightest excitement. Of course there had been, in forme times, saints in the monastery whose memory was carefully preserved an whose relics, according to tradition, showed no signs of corruption This fact was regarded by the monks as touching and mysterious, and th tradition of it was cherished as something blessed and miraculous, an as a promise, by God's grace, of still greater glory from their tomb in the future."},
{"text":"One such, whose memory was particularly cherished, was an old monk Job, who had died seventy years before at the age of a hundred an five. He had been a celebrated ascetic, rigid in fasting and silence and his tomb was pointed out to all visitors on their arrival wit peculiar respect and mysterious hints of great hopes connected with it (That was the very tomb on which Father Passy had found Alyosh sitting in the morning.) Another memory cherished in the monastery wa that of the famous Father Varsonofy, who was only recently dead and ha preceded Father Zossima in the eldership. He was reverenced during hi lifetime as a crazy saint by all the pilgrims to the monastery. Ther was a tradition that both of these had lain in their coffins as thoug alive, that they had shown no signs of decomposition when they wer buried and that there had been a holy light in their faces. And som people even insisted that a sweet fragrance came from their bodies."},
{"text":"Yet, in spite of these edifying memories, it would be difficult t explain the frivolity, absurdity and malice that were manifested besid the coffin of Father Zossima. It is my private opinion that severa different causes were simultaneously at work, one of which was th deeply-rooted hostility to the institution of elders as a perniciou innovation, an antipathy hidden deep in the hearts of many of th monks. Even more powerful was jealousy of the dead man's saintliness so firmly established during his lifetime that it was almost  forbidden thing to question it. For though the late elder had won ove many hearts, more by love than by miracles, and had gathered round hi a mass of loving adherents, none the less, in fact, rather the more o that account he had awakened jealousy and so had come to have bitte enemies, secret and open, not only in the monastery but in the worl outside it. He did no one any harm, but \"Why do they think him s saintly?\" And that question alone, gradually repeated, gave rise a last to an intense, insatiable hatred of him. That, I believe, was wh many people were extremely delighted at the smell of decompositio which came so quickly, for not a day had passed since his death. At th same time there were some among those who had been hitherto reverentl devoted to the elder, who were almost mortified and personall affronted by this incident. This was how the thing happened."},
{"text":"As soon as signs of decomposition had begun to appear, the whole aspec of the monks betrayed their secret motives in entering the cell. The went in, stayed a little while and hastened out to confirm the news t the crowd of other monks waiting outside. Some of the latter shoo their heads mournfully, but others did not even care to conceal th delight which gleamed unmistakably in their malignant eyes. And now n one reproached them for it, no one raised his voice in protest, whic was strange, for the majority of the monks had been devoted to the dea elder. But it seemed as though God had in this case let the minorit get the upper hand for a time."},
{"text":"Visitors from outside, particularly of the educated class, soon wen into the cell, too, with the same spying intent. Of the peasantry fe went into the cell, though there were crowds of them at the gates o the hermitage. After three o'clock the rush of worldly visitors wa greatly increased and this was no doubt owing to the shocking news People were attracted who would not otherwise have come on that day an had not intended to come, and among them were some personages of hig standing. But external decorum was still preserved and Father Passy with a stern face, continued firmly and distinctly reading aloud th Gospel, apparently not noticing what was taking place around him though he had, in fact, observed something unusual long before. But a last the murmurs, first subdued but gradually louder and mor confident, reached even him. \"It shows God's judgment is not as man's,\"Father Passy heard suddenly. The first to give utterance to thi sentiment was a layman, an elderly official from the town, known to b a man of great piety. But he only repeated aloud what the monks ha long been whispering. They had long before formulated this damnin conclusion, and the worst of it was that a sort of triumphan satisfaction at that conclusion became more and more apparent ever moment. Soon they began to lay aside even external decorum and almos seemed to feel they had a sort of right to discard it."},
{"text":"\"And for what reason can this have happened,\" some of the monks said at first with a show of regret; \"he had a small frame and his flesh wa dried up on his bones, what was there to decay?\""},
{"text":"\"It must be a sign from heaven,\" others hastened to add, and thei opinion was adopted at once without protest. For it was pointed out too, that if the decomposition had been natural, as in the case o every dead sinner, it would have been apparent later, after a lapse o at least twenty-four hours, but this premature corruption \"was i excess of nature,\" and so the finger of God was evident. It was mean for a sign. This conclusion seemed irresistible."},
{"text":"Gentle Father Iosif, the librarian, a great favorite of the dead man's tried to reply to some of the evil speakers that \"this is not hel everywhere alike,\" and that the incorruptibility of the bodies of th just was not a dogma of the Orthodox Church, but only an opinion, an that even in the most Orthodox regions, at Athos for instance, the were not greatly confounded by the smell of corruption, and there th chief sign of the glorification of the saved was not bodil incorruptibility, but the color of the bones when the bodies have lai many years in the earth and have decayed in it. \"And if the bones ar yellow as wax, that is the great sign that the Lord has glorified th dead saint, if they are not yellow but black, it shows that God has no deemed him worthy of such glory--that is the belief in Athos, a grea place, where the Orthodox doctrine has been preserved from of old unbroken and in its greatest purity,\" said Father Iosif in conclusion."},
{"text":"But the meek Father's words had little effect and even provoked  mocking retort. \"That's all pedantry and innovation, no use listenin to it,\" the monks decided. \"We stick to the old doctrine, there are al sorts of innovations nowadays, are we to follow them all?\" adde others."},
{"text":"\"We have had as many holy fathers as they had. There they are among th Turks, they have forgotten everything. Their doctrine has long bee impure and they have no bells even,\" the most sneering added."},
{"text":"Father Iosif walked away, grieving the more since he had put forwar his own opinion with little confidence as though scarcely believing i it himself. He foresaw with distress that something very unseemly wa beginning and that there were positive signs of disobedience. Little b little, all the sensible monks were reduced to silence like Fathe Iosif. And so it came to pass that all who loved the elder and ha accepted with devout obedience the institution of the eldership wer all at once terribly cast down and glanced timidly in one another' faces, when they met. Those who were hostile to the institution o elders, as a novelty, held up their heads proudly. \"There was no smel of corruption from the late elder Varsonofy, but a sweet fragrance,\"they recalled malignantly. \"But he gained that glory not because he wa an elder, but because he was a holy man.\""},
{"text":"And this was followed by a shower of criticism and even blame of Fathe Zossima. \"His teaching was false; he taught that life is a great jo and not a vale of tears,\" said some of the more unreasonable. \"H followed the fashionable belief, he did not recognize material fire i hell,\" others, still more unreasonable, added. \"He was not strict i fasting, allowed himself sweet things, ate cherry jam with his tea ladies used to send it to him. Is it for a monk of strict rule to drin tea?\" could be heard among some of the envious. \"He sat in pride,\" th most malignant declared vindictively; \"he considered himself a sain and he took it as his due when people knelt before him.\" \"He abused th sacrament of confession,\" the fiercest opponents of the institution o elders added in a malicious whisper. And among these were some of th oldest monks, strictest in their devotion, genuine ascetics, who ha kept silent during the life of the deceased elder, but now suddenl unsealed their lips. And this was terrible, for their words had grea influence on young monks who were not yet firm in their convictions The monk from Obdorsk heard all this attentively, heaving deep sigh and nodding his head. \"Yes, clearly Father Ferapont was right in hi judgment yesterday,\" and at that moment Father Ferapont himself mad his appearance, as though on purpose to increase the confusion."},
{"text":"I have mentioned already that he rarely left his wooden cell by th apiary. He was seldom even seen at church and they overlooked thi neglect on the ground of his craziness, and did not keep him to th rules binding on all the rest. But if the whole truth is to be told they hardly had a choice about it. For it would have been discreditabl to insist on burdening with the common regulations so great an ascetic who prayed day and night (he even dropped asleep on his knees). If the had insisted, the monks would have said, \"He is holier than all of u and he follows a rule harder than ours. And if he does not go t church, it's because he knows when he ought to; he has his own rule.\"It was to avoid the chance of these sinful murmurs that Father Ferapon was left in peace."},
{"text":"As everyone was aware, Father Ferapont particularly disliked Fathe Zossima. And now the news had reached him in his hut that \"God' judgment is not the same as man's,\" and that something had happene which was \"in excess of nature.\" It may well be supposed that among th first to run to him with the news was the monk from Obdorsk, who ha visited him the evening before and left his cell terror-stricken."},
{"text":"I have mentioned above, that though Father Passy, standing firm an immovable reading the Gospel over the coffin, could not hear nor se what was passing outside the cell, he gauged most of it correctly i his heart, for he knew the men surrounding him, well. He was not shake by it, but awaited what would come next without fear, watching wit penetration and insight for the outcome of the general excitement."},
{"text":"Suddenly an extraordinary uproar in the passage in open defiance o decorum burst on his ears. The door was flung open and Father Ferapon appeared in the doorway. Behind him there could be seen accompanyin him a crowd of monks, together with many people from the town. They di not, however, enter the cell, but stood at the bottom of the steps waiting to see what Father Ferapont would say or do. For they felt wit a certain awe, in spite of their audacity, that he had not come fo nothing. Standing in the doorway, Father Ferapont raised his arms, an under his right arm the keen inquisitive little eyes of the monk fro Obdorsk peeped in. He alone, in his intense curiosity, could not resis running up the steps after Father Ferapont. The others, on th contrary, pressed farther back in sudden alarm when the door wa noisily flung open. Holding his hands aloft, Father Ferapont suddenl roared:"},
{"text":"\"Casting out I cast out!\" and, turning in all directions, he began a once making the sign of the cross at each of the four walls and fou corners of the cell in succession. All who accompanied Father Ferapon immediately understood his action. For they knew he always did thi wherever he went, and that he would not sit down or say a word, till h had driven out the evil spirits."},
{"text":"\"Satan, go hence! Satan, go hence!\" he repeated at each sign of th cross. \"Casting out I cast out,\" he roared again."},
{"text":"He was wearing his coarse gown girt with a rope. His bare chest covered with gray hair, could be seen under his hempen shirt. His fee were bare. As soon as he began waving his arms, the cruel irons he wor under his gown could be heard clanking."},
{"text":"Father Passy paused in his reading, stepped forward and stood befor him waiting."},
{"text":"\"What have you come for, worthy Father? Why do you offend against goo order? Why do you disturb the peace of the flock?\" he said at last looking sternly at him."},
{"text":"\"What have I come for? You ask why? What is your faith?\" shouted Fathe Ferapont crazily. \"I've come here to drive out your visitors, th unclean devils. I've come to see how many have gathered here while  have been away. I want to sweep them out with a birch broom.\""},
{"text":"\"You cast out the evil spirit, but perhaps you are serving hi yourself,\" Father Passy went on fearlessly. \"And who can say o himself `I am holy'? Can you, Father?\""},
{"text":"\"I am unclean, not holy. I would not sit in an armchair and would no have them bow down to me as an idol,\" thundered Father Ferapont \"Nowadays folk destroy the true faith. The dead man, your saint,\" h turned to the crowd, pointing with his finger to the coffin, \"did no believe in devils. He gave medicine to keep off the devils. And so the have become as common as spiders in the corners. And now he has begu to stink himself. In that we see a great sign from God.\""},
{"text":"The incident he referred to was this. One of the monks was haunted i his dreams and, later on, in waking moments, by visions of evi spirits. When in the utmost terror he confided this to Father Zossima the elder had advised continual prayer and rigid fasting. But when tha was of no use, he advised him, while persisting in prayer and fasting to take a special medicine. Many persons were shocked at the time an wagged their heads as they talked over it--and most of all Fathe Ferapont, to whom some of the censorious had hastened to report thi \"extraordinary\" counsel on the part of the elder."},
{"text":"\"Go away, Father!\" said Father Passy, in a commanding voice, \"it's no for man to judge but for God. Perhaps we see here a `sign' whic neither you, nor I, nor any one of us is able to comprehend. Go Father, and do not trouble the flock!\" he repeated impressively."},
{"text":"\"He did not keep the fasts according to the rule and therefore the sig has come. That is clear and it's a sin to hide it,\" the fanatic carried away by a zeal that outstripped his reason, would not b quieted. \"He was seduced by sweetmeats, ladies brought them to him i their pockets, he sipped tea, he worshiped his belly, filling it wit sweet things and his mind with haughty thoughts. ... And for this h is put to shame. ...\""},
{"text":"\"You speak lightly, Father.\" Father Passy, too, raised his voice. \" admire your fasting and severities, but you speak lightly like som frivolous youth, fickle and childish. Go away, Father, I command you!\"Father Passy thundered in conclusion."},
{"text":"\"I will go,\" said Ferapont, seeming somewhat taken aback, but still a bitter. \"You learned men! You are so clever you look down upon m humbleness. I came hither with little learning and here I hav forgotten what I did know, God Himself has preserved me in my weaknes from your subtlety.\""},
{"text":"Father Passy stood over him, waiting resolutely. Father Ferapon paused and, suddenly leaning his cheek on his hand despondently pronounced in a singsong voice, looking at the coffin of the dea elder:"},
{"text":"\"Tomorrow they will sing over him `Our Helper and Defender'-- splendid anthem--and over me when I die all they'll sing will be `Wha earthly joy'--a little canticle,\"[134]6 he added with tearful regret \"You are proud and puffed up, this is a vain place!\" he shoute suddenly like a madman, and with a wave of his hand he turned quickl and quickly descended the steps. The crowd awaiting him below wavered some followed him at once and some lingered, for the cell was stil open, and Father Passy, following Father Ferapont on to the steps stood watching him. But the excited old fanatic was not completel silenced. Walking twenty steps away, he suddenly turned towards th setting sun, raised both his arms and, as though someone had cut hi down, fell to the ground with a loud scream."},
{"text":"\"My God has conquered! Christ has conquered the setting sun!\" h shouted frantically, stretching up his hands to the sun, and fallin face downwards on the ground, he sobbed like a little child, shaken b his tears and spreading out his arms on the ground. Then all rushed u to him; there were exclamations and sympathetic sobs ... a kind o frenzy seemed to take possession of them all."},
{"text":"\"This is the one who is a saint! This is the one who is a holy man!\"some cried aloud, losing their fear. \"This is he who should be a elder,\" others added malignantly."},
{"text":"\"He wouldn't be an elder ... he would refuse ... he wouldn't serv a cursed innovation ... he wouldn't imitate their foolery,\" othe voices chimed in at once. And it is hard to say how far they might hav gone, but at that moment the bell rang summoning them to service. Al began crossing themselves at once. Father Ferapont, too, got up an crossing himself went back to his cell without looking round, stil uttering exclamations which were utterly incoherent. A few followe him, but the greater number dispersed, hastening to service. Fathe Passy let Father Iosif read in his place and went down. The franti outcries of bigots could not shake him, but his heart was suddenl filled with melancholy for some special reason and he felt that. H stood still and suddenly wondered, \"Why am I sad even to dejection?\"and immediately grasped with surprise that his sudden sadness was du to a very small and special cause. In the crowd thronging at th entrance to the cell, he had noticed Alyosha and he remembered that h had felt at once a pang at heart on seeing him. \"Can that boy mean s much to my heart now?\" he asked himself, wondering."},
{"text":"At that moment Alyosha passed him, hurrying away, but not in th direction of the church. Their eyes met. Alyosha quickly turned awa his eyes and dropped them to the ground, and from the boy's look alone Father Passy guessed what a great change was taking place in him a that moment."},
{"text":"\"Have you, too, fallen into temptation?\" cried Father Passy. \"Can yo be with those of little faith?\" he added mournfully."},
{"text":"Alyosha stood still and gazed vaguely at Father Passy, but quickl turned his eyes away again and again looked on the ground. He stoo sideways and did not turn his face to Father Passy, who watched hi attentively."},
{"text":"\"Where are you hastening? The bell calls to service,\" he asked again but again Alyosha gave no answer."},
{"text":"\"Are you leaving the hermitage? What, without asking leave, withou asking a blessing?\""},
{"text":"Alyosha suddenly gave a wry smile, cast a strange, very strange, loo at the Father to whom his former guide, the former sovereign of hi heart and mind, his beloved elder, had confided him as he lay dying And suddenly, still without speaking, waved his hand, as though no caring even to be respectful, and with rapid steps walked towards th gates away from the hermitage."},
{"text":"\"You will come back again!\" murmured Father Passy, looking after hi with sorrowful surprise."},
{"text":" II"},
{"text":"A Critical Moment"},
{"text":"Father Passy, of course, was not wrong when he decided that his \"dea boy\" would come back again. Perhaps indeed, to some extent, h penetrated with insight into the true meaning of Alyosha's spiritua condition. Yet I must frankly own that it would be very difficult fo me to give a clear account of that strange, vague moment in the life o the young hero I love so much. To Father Passy's sorrowful question \"Are you too with those of little faith?\" I could of course confidentl answer for Alyosha, \"No, he is not with those of little faith. Quit the contrary.\" Indeed, all his trouble came from the fact that he wa of great faith. But still the trouble was there and was so agonizin that even long afterwards Alyosha thought of that sorrowful day as on of the bitterest and most fatal days of his life. If the question i asked: \"Could all his grief and disturbance have been only due to th fact that his elder's body had shown signs of premature decompositio instead of at once performing miracles?\" I must answer without beatin about the bush, \"Yes, it certainly was.\" I would only beg the reade not to be in too great a hurry to laugh at my young hero's pure heart I am far from intending to apologize for him or to justify his innocen faith on the ground of his youth, or the little progress he had made i his studies, or any such reason. I must declare, on the contrary, tha I have genuine respect for the qualities of his heart. No doubt a yout who received impressions cautiously, whose love was lukewarm, and whos mind was too prudent for his age and so of little value, such a youn man might, I admit, have avoided what happened to my hero. But in som cases it is really more creditable to be carried away by an emotion however unreasonable, which springs from a great love, than to b unmoved. And this is even truer in youth, for a young man who is alway sensible is to be suspected and is of little worth--that's my opinion!"},
{"text":"\"But,\" reasonable people will exclaim perhaps, \"every young man canno believe in such a superstition and your hero is no model for others.\""},
{"text":"To this I reply again, \"Yes! my hero had faith, a faith holy an steadfast, but still I am not going to apologize for him.\""},
{"text":"Though I declared above, and perhaps too hastily, that I should no explain or justify my hero, I see that some explanation is necessar for the understanding of the rest of my story. Let me say then, it wa not a question of miracles. There was no frivolous and impatien expectation of miracles in his mind. And Alyosha needed no miracles a the time, for the triumph of some preconceived idea--oh, no, not a all--what he saw before all was one figure--the figure of his belove elder, the figure of that holy man whom he revered with such adoration The fact is that all the love that lay concealed in his pure youn heart for everyone and everything had, for the past year, bee concentrated--and perhaps wrongly so--on one being, his belove elder. It is true that being had for so long been accepted by him a his ideal, that all his young strength and energy could not but tur towards that ideal, even to the forgetting at the moment \"of everyon and everything.\" He remembered afterwards how, on that terrible day, h had entirely forgotten his brother Dmitri, about whom he had been s anxious and troubled the day before; he had forgotten, too, to take th two hundred roubles to Ilusha's father, though he had so warml intended to do so the preceding evening. But again it was not miracle he needed but only \"the higher justice\" which had been in his belie outraged by the blow that had so suddenly and cruelly wounded hi heart. And what does it signify that this \"justice\" looked for b Alyosha inevitably took the shape of miracles to be wrought immediatel by the ashes of his adored teacher? Why, everyone in the monaster cherished the same thought and the same hope, even those whos intellects Alyosha revered, Father Passy himself, for instance. And s Alyosha, untroubled by doubts, clothed his dreams too in the same for as all the rest. And a whole year of life in the monastery had forme the habit of this expectation in his heart. But it was justice justice, he thirsted for, not simply miracles."},
{"text":"And now the man who should, he believed, have been exalted abov everyone in the whole world, that man, instead of receiving the glor that was his due, was suddenly degraded and dishonored! What for? Wh had judged him? Who could have decreed this? Those were the question that wrung his inexperienced and virginal heart. He could not endur without mortification, without resentment even, that the holiest o holy men should have been exposed to the jeering and spiteful mocker of the frivolous crowd so inferior to him. Even had there been n miracles, had there been nothing marvelous to justify his hopes, wh this indignity, why this humiliation, why this premature decay, \"i excess of nature,\" as the spiteful monks said? Why this \"sign fro heaven,\" which they so triumphantly acclaimed in company with Fathe Ferapont, and why did they believe they had gained the right to acclai it? Where is the finger of Providence? Why did Providence hide its fac \"at the most critical moment\" (so Alyosha thought it), as thoug voluntarily submitting to the blind, dumb, pitiless laws of nature?"},
{"text":"That was why Alyosha's heart was bleeding, and, of course, as I hav said already, the sting of it all was that the man he loved abov everything on earth should be put to shame and humiliated! Thi murmuring may have been shallow and unreasonable in my hero, but  repeat again for the third time--and am prepared to admit that i might be difficult to defend my feeling--I am glad that my hero showe himself not too reasonable at that moment, for any man of sense wil always come back to reason in time, but, if love does not gain th upper hand in a boy's heart at such an exceptional moment, when wil it? I will not, however, omit to mention something strange, which cam for a time to the surface of Alyosha's mind at this fatal and obscur moment. This new something was the harassing impression left by th conversation with Ivan, which now persistently haunted Alyosha's mind At this moment it haunted him. Oh, it was not that something of th fundamental, elemental, so to speak, faith of his soul had been shaken He loved his God and believed in Him steadfastly, though he wa suddenly murmuring against Him. Yet a vague but tormenting and evi impression left by his conversation with Ivan the day before, suddenl revived again now in his soul and seemed forcing its way to the surfac of his consciousness."},
{"text":"It had begun to get dusk when Rakitin, crossing the pine copse from th hermitage to the monastery, suddenly noticed Alyosha, lying fac downwards on the ground under a tree, not moving and apparently asleep He went up and called him by his name."},
{"text":"\"You here, Alexey? Can you have--\" he began wondering but broke off He had meant to say, \"Can you have come to this?\""},
{"text":"Alyosha did not look at him, but from a slight movement Rakitin at onc saw that he heard and understood him."},
{"text":"\"What's the matter?\" he went on; but the surprise in his face graduall passed into a smile that became more and more ironical."},
{"text":"\"I say, I've been looking for you for the last two hours. You suddenl disappeared. What are you about? What foolery is this? You might jus look at me ...\""},
{"text":"Alyosha raised his head, sat up and leaned his back against the tree He was not crying, but there was a look of suffering and irritabilit in his face. He did not look at Rakitin, however, but looked away t one side of him."},
{"text":"\"Do you know your face is quite changed? There's none of your famou mildness to be seen in it. Are you angry with someone? Have they bee ill-treating you?\""},
{"text":"\"Let me alone,\" said Alyosha suddenly, with a weary gesture of hi hand, still looking away from him."},
{"text":"\"Oho! So that's how we are feeling! So you can shout at people lik other mortals. That is a comedown from the angels. I say, Alyosha, yo have surprised me, do you hear? I mean it. It's long since I've bee surprised at anything here. I always took you for an educated man. ...\""},
{"text":"Alyosha at last looked at him, but vaguely, as though scarcel understanding what he said."},
{"text":"\"Can you really be so upset simply because your old man has begun t stink? You don't mean to say you seriously believed that he was goin to work miracles?\" exclaimed Rakitin, genuinely surprised again."},
{"text":"\"I believed, I believe, I want to believe, and I will believe, wha more do you want?\" cried Alyosha irritably."},
{"text":"\"Nothing at all, my boy. Damn it all! why, no schoolboy of thirtee believes in that now. But there. ... So now you are in a temper wit your God, you are rebelling against Him; He hasn't given promotion, H hasn't bestowed the order of merit! Eh, you are a set!\""},
{"text":"Alyosha gazed a long while with his eyes half closed at Rakitin, an there was a sudden gleam in his eyes ... but not of anger wit Rakitin."},
{"text":"\"I am not rebelling against my God; I simply `don't accept His world. \" Alyosha suddenly smiled a forced smile."},
{"text":"\"How do you mean, you don't accept the world?\" Rakitin thought a momen over his answer. \"What idiocy is this?\""},
{"text":"Alyosha did not answer."},
{"text":"\"Come, enough nonsense, now to business. Have you had anything to ea today?\""},
{"text":"\"I don't remember. ... I think I have.\""},
{"text":"\"You need keeping up, to judge by your face. It makes one sorry to loo at you. You didn't sleep all night either, I hear, you had a meeting i there. And then all this bobbery afterwards. Most likely you've ha nothing to eat but a mouthful of holy bread. I've got some sausage i my pocket; I've brought it from the town in case of need, only yo won't eat sausage. ...\""},
{"text":"\"Give me some.\""},
{"text":"\"I say! You are going it! Why, it's a regular mutiny, with barricades Well, my boy, we must make the most of it. Come to my place. ...  shouldn't mind a drop of vodka myself, I am tired to death. Vodka i going too far for you, I suppose ... or would you like some?\""},
{"text":"\"Give me some vodka too.\""},
{"text":"\"Hullo! You surprise me, brother!\" Rakitin looked at him in amazement \"Well, one way or another, vodka or sausage, this is a jolly fin chance and mustn't be missed. Come along.\""},
{"text":"Alyosha got up in silence and followed Rakitin."},
{"text":"\"If your little brother Ivan could see this--wouldn't he be surprised By the way, your brother Ivan set off to Moscow this morning, did yo know?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes,\" answered Alyosha listlessly, and suddenly the image of hi brother Dmitri rose before his mind. But only for a minute, and thoug it reminded him of something that must not be put off for a moment some duty, some terrible obligation, even that reminder made n impression on him, did not reach his heart and instantly faded out o his mind and was forgotten. But, a long while afterwards, Alyosh remembered this."},
{"text":"\"Your brother Ivan declared once that I was a `liberal booby with n talents whatsoever.' Once you, too, could not resist letting me know  was `dishonorable.' Well! I should like to see what your talents an sense of honor will do for you now.\" This phrase Rakitin finished t himself in a whisper."},
{"text":"\"Listen!\" he said aloud, \"let's go by the path beyond the monaster straight to the town. Hm! I ought to go to Madame Hohlakov's by th way. Only fancy, I've written to tell her everything that happened, an would you believe it, she answered me instantly in pencil (the lady ha a passion for writing notes) that `she would never have expected suc conduct from a man of such a reverend character as Father Zossima. That was her very word: `conduct.' She is angry too. Eh, you are a set Stay!\" he cried suddenly again. He suddenly stopped and taking Alyosh by the shoulder made him stop too."},
{"text":"\"Do you know, Alyosha,\" he peeped inquisitively into his eyes, absorbe in a sudden new thought which had dawned on him, and though he wa laughing outwardly he was evidently afraid to utter that new ide aloud, so difficult he still found it to believe in the strange an unexpected mood in which he now saw Alyosha. \"Alyosha, do you kno where we had better go?\" he brought out at last timidly, an insinuatingly."},
{"text":"\"I don't care ... where you like.\""},
{"text":"\"Let's go to Grushenka, eh? Will you come?\" pronounced Rakitin at last trembling with timid suspense."},
{"text":"\"Let's go to Grushenka,\" Alyosha answered calmly, at once, and thi prompt and calm agreement was such a surprise to Rakitin that he almos started back."},
{"text":"\"Well! I say!\" he cried in amazement, but seizing Alyosha firmly by th arm he led him along the path, still dreading that he would change hi mind."},
{"text":"They walked along in silence, Rakitin was positively afraid to talk."},
{"text":"\"And how glad she will be, how delighted!\" he muttered, but lapsed int silence again. And indeed it was not to please Grushenka he was takin Alyosha to her. He was a practical person and never undertook anythin without a prospect of gain for himself. His object in this case wa twofold, first a revengeful desire to see \"the downfall of th righteous,\" and Alyosha's fall \"from the saints to the sinners,\" ove which he was already gloating in his imagination, and in the secon place he had in view a certain material gain for himself, of which mor will be said later."},
{"text":"\"So the critical moment has come,\" he thought to himself with spitefu glee, \"and we shall catch it on the hop, for it's just what we want.\""},
{"text":" III"},
{"text":"An Onion"},
{"text":"Grushenka lived in the busiest part of the town, near the cathedra square, in a small wooden lodge in the courtyard belonging to the hous of the widow Morozov. The house was a large stone building of tw stories, old and very ugly. The widow led a secluded life with her tw unmarried nieces, who were also elderly women. She had no need to le her lodge, but everyone knew that she had taken in Grushenka as  lodger, four years before, solely to please her kinsman, the merchan Samsonov, who was known to be the girl's protector. It was said tha the jealous old man's object in placing his \"favorite\" with the wido Morozov was that the old woman should keep a sharp eye on her ne lodger's conduct. But this sharp eye soon proved to be unnecessary, an in the end the widow Morozov seldom met Grushenka and did not worry he by looking after her in any way. It is true that four years had passe since the old man had brought the slim, delicate, shy, timid, dreamy and sad girl of eighteen from the chief town of the province, and muc had happened since then. Little was known of the girl's history in th town and that little was vague. Nothing more had been learnt during th last four years, even after many persons had become interested in th beautiful young woman into whom Agrafena Alexandrovna had meanwhil developed. There were rumors that she had been at seventeen betrayed b someone, some sort of officer, and immediately afterwards abandoned b him. The officer had gone away and afterwards married, while Grushenk had been left in poverty and disgrace. It was said, however, tha though Grushenka had been raised from destitution by the old man Samsonov, she came of a respectable family belonging to the clerica class, that she was the daughter of a deacon or something of the sort."},
{"text":"And now after four years the sensitive, injured and pathetic littl orphan had become a plump, rosy beauty of the Russian type, a woman o bold and determined character, proud and insolent. She had a good hea for business, was acquisitive, saving and careful, and by fair means o foul had succeeded, it was said, in amassing a little fortune. Ther was only one point on which all were agreed. Grushenka was not easil to be approached and except her aged protector there had not been on man who could boast of her favors during those four years. It was  positive fact, for there had been a good many, especially during th last two years, who had attempted to obtain those favors. But all thei efforts had been in vain and some of these suitors had been forced t beat an undignified and even comic retreat, owing to the firm an ironical resistance they met from the strong-willed young person. I was known, too, that the young person had, especially of late, bee given to what is called \"speculation,\" and that she had shown marke abilities in that direction, so that many people began to say that sh was no better than a Jew. It was not that she lent money on interest but it was known, for instance, that she had for some time past, i partnership with old Karamazov, actually invested in the purchase o bad debts for a trifle, a tenth of their nominal value, and afterward had made out of them ten times their value."},
{"text":"The old widower Samsonov, a man of large fortune, was stingy an merciless. He tyrannized over his grownup sons, but, for the last yea during which he had been ill and lost the use of his swollen legs, h had fallen greatly under the influence of his protge, whom he had a first kept strictly and in humble surroundings, \"on Lenten fare,\" a the wits said at the time. But Grushenka had succeeded in emancipatin herself, while she established in him a boundless belief in he fidelity. The old man, now long since dead, had had a large business i his day and was also a noteworthy character, miserly and hard as flint Though Grushenka's hold upon him was so strong that he could not liv without her (it had been so especially for the last two years), he di not settle any considerable fortune on her and would not have bee moved to do so, if she had threatened to leave him. But he ha presented her with a small sum, and even that was a surprise t everyone when it became known."},
{"text":"\"You are a wench with brains,\" he said to her, when he gave her eigh thousand roubles, \"and you must look after yourself, but let me tel you that except your yearly allowance as before, you'll get nothin more from me to the day of my death, and I'll leave you nothing in m will either.\""},
{"text":"And he kept his word; he died and left everything to his sons, whom with their wives and children, he had treated all his life as servants Grushenka was not even mentioned in his will. All this became know afterwards. He helped Grushenka with his advice to increase her capita and put business in her way."},
{"text":"When Fyodor Pavlovitch, who first came into contact with Grushenka ove a piece of speculation, ended to his own surprise by falling madly i love with her, old Samsonov, gravely ill as he was, was immensel amused. It is remarkable that throughout their whole acquaintanc Grushenka was absolutely and spontaneously open with the old man, an he seems to have been the only person in the world with whom she wa so. Of late, when Dmitri too had come on the scene with his love, th old man left off laughing. On the contrary, he once gave Grushenka  stern and earnest piece of advice."},
{"text":"\"If you have to choose between the two, father or son, you'd bette choose the old man, if only you make sure the old scoundrel will marr you and settle some fortune on you beforehand. But don't keep on wit the captain, you'll get no good out of that.\""},
{"text":"These were the very words of the old profligate, who felt already tha his death was not far off and who actually died five months later."},
{"text":"I will note, too, in passing, that although many in our town knew o the grotesque and monstrous rivalry of the Karamazovs, father and son the object of which was Grushenka, scarcely anyone understood wha really underlay her attitude to both of them. Even Grushenka's tw servants (after the catastrophe of which we will speak later) testifie in court that she received Dmitri Fyodorovitch simply from fear becaus \"he threatened to murder her.\" These servants were an old cook invalidish and almost deaf, who came from Grushenka's old home, and he granddaughter, a smart young girl of twenty, who performed the dutie of a maid. Grushenka lived very economically and her surroundings wer anything but luxurious. Her lodge consisted of three rooms furnishe with mahogany furniture in the fashion of 1820, belonging to he landlady."},
{"text":"It was quite dark when Rakitin and Alyosha entered her rooms, yet the were not lighted up. Grushenka was lying down in her drawing-room o the big, hard, clumsy sofa, with a mahogany back. The sofa was covere with shabby and ragged leather. Under her head she had two white dow pillows taken from her bed. She was lying stretched out motionless o her back with her hands behind her head. She was dressed as thoug expecting someone, in a black silk dress, with a dainty lace fichu o her head, which was very becoming. Over her shoulders was thrown a lac shawl pinned with a massive gold brooch. She certainly was expectin someone. She lay as though impatient and weary, her face rather pal and her lips and eyes hot, restlessly tapping the arm of the sofa wit the tip of her right foot. The appearance of Rakitin and Alyosha cause a slight excitement. From the hall they could hear Grushenka leap u from the sofa and cry out in a frightened voice, \"Who's there?\" But th maid met the visitors and at once called back to her mistress."},
{"text":"\"It's not he, it's nothing, only other visitors.\""},
{"text":"\"What can be the matter?\" muttered Rakitin, leading Alyosha into th drawing-room."},
{"text":"Grushenka was standing by the sofa as though still alarmed. A thic coil of her dark brown hair escaped from its lace covering and fell o her right shoulder, but she did not notice it and did not put it bac till she had gazed at her visitors and recognized them."},
{"text":"\"Ah, it's you, Rakitin? You quite frightened me. Whom have you brought Who is this with you? Good heavens, you have brought him!\" sh exclaimed, recognizing Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"Do send for candles!\" said Rakitin, with the free-and-easy air of  most intimate friend, who is privileged to give orders in the house."},
{"text":"\"Candles ... of course, candles. ... Fenya, fetch him a candle. ... Well, you have chosen a moment to bring him!\" she exclaimed again nodding towards Alyosha, and turning to the looking-glass she bega quickly fastening up her hair with both hands. She seemed displeased."},
{"text":"\"Haven't I managed to please you?\" asked Rakitin, instantly almos offended."},
{"text":"\"You frightened me, Rakitin, that's what it is.\" Grushenka turned wit a smile to Alyosha. \"Don't be afraid of me, my dear Alyosha, you canno think how glad I am to see you, my unexpected visitor. But yo frightened me, Rakitin, I thought it was Mitya breaking in. You see,  deceived him just now, I made him promise to believe me and I told hi a lie. I told him that I was going to spend the evening with my ol man, Kuzma Kuzmitch, and should be there till late counting up hi money. I always spend one whole evening a week with him making up hi accounts. We lock ourselves in and he counts on the reckoning bead while I sit and put things down in the book. I am the only person h trusts. Mitya believes that I am there, but I came back and have bee sitting locked in here, expecting some news. How was it Fenya let yo in? Fenya, Fenya, run out to the gate, open it and look about whethe the captain is to be seen! Perhaps he is hiding and spying, I a dreadfully frightened.\""},
{"text":"\"There's no one there, Agrafena Alexandrovna, I've just looked out,  keep running to peep through the crack, I am in fear and tremblin myself.\""},
{"text":"\"Are the shutters fastened, Fenya? And we must draw th curtains--that's better!\" She drew the heavy curtains herself. \"He' rush in at once if he saw a light. I am afraid of your brother Mity today, Alyosha.\""},
{"text":"Grushenka spoke aloud, and, though she was alarmed, she seemed ver happy about something."},
{"text":"\"Why are you so afraid of Mitya today?\" inquired Rakitin. \"I shoul have thought you were not timid with him, you'd twist him round you little finger.\""},
{"text":"\"I tell you, I am expecting news, priceless news, so I don't want Mity at all. And he didn't believe, I feel he didn't, that I should stay a Kuzma Kuzmitch's. He must be in his ambush now, behind Fyodo Pavlovitch's, in the garden, watching for me. And if he's there, h won't come here, so much the better! But I really have been to Kuzm Kuzmitch's, Mitya escorted me there. I told him I should stay ther till midnight, and I asked him to be sure to come at midnight to fetc me home. He went away and I sat ten minutes with Kuzma Kuzmitch an came back here again. Ugh, I was afraid, I ran for fear of meetin him.\""},
{"text":"\"And why are you so dressed up? What a curious cap you've got on!\""},
{"text":"\"How curious you are yourself, Rakitin! I tell you, I am expecting  message. If the message comes, I shall fly, I shall gallop away and yo will see no more of me. That's why I am dressed up, so as to be ready.\""},
{"text":"\"And where are you flying to?\""},
{"text":"\"If you know too much, you'll get old too soon.\""},
{"text":"\"Upon my word! You are highly delighted ... I've never seen you lik this before. You are dressed up as if you were going to a ball.\"Rakitin looked her up and down."},
{"text":"\"Much you know about balls.\""},
{"text":"\"And do you know much about them?\""},
{"text":"\"I have seen a ball. The year before last, Kuzma Kuzmitch's son wa married and I looked on from the gallery. Do you suppose I want to b talking to you, Rakitin, while a prince like this is standing here Such a visitor! Alyosha, my dear boy, I gaze at you and can't believ my eyes. Good heavens, can you have come here to see me! To tell yo the truth, I never had a thought of seeing you and I didn't think tha you would ever come and see me. Though this is not the moment now, I a awfully glad to see you. Sit down on the sofa, here, that's right, m bright young moon. I really can't take it in even now. ... Eh Rakitin, if only you had brought him yesterday or the day before! But  am glad as it is! Perhaps it's better he has come now, at such  moment, and not the day before yesterday.\""},
{"text":"She gayly sat down beside Alyosha on the sofa, looking at him wit positive delight. And she really was glad, she was not lying when sh said so. Her eyes glowed, her lips laughed, but it was a good-hearte merry laugh. Alyosha had not expected to see such a kind expression i her face. ... He had hardly met her till the day before, he ha formed an alarming idea of her, and had been horribly distressed th day before by the spiteful and treacherous trick she had played o Katerina Ivanovna. He was greatly surprised to find her now altogethe different from what he had expected. And, crushed as he was by his ow sorrow, his eyes involuntarily rested on her with attention. Her whol manner seemed changed for the better since yesterday, there wa scarcely any trace of that mawkish sweetness in her speech, of tha voluptuous softness in her movements. Everything was simple an good-natured, her gestures were rapid, direct, confiding, but she wa greatly excited."},
{"text":"\"Dear me, how everything comes together today!\" she chattered on again \"And why I am so glad to see you, Alyosha, I couldn't say myself! I you ask me, I couldn't tell you.\""},
{"text":"\"Come, don't you know why you're glad?\" said Rakitin, grinning. \"Yo used to be always pestering me to bring him, you'd some object,  suppose.\""},
{"text":"\"I had a different object once, but now that's over, this is not th moment. I say, I want you to have something nice. I am so good-nature now. You sit down, too, Rakitin; why are you standing? You've sat dow already? There's no fear of Rakitin's forgetting to look after himself Look, Alyosha, he's sitting there opposite us, so offended that  didn't ask him to sit down before you. Ugh, Rakitin is such a one t take offense!\" laughed Grushenka. \"Don't be angry, Rakitin, I'm kin today. Why are you so depressed, Alyosha? Are you afraid of me?\" Sh peeped into his eyes with merry mockery."},
{"text":"\"He's sad. The promotion has not been given,\" boomed Rakitin."},
{"text":"\"What promotion?\""},
{"text":"\"His elder stinks.\""},
{"text":"\"What? You are talking some nonsense, you want to say something nasty Be quiet, you stupid! Let me sit on your knee, Alyosha, like this.\" Sh suddenly skipped forward and jumped, laughing, on his knee, like  nestling kitten, with her right arm about his neck. \"I'll cheer you up my pious boy. Yes, really, will you let me sit on your knee? You won' be angry? If you tell me, I'll get off?\""},
{"text":"Alyosha did not speak. He sat afraid to move, he heard her words, \"I you tell me, I'll get off,\" but he did not answer. But there wa nothing in his heart such as Rakitin, for instance, watching hi malignantly from his corner, might have expected or fancied. The grea grief in his heart swallowed up every sensation that might have bee aroused, and, if only he could have thought clearly at that moment, h would have realized that he had now the strongest armor to protect hi from every lust and temptation. Yet in spite of the vagu irresponsiveness of his spiritual condition and the sorrow tha overwhelmed him, he could not help wondering at a new and strang sensation in his heart. This woman, this \"dreadful\" woman, had n terror for him now, none of that terror that had stirred in his soul a any passing thought of woman. On the contrary, this woman, dreade above all women, sitting now on his knee, holding him in her arms aroused in him now a quite different, unexpected, peculiar feeling,  feeling of the intensest and purest interest without a trace of fear of his former terror. That was what instinctively surprised him."},
{"text":"\"You've talked nonsense enough,\" cried Rakitin, \"you'd much better giv us some champagne. You owe it me, you know you do!\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, I really do. Do you know, Alyosha, I promised him champagne o the top of everything, if he'd bring you? I'll have some too! Fenya Fenya, bring us the bottle Mitya left! Look sharp! Though I am s stingy, I'll stand a bottle, not for you, Rakitin, you're a toadstool but he is a falcon! And though my heart is full of something ver different, so be it, I'll drink with you. I long for some dissipation.\""},
{"text":"\"But what is the matter with you? And what is this message, may I ask or is it a secret?\" Rakitin put in inquisitively, doing his best t pretend not to notice the snubs that were being continually aimed a him."},
{"text":"\"Ech, it's not a secret, and you know it, too,\" Grushenka said, in  voice suddenly anxious, turning her head towards Rakitin, and drawing  little away from Alyosha, though she still sat on his knee with her ar round his neck. \"My officer is coming, Rakitin, my officer is coming.\""},
{"text":"\"I heard he was coming, but is he so near?\""},
{"text":"\"He is at Mokroe now; he'll send a messenger from there, so he wrote;  got a letter from him today. I am expecting the messenger ever minute.\""},
{"text":"\"You don't say so! Why at Mokroe?\""},
{"text":"\"That's a long story, I've told you enough.\""},
{"text":"\"Mitya'll be up to something now--I say! Does he know or doesn't he?\""},
{"text":"\"He know! Of course he doesn't. If he knew, there would be murder. Bu I am not afraid of that now, I am not afraid of his knife. Be quiet Rakitin, don't remind me of Dmitri Fyodorovitch, he has bruised m heart. And I don't want to think of that at this moment. I can think o Alyosha here, I can look at Alyosha ... smile at me, dear, cheer up smile at my foolishness, at my pleasure. ... Ah, he's smiling, he' smiling! How kindly he looks at me! And you know, Alyosha, I've bee thinking all this time you were angry with me, because of the da before yesterday, because of that young lady. I was a cur, that's th truth. ... But it's a good thing it happened so. It was a horri thing, but a good thing too.\" Grushenka smiled dreamily and a littl cruel line showed in her smile. \"Mitya told me that she screamed ou that I `ought to be flogged.' I did insult her dreadfully. She sent fo me, she wanted to make a conquest of me, to win me over with he chocolate. ... No, it's a good thing it did end like that.\" Sh smiled again. \"But I am still afraid of your being angry.\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, that's really true,\" Rakitin put in suddenly with genuin surprise. \"Alyosha, she is really afraid of a chicken like you.\""},
{"text":"\"He is a chicken to you, Rakitin ... because you've no conscience that's what it is! You see, I love him with all my soul, that's how i is! Alyosha, do you believe I love you with all my soul?\""},
{"text":"\"Ah, you shameless woman! She is making you a declaration, Alexey!\""},
{"text":"\"Well, what of it, I love him!\""},
{"text":"\"And what about your officer? And the priceless message from Mokroe?\""},
{"text":"\"That is quite different.\""},
{"text":"\"That's a woman's way of looking at it!\""},
{"text":"\"Don't you make me angry, Rakitin.\" Grushenka caught him up hotly \"This is quite different. I love Alyosha in a different way. It's true Alyosha, I had sly designs on you before. For I am a horrid, violen creature. But at other times I've looked upon you, Alyosha, as m conscience. I've kept thinking `how anyone like that must despise  nasty thing like me.' I thought that the day before yesterday, as I ra home from the young lady's. I have thought of you a long time in tha way, Alyosha, and Mitya knows, I've talked to him about it. Mity understands. Would you believe it, I sometimes look at you and fee ashamed, utterly ashamed of myself. ... And how, and since when,  began to think about you like that, I can't say, I don't remember. ...\""},
{"text":"Fenya came in and put a tray with an uncorked bottle and three glasse of champagne on the table."},
{"text":"\"Here's the champagne!\" cried Rakitin. \"You're excited, Agrafen Alexandrovna, and not yourself. When you've had a glass of champagne you'll be ready to dance. Eh, they can't even do that properly,\" h added, looking at the bottle. \"The old woman's poured it out in th kitchen and the bottle's been brought in warm and without a cork. Well let me have some, anyway.\""},
{"text":"He went up to the table, took a glass, emptied it at one gulp an poured himself out another."},
{"text":"\"One doesn't often stumble upon champagne,\" he said, licking his lips \"Now, Alyosha, take a glass, show what you can do! What shall we drin to? The gates of paradise? Take a glass, Grushenka, you drink to th gates of paradise, too.\""},
{"text":"\"What gates of paradise?\""},
{"text":"She took a glass, Alyosha took his, tasted it and put it back."},
{"text":"\"No, I'd better not,\" he smiled gently."},
{"text":"\"And you bragged!\" cried Rakitin."},
{"text":"\"Well, if so, I won't either,\" chimed in Grushenka, \"I really don' want any. You can drink the whole bottle alone, Rakitin. If Alyosha ha some, I will.\""},
{"text":"\"What touching sentimentality!\" said Rakitin tauntingly; \"and she' sitting on his knee, too! He's got something to grieve over, but what' the matter with you? He is rebelling against his God and ready to ea sausage. ...\""},
{"text":"\"How so?\""},
{"text":"\"His elder died today, Father Zossima, the saint.\""},
{"text":"\"So Father Zossima is dead,\" cried Grushenka. \"Good God, I did no know!\" She crossed herself devoutly. \"Goodness, what have I been doing sitting on his knee like this at such a moment!\" She started up a though in dismay, instantly slipped off his knee and sat down on th sofa."},
{"text":"Alyosha bent a long wondering look upon her and a light seemed to daw in his face."},
{"text":"\"Rakitin,\" he said suddenly, in a firm and loud voice; \"don't taunt m with having rebelled against God. I don't want to feel angry with you so you must be kinder, too, I've lost a treasure such as you have neve had, and you cannot judge me now. You had much better look at her--d you see how she has pity on me? I came here to find a wicked soul-- felt drawn to evil because I was base and evil myself, and I've found  true sister, I have found a treasure--a loving heart. She had pity o me just now. ... Agrafena Alexandrovna, I am speaking of you. You'v raised my soul from the depths.\""},
{"text":"Alyosha's lips were quivering and he caught his breath."},
{"text":"\"She has saved you, it seems,\" laughed Rakitin spitefully. \"And sh meant to get you in her clutches, do you realize that?\""},
{"text":"\"Stay, Rakitin.\" Grushenka jumped up. \"Hush, both of you. Now I'll tel you all about it. Hush, Alyosha, your words make me ashamed, for I a bad and not good--that's what I am. And you hush, Rakitin, because yo are telling lies. I had the low idea of trying to get him in m clutches, but now you are lying, now it's all different. And don't le me hear anything more from you, Rakitin.\""},
{"text":"All this Grushenka said with extreme emotion."},
{"text":"\"They are both crazy,\" said Rakitin, looking at them with amazement. \" feel as though I were in a madhouse. They're both getting so feebl they'll begin crying in a minute.\""},
{"text":"\"I shall begin to cry, I shall,\" repeated Grushenka. \"He called me hi sister and I shall never forget that. Only let me tell you, Rakitin though I am bad, I did give away an onion.\""},
{"text":"\"An onion? Hang it all, you really are crazy.\""},
{"text":"Rakitin wondered at their enthusiasm. He was aggrieved and annoyed though he might have reflected that each of them was just passin through a spiritual crisis such as does not come often in a lifetime But though Rakitin was very sensitive about everything that concerne himself, he was very obtuse as regards the feelings and sensations o others--partly from his youth and inexperience, partly from hi intense egoism."},
{"text":"\"You see, Alyosha,\" Grushenka turned to him with a nervous laugh. \" was boasting when I told Rakitin I had given away an onion, but it' not to boast I tell you about it. It's only a story, but it's a nic story. I used to hear it when I was a child from Matryona, my cook, wh is still with me. It's like this. Once upon a time there was a peasan woman and a very wicked woman she was. And she died and did not leave  single good deed behind. The devils caught her and plunged her into th lake of fire. So her guardian angel stood and wondered what good dee of hers he could remember to tell to God; `She once pulled up an onio in her garden,' said he, `and gave it to a beggar woman.' And Go answered: `You take that onion then, hold it out to her in the lake and let her take hold and be pulled out. And if you can pull her out o the lake, let her come to Paradise, but if the onion breaks, then th woman must stay where she is.' The angel ran to the woman and held ou the onion to her. `Come,' said he, `catch hold and I'll pull you out. And he began cautiously pulling her out. He had just pulled her righ out, when the other sinners in the lake, seeing how she was being draw out, began catching hold of her so as to be pulled out with her. Bu she was a very wicked woman and she began kicking them. `I'm to b pulled out, not you. It's my onion, not yours.' As soon as she sai that, the onion broke. And the woman fell into the lake and she i burning there to this day. So the angel wept and went away. So that' the story, Alyosha; I know it by heart, for I am that wicked woma myself. I boasted to Rakitin that I had given away an onion, but to yo I'll say: `I've done nothing but give away one onion all my life that's the only good deed I've done.' So don't praise me, Alyosha don't think me good, I am bad, I am a wicked woman and you make m ashamed if you praise me. Eh, I must confess everything. Listen Alyosha. I was so anxious to get hold of you that I promised Rakiti twenty-five roubles if he would bring you to me. Stay, Rakitin, wait!\""},
{"text":"She went with rapid steps to the table, opened a drawer, pulled out  purse and took from it a twenty-five rouble note."},
{"text":"\"What nonsense! What nonsense!\" cried Rakitin, disconcerted."},
{"text":"\"Take it. Rakitin, I owe it you, there's no fear of your refusing it you asked for it yourself.\" And she threw the note to him."},
{"text":"\"Likely I should refuse it,\" boomed Rakitin, obviously abashed, bu carrying off his confusion with a swagger. \"That will come in ver handy; fools are made for wise men's profit.\""},
{"text":"\"And now hold your tongue, Rakitin, what I am going to say now is no for your ears. Sit down in that corner and keep quiet. You don't lik us, so hold your tongue.\""},
{"text":"\"What should I like you for?\" Rakitin snarled, not concealing hi ill-humor. He put the twenty-five rouble note in his pocket and he fel ashamed at Alyosha's seeing it. He had reckoned on receiving hi payment later, without Alyosha's knowing of it, and now, feelin ashamed, he lost his temper. Till that moment he had thought i discreet not to contradict Grushenka too flatly in spite of he snubbing, since he had something to get out of her. But now he, too was angry:"},
{"text":"\"One loves people for some reason, but what have either of you done fo me?\""},
{"text":"\"You should love people without a reason, as Alyosha does.\""},
{"text":"\"How does he love you? How has he shown it, that you make such a fus about it?\""},
{"text":"Grushenka was standing in the middle of the room; she spoke with hea and there were hysterical notes in her voice."},
{"text":"\"Hush, Rakitin, you know nothing about us! And don't dare to speak t me like that again. How dare you be so familiar! Sit in that corner an be quiet, as though you were my footman! And now, Alyosha, I'll tel you the whole truth, that you may see what a wretch I am! I am no talking to Rakitin, but to you. I wanted to ruin you, Alyosha, that' the holy truth; I quite meant to. I wanted to so much, that I bribe Rakitin to bring you. And why did I want to do such a thing? You kne nothing about it, Alyosha, you turned away from me; if you passed me you dropped your eyes. And I've looked at you a hundred times befor today; I began asking everyone about you. Your face haunted my heart `He despises me,' I thought; `he won't even look at me.' And I felt i so much at last that I wondered at myself for being so frightened of  boy. I'll get him in my clutches and laugh at him. I was full of spit and anger. Would you believe it, nobody here dares talk or think o coming to Agrafena Alexandrovna with any evil purpose. Old Kuzma is th only man I have anything to do with here; I was bound and sold to him Satan brought us together, but there has been no one else. But lookin at you, I thought, I'll get him in my clutches and laugh at him. Yo see what a spiteful cur I am, and you called me your sister! And no that man who wronged me has come; I sit here waiting for a message fro him. And do you know what that man has been to me? Five years ago, whe Kuzma brought me here, I used to shut myself up, that no one might hav sight or sound of me. I was a silly slip of a girl; I used to sit her sobbing; I used to lie awake all night, thinking: `Where is he now, th man who wronged me? He is laughing at me with another woman, mos likely. If only I could see him, if I could meet him again, I'd pay hi out, I'd pay him out!' At night I used to lie sobbing into my pillow i the dark, and I used to brood over it; I used to tear my heart o purpose and gloat over my anger. `I'll pay him out, I'll pay him out! That's what I used to cry out in the dark. And when I suddenly though that I should really do nothing to him, and that he was laughing at m then, or perhaps had utterly forgotten me, I would fling myself on th floor, melt into helpless tears, and lie there shaking till dawn. I the morning I would get up more spiteful than a dog, ready to tear th whole world to pieces. And then what do you think? I began savin money, I became hard-hearted, grew stout--grew wiser, would you say No, no one in the whole world sees it, no one knows it, but when nigh comes on, I sometimes lie as I did five years ago, when I was a sill girl, clenching my teeth and crying all night, thinking, `I'll pay hi out, I'll pay him out!' Do you hear? Well then, now you understand me A month ago a letter came to me--he was coming, he was a widower, h wanted to see me. It took my breath away; then I suddenly thought: `I he comes and whistles to call me, I shall creep back to him like  beaten dog.' I couldn't believe myself. Am I so abject? Shall I run t him or not? And I've been in such a rage with myself all this mont that I am worse than I was five years ago. Do you see now, Alyosha what a violent, vindictive creature I am? I have shown you the whol truth! I played with Mitya to keep me from running to that other. Hush Rakitin, it's not for you to judge me, I am not speaking to you. Befor you came in, I was lying here waiting, brooding, deciding my whol future life, and you can never know what was in my heart. Yes, Alyosha tell your young lady not to be angry with me for what happened the da before yesterday. ... Nobody in the whole world knows what I am goin through now, and no one ever can know. ... For perhaps I shall take  knife with me today, I can't make up my mind ...\""},
{"text":"And at this \"tragic\" phrase Grushenka broke down, hid her face in he hands, flung herself on the sofa pillows, and sobbed like a littl child."},
{"text":"Alyosha got up and went to Rakitin."},
{"text":"\"Misha,\" he said, \"don't be angry. She wounded you, but don't be angry You heard what she said just now? You mustn't ask too much of huma endurance, one must be merciful.\""},
{"text":"Alyosha said this at the instinctive prompting of his heart. He fel obliged to speak and he turned to Rakitin. If Rakitin had not bee there, he would have spoken to the air. But Rakitin looked at hi ironically and Alyosha stopped short."},
{"text":"\"You were so primed up with your elder's teaching last night that no you have to let it off on me, Alexey, man of God!\" said Rakitin, with  smile of hatred."},
{"text":"\"Don't laugh, Rakitin, don't smile, don't talk of the dead--he wa better than anyone in the world!\" cried Alyosha, with tears in hi voice. \"I didn't speak to you as a judge but as the lowest of th judged. What am I beside her? I came here seeking my ruin, and said t myself, `What does it matter?' in my cowardliness, but she, after fiv years in torment, as soon as anyone says a word from the heart t her--it makes her forget everything, forgive everything, in her tears The man who has wronged her has come back, he sends for her and sh forgives him everything, and hastens joyfully to meet him and she won' take a knife with her. She won't! No, I am not like that. I don't kno whether you are, Misha, but I am not like that. It's a lesson to me. ... She is more loving than we. ... Have you heard her speak befor of what she has just told us? No, you haven't; if you had, you'd hav understood her long ago ... and the person insulted the day befor yesterday must forgive her, too! She will, when she knows ... and sh shall know. ... This soul is not yet at peace with itself, one mus be tender with it ... there may be a treasure in that soul. ...\""},
{"text":"Alyosha stopped, because he caught his breath. In spite of hi ill-humor Rakitin looked at him with astonishment. He had neve expected such a tirade from the gentle Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"She's found someone to plead her cause! Why, are you in love with her Agrafena Alexandrovna, our monk's really in love with you, you've mad a conquest!\" he cried, with a coarse laugh."},
{"text":"Grushenka lifted her head from the pillow and looked at Alyosha with  tender smile shining on her tear-stained face."},
{"text":"\"Let him alone, Alyosha, my cherub; you see what he is, he is not  person for you to speak to. Mihail Osipovitch,\" she turned to Rakitin \"I meant to beg your pardon for being rude to you, but now I don't wan to. Alyosha, come to me, sit down here.\" She beckoned to him with  happy smile. \"That's right, sit here. Tell me,\" she shook him by th hand and peeped into his face, smiling, \"tell me, do I love that man o not? the man who wronged me, do I love him or not? Before you came,  lay here in the dark, asking my heart whether I loved him. Decide fo me, Alyosha, the time has come, it shall be as you say. Am I to forgiv him or not?\""},
{"text":"\"But you have forgiven him already,\" said Alyosha, smiling."},
{"text":"\"Yes, I really have forgiven him,\" Grushenka murmured thoughtfully \"What an abject heart! To my abject heart!\" She snatched up a glas from the table, emptied it at a gulp, lifted it in the air and flung i on the floor. The glass broke with a crash. A little cruel line cam into her smile."},
{"text":"\"Perhaps I haven't forgiven him, though,\" she said, with a sort o menace in her voice, and she dropped her eyes to the ground as thoug she were talking to herself. \"Perhaps my heart is only getting ready t forgive. I shall struggle with my heart. You see, Alyosha, I've grow to love my tears in these five years. ... Perhaps I only love m resentment, not him ...\""},
{"text":"\"Well, I shouldn't care to be in his shoes,\" hissed Rakitin."},
{"text":"\"Well, you won't be, Rakitin, you'll never be in his shoes. You shal black my shoes, Rakitin, that's the place you are fit for. You'll neve get a woman like me ... and he won't either, perhaps ...\""},
{"text":"\"Won't he? Then why are you dressed up like that?\" said Rakitin, with  venomous sneer."},
{"text":"\"Don't taunt me with dressing up, Rakitin, you don't know all that i in my heart! If I choose to tear off my finery, I'll tear it off a once, this minute,\" she cried in a resonant voice. \"You don't know wha that finery is for, Rakitin! Perhaps I shall see him and say: `Have yo ever seen me look like this before?' He left me a thin, consumptiv crybaby of seventeen. I'll sit by him, fascinate him and work him up `Do you see what I am like now?' I'll say to him; `well, and that' enough for you, my dear sir, there's many a slip twixt the cup and th lip!' That may be what the finery is for, Rakitin.\" Grushenka finishe with a malicious laugh. \"I'm violent and resentful, Alyosha, I'll tea off my finery, I'll destroy my beauty, I'll scorch my face, slash i with a knife, and turn beggar. If I choose, I won't go anywhere now t see anyone. If I choose, I'll send Kuzma back all he has ever given me tomorrow, and all his money and I'll go out charing for the rest of m life. You think I wouldn't do it, Rakitin, that I would not dare to d it? I would, I would, I could do it directly, only don't exasperate me ... and I'll send him about his business, I'll snap my fingers in hi face, he shall never see me again!\""},
{"text":"She uttered the last words in an hysterical scream, but broke dow again, hid her face in her hands, buried it in the pillow and shoo with sobs."},
{"text":"Rakitin got up."},
{"text":"\"It's time we were off,\" he said, \"it's late, we shall be shut out o the monastery.\""},
{"text":"Grushenka leapt up from her place."},
{"text":"\"Surely you don't want to go, Alyosha!\" she cried, in mournfu surprise. \"What are you doing to me? You've stirred up my feeling tortured me, and now you'll leave me to face this night alone!\""},
{"text":"\"He can hardly spend the night with you! Though if he wants to, le him! I'll go alone,\" Rakitin scoffed jeeringly."},
{"text":"\"Hush, evil tongue!\" Grushenka cried angrily at him; \"you never sai such words to me as he has come to say.\""},
{"text":"\"What has he said to you so special?\" asked Rakitin irritably."},
{"text":"\"I can't say, I don't know. I don't know what he said to me, it wen straight to my heart; he has wrung my heart. ... He is the first, th only one who has pitied me, that's what it is. Why did you not com before, you angel?\" She fell on her knees before him as though in  sudden frenzy. \"I've been waiting all my life for someone like you,  knew that someone like you would come and forgive me. I believed that nasty as I am, someone would really love me, not only with a shamefu love!\""},
{"text":"\"What have I done to you?\" answered Alyosha, bending over her with  tender smile, and gently taking her by the hands; \"I only gave you a onion, nothing but a tiny little onion, that was all!\""},
{"text":"He was moved to tears himself as he said it. At that moment there was  sudden noise in the passage, someone came into the hall. Grushenk jumped up, seeming greatly alarmed. Fenya ran noisily into the room crying out:"},
{"text":"\"Mistress, mistress darling, a messenger has galloped up,\" she cried breathless and joyful. \"A carriage from Mokroe for you, Timofey th driver, with three horses, they are just putting in fresh horses. .. A letter, here's the letter, mistress.\""},
{"text":"A letter was in her hand and she waved it in the air all the while sh talked. Grushenka snatched the letter from her and carried it to th candle. It was only a note, a few lines. She read it in one instant."},
{"text":"\"He has sent for me,\" she cried, her face white and distorted, with  wan smile; \"he whistles! Crawl back, little dog!\""},
{"text":"But only for one instant she stood as though hesitating; suddenly th blood rushed to her head and sent a glow to her cheeks."},
{"text":"\"I will go,\" she cried; \"five years of my life! Goodbye! Goodbye Alyosha, my fate is sealed. Go, go, leave me all of you, don't let m see you again! Grushenka is flying to a new life. ... Don't yo remember evil against me either, Rakitin. I may be going to my death Ugh! I feel as though I were drunk!\""},
{"text":"She suddenly left them and ran into her bedroom."},
{"text":"\"Well, she has no thoughts for us now!\" grumbled Rakitin. \"Let's go, o we may hear that feminine shriek again. I am sick of all these tear and cries.\""},
{"text":"Alyosha mechanically let himself be led out. In the yard stood  covered cart. Horses were being taken out of the shafts, men wer running to and fro with a lantern. Three fresh horses were being led i at the open gate. But when Alyosha and Rakitin reached the bottom o the steps, Grushenka's bedroom window was suddenly opened and sh called in a ringing voice after Alyosha:"},
{"text":"\"Alyosha, give my greetings to your brother Mitya and tell him not t remember evil against me, though I have brought him misery. And tel him, too, in my words: `Grushenka has fallen to a scoundrel, and not t you, noble heart.' And add, too, that Grushenka loved him only on hour, only one short hour she loved him--so let him remember that hou all his life--say, `Grushenka tells you to!' \""},
{"text":"She ended in a voice full of sobs. The window was shut with a slam."},
{"text":"\"H'm, h'm!\" growled Rakitin, laughing, \"she murders your brother Mity and then tells him to remember it all his life! What ferocity!\""},
{"text":"Alyosha made no reply, he seemed not to have heard. He walked fas beside Rakitin as though in a terrible hurry. He was lost in though and moved mechanically. Rakitin felt a sudden twinge as though he ha been touched on an open wound. He had expected something quit different by bringing Grushenka and Alyosha together. Something ver different from what he had hoped for had happened."},
{"text":"\"He is a Pole, that officer of hers,\" he began again, restrainin himself; \"and indeed he is not an officer at all now. He served in th customs in Siberia, somewhere on the Chinese frontier, some puny littl beggar of a Pole, I expect. Lost his job, they say. He's heard now tha Grushenka's saved a little money, so he's turned up again--that's th explanation of the mystery.\""},
{"text":"Again Alyosha seemed not to hear. Rakitin could not control himself."},
{"text":"\"Well, so you've saved the sinner?\" he laughed spitefully. \"Have yo turned the Magdalene into the true path? Driven out the seven devils eh? So you see the miracles you were looking out for just now have com to pass!\""},
{"text":"\"Hush, Rakitin,\" Alyosha answered with an aching heart."},
{"text":"\"So you despise me now for those twenty-five roubles? I've sold m friend, you think. But you are not Christ, you know, and I am no Judas.\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, Rakitin, I assure you I'd forgotten about it,\" cried Alyosha, \"yo remind me of it yourself. ...\""},
{"text":"But this was the last straw for Rakitin."},
{"text":"\"Damnation take you all and each of you!\" he cried suddenly, \"why th devil did I take you up? I don't want to know you from this tim forward. Go alone, there's your road!\""},
{"text":"And he turned abruptly into another street, leaving Alyosha alone i the dark. Alyosha came out of the town and walked across the fields t the monastery."},
{"text":" IV"},
{"text":"Cana of Galilee"},
{"text":"It was very late, according to the monastery ideas, when Alyosh returned to the hermitage; the doorkeeper let him in by a specia entrance. It had struck nine o'clock--the hour of rest and repos after a day of such agitation for all. Alyosha timidly opened the doo and went into the elder's cell where his coffin was now standing. Ther was no one in the cell but Father Passy, reading the Gospel i solitude over the coffin, and the young novice Porfiry, who, exhauste by the previous night's conversation and the disturbing incidents o the day, was sleeping the deep sound sleep of youth on the floor of th other room. Though Father Passy heard Alyosha come in, he did not eve look in his direction. Alyosha turned to the right from the door to th corner, fell on his knees and began to pray."},
{"text":"His soul was overflowing but with mingled feelings; no single sensatio stood out distinctly; on the contrary, one drove out another in a slow continual rotation. But there was a sweetness in his heart and, strang to say, Alyosha was not surprised at it. Again he saw that coffi before him, the hidden dead figure so precious to him, but the weepin and poignant grief of the morning was no longer aching in his soul. A soon as he came in, he fell down before the coffin as before a hol shrine, but joy, joy was glowing in his mind and in his heart. The on window of the cell was open, the air was fresh and cool. \"So the smel must have become stronger, if they opened the window,\" thought Alyosha But even this thought of the smell of corruption, which had seemed t him so awful and humiliating a few hours before, no longer made hi feel miserable or indignant. He began quietly praying, but he soon fel that he was praying almost mechanically. Fragments of thought floate through his soul, flashed like stars and went out again at once, to b succeeded by others. But yet there was reigning in his soul a sense o the wholeness of things--something steadfast and comforting--and h was aware of it himself. Sometimes he began praying ardently, he longe to pour out his thankfulness and love. ..."},
{"text":"But when he had begun to pray, he passed suddenly to something else and sank into thought, forgetting both the prayer and what ha interrupted it. He began listening to what Father Passy was reading but worn out with exhaustion he gradually began to doze."},
{"text":"\"\"And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee;\"\" rea Father Passy. \"\"And the mother of Jesus was there; And both Jesus wa called, and his disciples, to the marriage.\"\""},
{"text":"\"Marriage? What's that? ... A marriage!\" floated whirling throug Alyosha's mind. \"There is happiness for her, too. ... She has gone t the feast. ... No, she has not taken the knife. ... That was only  tragic phrase. ... Well ... tragic phrases should be forgiven, the must be. Tragic phrases comfort the heart. ... Without them, sorro would be too heavy for men to bear. Rakitin has gone off to the bac alley. As long as Rakitin broods over his wrongs, he will always go of to the back alley. ... But the high road ... The road is wide an straight and bright as crystal, and the sun is at the end of it. .. Ah! ... What's being read?\" ..."},
{"text":"\"\"And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, The have no wine\"\" ... Alyosha heard."},
{"text":"\"Ah, yes, I was missing that, and I didn't want to miss it, I love tha passage: it's Cana of Galilee, the first miracle. ... Ah, tha miracle! Ah, that sweet miracle! It was not men's grief, but their jo Christ visited, He worked His first miracle to help men's gladness. ... `He who loves men loves their gladness, too' ... He was alway repeating that, it was one of his leading ideas. ... `There's n living without joy,' Mitya says. ... Yes, Mitya. ... `Everythin that is true and good is always full of forgiveness,' he used to sa that, too\" ..."},
{"text":"\"\"Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what has it to do with thee or me? Min hour is not yet come.\"\""},
{"text":"\"\"His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever he saith unto you, d it\"\" ..."},
{"text":"\"Do it. ... Gladness, the gladness of some poor, very poor, people. ... Of course they were poor, since they hadn't wine enough even at  wedding. ... The historians write that, in those days, the peopl living about the Lake of Gennesaret were the poorest that can possibl be imagined ... and another great heart, that other great being, Hi Mother, knew that He had come not only to make His great terribl sacrifice. She knew that His heart was open even to the simple, artles merrymaking of some obscure and unlearned people, who had warmly bidde Him to their poor wedding. `Mine hour is not yet come,' He said, with  soft smile (He must have smiled gently to her). And, indeed, was it t make wine abundant at poor weddings He had come down to earth? And ye He went and did as she asked Him. ... Ah, he is reading again. ...\""},
{"text":"\"\"Jesus saith unto them, Fill the waterpots with water. And they fille them up to the brim.\""},
{"text":"\"\"And he saith unto them, Draw out now and bear unto the governor o the feast. And they bare it.\""},
{"text":"\"\"When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine and knew not whence it was; (but the servants which drew the wate knew;) the governor of the feast called the bridegroom,\""},
{"text":"\"\"And saith unto him, Every man at the beginning doth set forth goo wine; and when men have well drunk, that which is worse; but thou has kept the good wine until now.\"\""},
{"text":"\"But what's this, what's this? Why is the room growing wider? ... Ah yes ... It's the marriage, the wedding ... yes, of course. Here ar the guests, here are the young couple sitting, and the merry crowd and ... Where is the wise governor of the feast? But who is this? Who Again the walls are receding. ... Who is getting up there from th great table? What! ... He here, too? But he's in the coffin ... bu he's here, too. He has stood up, he sees me, he is coming here. .. God!\" ..."},
{"text":"Yes, he came up to him, to him, he, the little, thin old man, with tin wrinkles on his face, joyful and laughing softly. There was no coffi now, and he was in the same dress as he had worn yesterday sitting wit them, when the visitors had gathered about him. His face was uncovered his eyes were shining. How was this, then? He, too, had been called t the feast. He, too, at the marriage of Cana in Galilee. ..."},
{"text":"\"Yes, my dear, I am called, too, called and bidden,\" he heard a sof voice saying over him. \"Why have you hidden yourself here, out o sight? You come and join us too.\""},
{"text":"It was his voice, the voice of Father Zossima. And it must be he, sinc he called him!"},
{"text":"The elder raised Alyosha by the hand and he rose from his knees."},
{"text":"\"We are rejoicing,\" the little, thin old man went on. \"We are drinkin the new wine, the wine of new, great gladness; do you see how man guests? Here are the bride and bridegroom, here is the wise governor o the feast, he is tasting the new wine. Why do you wonder at me? I gav an onion to a beggar, so I, too, am here. And many here have given onl an onion each--only one little onion. ... What are all our deeds And you, my gentle one, you, my kind boy, you too have known how t give a famished woman an onion today. Begin your work, dear one, begi it, gentle one! ... Do you see our Sun, do you see Him?\""},
{"text":"\"I am afraid ... I dare not look,\" whispered Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"Do not fear Him. He is terrible in His greatness, awful in Hi sublimity, but infinitely merciful. He has made Himself like unto u from love and rejoices with us. He is changing the water into wine tha the gladness of the guests may not be cut short. He is expecting ne guests, He is calling new ones unceasingly forever and ever. .. There they are bringing new wine. Do you see they are bringing th vessels. ...\""},
{"text":"Something glowed in Alyosha's heart, something filled it till it ached tears of rapture rose from his soul. ... He stretched out his hands uttered a cry and waked up."},
{"text":"Again the coffin, the open window, and the soft, solemn, distinc reading of the Gospel. But Alyosha did not listen to the reading. I was strange, he had fallen asleep on his knees, but now he was on hi feet, and suddenly, as though thrown forward, with three firm rapi steps he went right up to the coffin. His shoulder brushed agains Father Passy without his noticing it. Father Passy raised his eye for an instant from his book, but looked away again at once, seein that something strange was happening to the boy. Alyosha gazed for hal a minute at the coffin, at the covered, motionless dead man that lay i the coffin, with the icon on his breast and the peaked cap with th octangular cross, on his head. He had only just been hearing his voice and that voice was still ringing in his ears. He was listening, stil expecting other words, but suddenly he turned sharply and went out o the cell."},
{"text":"He did not stop on the steps either, but went quickly down; his soul overflowing with rapture, yearned for freedom, space, openness. Th vault of heaven, full of soft, shining stars, stretched vast an fathomless above him. The Milky Way ran in two pale streams from th zenith to the horizon. The fresh, motionless, still night enfolded th earth. The white towers and golden domes of the cathedral gleamed ou against the sapphire sky. The gorgeous autumn flowers, in the bed round the house, were slumbering till morning. The silence of eart seemed to melt into the silence of the heavens. The mystery of eart was one with the mystery of the stars. ..."},
{"text":"Alyosha stood, gazed, and suddenly threw himself down on the earth. H did not know why he embraced it. He could not have told why he longe so irresistibly to kiss it, to kiss it all. But he kissed it weeping sobbing and watering it with his tears, and vowed passionately to lov it, to love it forever and ever. \"Water the earth with the tears o your joy and love those tears,\" echoed in his soul."},
{"text":"What was he weeping over?"},
{"text":"Oh! in his rapture he was weeping even over those stars, which wer shining to him from the abyss of space, and \"he was not ashamed of tha ecstasy.\" There seemed to be threads from all those innumerable world of God, linking his soul to them, and it was trembling all over \"i contact with other worlds.\" He longed to forgive everyone and fo everything, and to beg forgiveness. Oh, not for himself, but for al men, for all and for everything. \"And others are praying for me too,\"echoed again in his soul. But with every instant he felt clearly and as it were, tangibly, that something firm and unshakable as that vaul of heaven had entered into his soul. It was as though some idea ha seized the sovereignty of his mind--and it was for all his life an forever and ever. He had fallen on the earth a weak boy, but he rose u a resolute champion, and he knew and felt it suddenly at the ver moment of his ecstasy. And never, never, all his life long, coul Alyosha forget that minute."},
{"text":"\"Someone visited my soul in that hour,\" he used to say afterwards, wit implicit faith in his words."},
{"text":"Within three days he left the monastery in accordance with the words o his elder, who had bidden him \"sojourn in the world.\""},
{"text":"ook VIII"},
{"text":"Mitya"},
{"text":" I"},
{"text":"Kuzma Samsonov"},
{"text":"But Dmitri, to whom Grushenka, flying away to a new life, had left he last greetings, bidding him remember the hour of her love forever, kne nothing of what had happened to her, and was at that moment in  condition of feverish agitation and activity. For the last two days h had been in such an inconceivable state of mind that he might easil have fallen ill with brain fever, as he said himself afterwards Alyosha had not been able to find him the morning before, and Ivan ha not succeeded in meeting him at the tavern on the same day. The peopl at his lodgings, by his orders, concealed his movements."},
{"text":"He had spent those two days literally rushing in all directions \"struggling with his destiny and trying to save himself,\" as h expressed it himself afterwards, and for some hours he even made a das out of the town on urgent business, terrible as it was to him to los sight of Grushenka for a moment. All this was explained afterwards i detail, and confirmed by documentary evidence; but for the present w will only note the most essential incidents of those two terrible day immediately preceding the awful catastrophe, that broke so suddenl upon him."},
{"text":"Though Grushenka had, it is true, loved him for an hour, genuinely an sincerely, yet she tortured him sometimes cruelly and mercilessly. Th worst of it was that he could never tell what she meant to do. T prevail upon her by force or kindness was also impossible: she woul yield to nothing. She would only have become angry and turned away fro him altogether, he knew that well already. He suspected, quit correctly, that she, too, was passing through an inward struggle, an was in a state of extraordinary indecision, that she was making up he mind to something, and unable to determine upon it. And so, not withou good reason, he divined, with a sinking heart, that at moments she mus simply hate him and his passion. And so, perhaps, it was, but what wa distressing Grushenka he did not understand. For him the whol tormenting question lay between him and Fyodor Pavlovitch."},
{"text":"Here, we must note, by the way, one certain fact: he was firml persuaded that Fyodor Pavlovitch would offer, or perhaps had offered Grushenka lawful wedlock, and did not for a moment believe that the ol voluptuary hoped to gain his object for three thousand roubles. Mity had reached this conclusion from his knowledge of Grushenka and he character. That was how it was that he could believe at times that al Grushenka's uneasiness rose from not knowing which of them to choose which was most to her advantage."},
{"text":"Strange to say, during those days it never occurred to him to think o the approaching return of the \"officer,\" that is, of the man who ha been such a fatal influence in Grushenka's life, and whose arrival sh was expecting with such emotion and dread. It is true that of lat Grushenka had been very silent about it. Yet he was perfectly aware o a letter she had received a month ago from her seducer, and had hear of it from her own lips. He partly knew, too, what the lette contained. In a moment of spite Grushenka had shown him that letter but to her astonishment he attached hardly any consequence to it. I would be hard to say why this was. Perhaps, weighed down by all th hideous horror of his struggle with his own father for this woman, h was incapable of imagining any danger more terrible, at any rate fo the time. He simply did not believe in a suitor who suddenly turned u again after five years' disappearance, still less in his speed arrival. Moreover, in the \"officer's\" first letter which had been show to Mitya, the possibility of his new rival's visit was very vaguel suggested. The letter was very indefinite, high-flown, and full o sentimentality. It must be noted that Grushenka had concealed from hi the last lines of the letter, in which his return was alluded to mor definitely. He had, besides, noticed at that moment, he remembere afterwards, a certain involuntary proud contempt for this missive fro Siberia on Grushenka's face. Grushenka told him nothing of what ha passed later between her and this rival; so that by degrees he ha completely forgotten the officer's existence."},
{"text":"He felt that whatever might come later, whatever turn things migh take, his final conflict with Fyodor Pavlovitch was close upon him, an must be decided before anything else. With a sinking heart he wa expecting every moment Grushenka's decision, always believing that i would come suddenly, on the impulse of the moment. All of a sudden sh would say to him: \"Take me, I'm yours forever,\" and it would all b over. He would seize her and bear her away at once to the ends of th earth. Oh, then he would bear her away at once, as far, far away a possible; to the farthest end of Russia, if not of the earth, then h would marry her, and settle down with her incognito, so that no on would know anything about them, there, here, or anywhere. Then, oh then, a new life would begin at once!"},
{"text":"Of this different, reformed and \"virtuous\" life (\"it must, it must b virtuous\") he dreamed feverishly at every moment. He thirsted for tha reformation and renewal. The filthy morass, in which he had sunk of hi own free will, was too revolting to him, and, like very many men i such cases, he put faith above all in change of place. If only it wer not for these people, if only it were not for these circumstances, i only he could fly away from this accursed place--he would b altogether regenerated, would enter on a new path. That was what h believed in, and what he was yearning for."},
{"text":"But all this could only be on condition of the first, the happ solution of the question. There was another possibility, a differen and awful ending. Suddenly she might say to him: \"Go away. I have jus come to terms with Fyodor Pavlovitch. I am going to marry him and don' want you\"--and then ... but then. ... But Mitya did not know wha would happen then. Up to the last hour he didn't know. That must b said to his credit. He had no definite intentions, had planned n crime. He was simply watching and spying in agony, while he prepare himself for the first, happy solution of his destiny. He drove away an other idea, in fact. But for that ending a quite different anxiet arose, a new, incidental, but yet fatal and insoluble difficult presented itself."},
{"text":"If she were to say to him: \"I'm yours; take me away,\" how could he tak her away? Where had he the means, the money to do it? It was just a this time that all sources of revenue from Fyodor Pavlovitch, dole which had gone on without interruption for so many years, ceased Grushenka had money, of course, but with regard to this Mitya suddenl evinced extraordinary pride; he wanted to carry her away and begin th new life with her himself, at his own expense, not at hers. He coul not conceive of taking her money, and the very idea caused him a pan of intense repulsion. I won't enlarge on this fact or analyze it here but confine myself to remarking that this was his attitude at th moment. All this may have arisen indirectly and unconsciously from th secret stings of his conscience for the money of Katerina Ivanovna tha he had dishonestly appropriated. \"I've been a scoundrel to one of them and I shall be a scoundrel again to the other directly,\" was hi feeling then, as he explained after: \"and when Grushenka knows, sh won't care for such a scoundrel.\""},
{"text":"Where then was he to get the means, where was he to get the fatefu money? Without it, all would be lost and nothing could be done, \"an only because I hadn't the money. Oh, the shame of it!\""},
{"text":"To anticipate things: he did, perhaps, know where to get the money knew, perhaps, where it lay at that moment. I will say no more of thi here, as it will all be clear later. But his chief trouble, I mus explain however obscurely, lay in the fact that to have that sum h knew of, to have the right to take it, he must first restore Katerin Ivanovna's three thousand--if not, \"I'm a common pickpocket, I'm  scoundrel, and I don't want to begin a new life as a scoundrel,\" Mity decided. And so he made up his mind to move heaven and earth to retur Katerina Ivanovna that three thousand, and that first of all. The fina stage of this decision, so to say, had been reached only during th last hours, that is, after his last interview with Alyosha, two day before, on the high road, on the evening when Grushenka had insulte Katerina Ivanovna, and Mitya, after hearing Alyosha's account of it had admitted that he was a scoundrel, and told him to tell Katerin Ivanovna so, if it could be any comfort to her. After parting from hi brother on that night, he had felt in his frenzy that it would b better \"to murder and rob someone than fail to pay my debt to Katya I'd rather everyone thought me a robber and a murderer, I'd rather g to Siberia than that Katya should have the right to say that I deceive her and stole her money, and used her money to run away with Grushenk and begin a new life! That I can't do!\" So Mitya decided, grinding hi teeth, and he might well fancy at times that his brain would give way But meanwhile he went on struggling. ..."},
{"text":"Strange to say, though one would have supposed there was nothing lef for him but despair--for what chance had he, with nothing in th world, to raise such a sum?--yet to the very end he persisted i hoping that he would get that three thousand, that the money woul somehow come to him of itself, as though it might drop from heaven That is just how it is with people who, like Dmitri, have never ha anything to do with money, except to squander what has come to them b inheritance without any effort of their own, and have no notion ho money is obtained. A whirl of the most fantastic notions too possession of his brain immediately after he had parted with Alyosh two days before, and threw his thoughts into a tangle of confusion This is how it was he pitched first on a perfectly wild enterprise. An perhaps to men of that kind in such circumstances the most impossible fantastic schemes occur first, and seem most practical."},
{"text":"He suddenly determined to go to Samsonov, the merchant who wa Grushenka's protector, and to propose a \"scheme\" to him, and by mean of it to obtain from him at once the whole of the sum required. Of th commercial value of his scheme he had no doubt, not the slightest, an was only uncertain how Samsonov would look upon his freak, supposing h were to consider it from any but the commercial point of view. Thoug Mitya knew the merchant by sight, he was not acquainted with him an had never spoken a word to him. But for some unknown reason he had lon entertained the conviction that the old reprobate, who was lying a death's door, would perhaps not at all object now to Grushenka' securing a respectable position, and marrying a man \"to be depende upon.\" And he believed not only that he would not object, but that thi was what he desired, and, if opportunity arose, that he would be read to help. From some rumor, or perhaps from some stray word o Grushenka's, he had gathered further that the old man would perhap prefer him to Fyodor Pavlovitch for Grushenka."},
{"text":"Possibly many of the readers of my novel will feel that in reckoning o such assistance, and being ready to take his bride, so to speak, fro the hands of her protector, Dmitri showed great coarseness and want o delicacy. I will only observe that Mitya looked upon Grushenka's pas as something completely over. He looked on that past with infinite pit and resolved with all the fervor of his passion that when onc Grushenka told him she loved him and would marry him, it would mean th beginning of a new Grushenka and a new Dmitri, free from every vice They would forgive one another and would begin their lives afresh. A for Kuzma Samsonov, Dmitri looked upon him as a man who had exercised  fateful influence in that remote past of Grushenka's, though she ha never loved him, and who was now himself a thing of the past completely done with, and, so to say, nonexistent. Besides, Mity hardly looked upon him as a man at all, for it was known to everyone i the town that he was only a shattered wreck, whose relations wit Grushenka had changed their character and were now simply paternal, an that this had been so for a long time."},
{"text":"In any case there was much simplicity on Mitya's part in all this, fo in spite of all his vices, he was a very simple-hearted man. It was a instance of this simplicity that Mitya was seriously persuaded that being on the eve of his departure for the next world, old Kuzma mus sincerely repent of his past relations with Grushenka, and that she ha no more devoted friend and protector in the world than this, no harmless old man."},
{"text":"After his conversation with Alyosha, at the crossroads, he hardly slep all night, and at ten o'clock next morning, he was at the house o Samsonov and telling the servant to announce him. It was a very larg and gloomy old house of two stories, with a lodge and outhouses. In th lower story lived Samsonov's two married sons with their families, hi old sister, and his unmarried daughter. In the lodge lived two of hi clerks, one of whom also had a large family. Both the lodge and th lower story were overcrowded, but the old man kept the upper floor t himself, and would not even let the daughter live there with him though she waited upon him, and in spite of her asthma was obliged a certain fixed hours, and at any time he might call her, to run upstair to him from below."},
{"text":"This upper floor contained a number of large rooms kept purely fo show, furnished in the old-fashioned merchant style, with lon monotonous rows of clumsy mahogany chairs along the walls, with glas chandeliers under shades, and gloomy mirrors on the walls. All thes rooms were entirely empty and unused, for the old man kept to one room a small, remote bedroom, where he was waited upon by an old servan with a kerchief on her head, and by a lad, who used to sit on th locker in the passage. Owing to his swollen legs, the old man coul hardly walk at all, and was only rarely lifted from his leathe armchair, when the old woman supporting him led him up and down th room once or twice. He was morose and taciturn even with this ol woman."},
{"text":"When he was informed of the arrival of the \"captain,\" he at onc refused to see him. But Mitya persisted and sent his name up again Samsonov questioned the lad minutely: What he looked like? Whether h was drunk? Was he going to make a row? The answer he received was: tha he was sober, but wouldn't go away. The old man again refused to se him. Then Mitya, who had foreseen this, and purposely brought penci and paper with him, wrote clearly on the piece of paper the words: \"O most important business closely concerning Agrafena Alexandrovna,\" an sent it up to the old man."},
{"text":"After thinking a little Samsonov told the lad to take the visitor t the drawing-room, and sent the old woman downstairs with a summons t his younger son to come upstairs to him at once. This younger son,  man over six foot and of exceptional physical strength, who wa closely-shaven and dressed in the European style, though his fathe still wore a kaftan and a beard, came at once without a comment. Al the family trembled before the father. The old man had sent for thi giant, not because he was afraid of the \"captain\" (he was by no mean of a timorous temper), but in order to have a witness in case of an emergency. Supported by his son and the servant-lad, he waddled at las into the drawing-room. It may be assumed that he felt considerabl curiosity. The drawing-room in which Mitya was awaiting him was a vast dreary room that laid a weight of depression on the heart. It had  double row of windows, a gallery, marbled walls, and three immens chandeliers with glass lusters covered with shades."},
{"text":"Mitya was sitting on a little chair at the entrance, awaiting his fat with nervous impatience. When the old man appeared at the opposit door, seventy feet away, Mitya jumped up at once, and with his long military stride walked to meet him. Mitya was well dressed, in  frock-coat, buttoned up, with a round hat and black gloves in hi hands, just as he had been three days before at the elder's, at th family meeting with his father and brothers. The old man waited fo him, standing dignified and unbending, and Mitya felt at once that h had looked him through and through as he advanced. Mitya was greatl impressed, too, with Samsonov's immensely swollen face. His lower lip which had always been thick, hung down now, looking like a bun. H bowed to his guest in dignified silence, motioned him to a low chair b the sofa, and, leaning on his son's arm he began lowering himself on t the sofa opposite, groaning painfully, so that Mitya, seeing hi painful exertions, immediately felt remorseful and sensitivel conscious of his insignificance in the presence of the dignified perso he had ventured to disturb."},
{"text":"\"What is it you want of me, sir?\" said the old man, deliberately distinctly, severely, but courteously, when he was at last seated."},
{"text":"Mitya started, leapt up, but sat down again. Then he began at onc speaking with loud, nervous haste, gesticulating, and in a positiv frenzy. He was unmistakably a man driven into a corner, on the brink o ruin, catching at the last straw, ready to sink if he failed. Ol Samsonov probably grasped all this in an instant, though his fac remained cold and immovable as a statue's."},
{"text":"\"Most honored sir, Kuzma Kuzmitch, you have no doubt heard more tha once of my disputes with my father, Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov, wh robbed me of my inheritance from my mother ... seeing the whole tow is gossiping about it ... for here everyone's gossiping of what the shouldn't ... and besides, it might have reached you throug Grushenka ... I beg your pardon, through Agrafena Alexandrovna .. Agrafena Alexandrovna, the lady for whom I have the highest respect an esteem ...\""},
{"text":"So Mitya began, and broke down at the first sentence. We will no reproduce his speech word for word, but will only summarize the gist o it. Three months ago, he said, he had of express intention (Mity purposely used these words instead of \"intentionally\") consulted  lawyer in the chief town of the province, \"a distinguished lawyer Kuzma Kuzmitch, Pavel Pavlovitch Korneplodov. You have perhaps heard o him? A man of vast intellect, the mind of a statesman ... he know you, too ... spoke of you in the highest terms ...\" Mitya brok down again. But these breaks did not deter him. He leapt instantly ove the gaps, and struggled on and on."},
{"text":"This Korneplodov, after questioning him minutely, and inspecting th documents he was able to bring him (Mitya alluded somewhat vaguely t these documents, and slurred over the subject with special haste) reported that they certainly might take proceedings concerning th village of Tchermashnya, which ought, he said, to have come to him Mitya, from his mother, and so checkmate the old villain, his father ... \"because every door was not closed and justice might still find  loophole.\" In fact, he might reckon on an additional sum of six or eve seven thousand roubles from Fyodor Pavlovitch, as Tchermashnya wa worth, at least, twenty-five thousand, he might say twenty-eigh thousand, in fact, \"thirty, thirty, Kuzma Kuzmitch, and would yo believe it, I didn't get seventeen from that heartless man!\" So he Mitya, had thrown the business up, for the time, knowing nothing abou the law, but on coming here was struck dumb by a cross-claim made upo him (here Mitya went adrift again and again took a flying lea forward), \"so will not you, excellent and honored Kuzma Kuzmitch, b willing to take up all my claims against that unnatural monster, an pay me a sum down of only three thousand? ... You see, you cannot, i any case, lose over it. On my honor, my honor, I swear that. Quite th contrary, you may make six or seven thousand instead of three.\" Abov all, he wanted this concluded that very day."},
{"text":"\"I'll do the business with you at a notary's, or whatever it is .. in fact, I'm ready to do anything. ... I'll hand over all the deeds ... whatever you want, sign anything ... and we could draw up th agreement at once ... and if it were possible, if it were onl possible, that very morning. ... You could pay me that thre thousand, for there isn't a capitalist in this town to compare wit you, and so would save me from ... would save me, in fact ... for  good, I might say an honorable action. ... For I cherish the mos honorable feelings for a certain person, whom you know well, and car for as a father. I would not have come, indeed, if it had not been as  father. And, indeed, it's a struggle of three in this business, fo it's fate--that's a fearful thing, Kuzma Kuzmitch! A tragedy, Kuzm Kuzmitch, a tragedy! And as you've dropped out long ago, it's  tug-of-war between two. I'm expressing it awkwardly, perhaps, but I' not a literary man. You see, I'm on the one side, and that monster o the other. So you must choose. It's either I or the monster. It al lies in your hands--the fate of three lives, and the happiness o two. ... Excuse me, I'm making a mess of it, but you understand .. I see from your venerable eyes that you understand ... and if yo don't understand, I'm done for ... so you see!\""},
{"text":"Mitya broke off his clumsy speech with that, \"so you see!\" and jumpin up from his seat, awaited the answer to his foolish proposal. At th last phrase he had suddenly become hopelessly aware that it had al fallen flat, above all, that he had been talking utter nonsense."},
{"text":"\"How strange it is! On the way here it seemed all right, and now it' nothing but nonsense.\" The idea suddenly dawned on his despairing mind All the while he had been talking, the old man sat motionless, watchin him with an icy expression in his eyes. After keeping him for a momen in suspense, Kuzma Kuzmitch pronounced at last in the most positive an chilling tone:"},
{"text":"\"Excuse me, we don't undertake such business.\""},
{"text":"Mitya suddenly felt his legs growing weak under him."},
{"text":"\"What am I to do now, Kuzma Kuzmitch?\" he muttered, with a pale smile \"I suppose it's all up with me--what do you think?\""},
{"text":"\"Excuse me. ...\""},
{"text":"Mitya remained standing, staring motionless. He suddenly noticed  movement in the old man's face. He started."},
{"text":"\"You see, sir, business of that sort's not in our line,\" said the ol man slowly. \"There's the court, and the lawyers--it's a perfec misery. But if you like, there is a man here you might apply to.\""},
{"text":"\"Good heavens! Who is it? You're my salvation, Kuzma Kuzmitch,\"faltered Mitya."},
{"text":"\"He doesn't live here, and he's not here just now. He is a peasant, h does business in timber. His name is Lyagavy. He's been haggling wit Fyodor Pavlovitch for the last year, over your copse at Tchermashnya They can't agree on the price, maybe you've heard? Now he's come bac again and is staying with the priest at Ilyinskoe, about twelve verst from the Volovya station. He wrote to me, too, about the business o the copse, asking my advice. Fyodor Pavlovitch means to go and see hi himself. So if you were to be beforehand with Fyodor Pavlovitch and t make Lyagavy the offer you've made me, he might possibly--\""},
{"text":"\"A brilliant idea!\" Mitya interrupted ecstatically. \"He's the very man it would just suit him. He's haggling with him for it, being asked to much, and here he would have all the documents entitling him to th property itself. Ha ha ha!\""},
{"text":"And Mitya suddenly went off into his short, wooden laugh, startlin Samsonov."},
{"text":"\"How can I thank you, Kuzma Kuzmitch?\" cried Mitya effusively."},
{"text":"\"Don't mention it,\" said Samsonov, inclining his head."},
{"text":"\"But you don't know, you've saved me. Oh, it was a true presentimen brought me to you. ... So now to this priest!\""},
{"text":"\"No need of thanks.\""},
{"text":"\"I'll make haste and fly there. I'm afraid I've overtaxed you strength. I shall never forget it. It's a Russian says that, Kuzm Kuzmitch, a R-r-russian!\""},
{"text":"\"To be sure!\""},
{"text":"Mitya seized his hand to press it, but there was a malignant gleam i the old man's eye. Mitya drew back his hand, but at once blamed himsel for his mistrustfulness."},
{"text":"\"It's because he's tired,\" he thought."},
{"text":"\"For her sake! For her sake, Kuzma Kuzmitch! You understand that it' for her,\" he cried, his voice ringing through the room. He bowed turned sharply round, and with the same long stride walked to the doo without looking back. He was trembling with delight."},
{"text":"\"Everything was on the verge of ruin and my guardian angel saved me,\"was the thought in his mind. And if such a business man as Samsonov ( most worthy old man, and what dignity!) had suggested this course then ... then success was assured. He would fly off immediately. \" will be back before night, I shall be back at night and the thing i done. Could the old man have been laughing at me?\" exclaimed Mitya, a he strode towards his lodging. He could, of course, imagine nothing but that the advice was practical \"from such a business man\" with a understanding of the business, with an understanding of this Lyagav (curious surname!). Or--the old man was laughing at him."},
{"text":"Alas! The second alternative was the correct one. Long afterwards, whe the catastrophe had happened, old Samsonov himself confessed, laughing that he had made a fool of the \"captain.\" He was a cold, spiteful an sarcastic man, liable to violent antipathies. Whether it was th \"captain's\" excited face, or the foolish conviction of the \"rake an spendthrift,\" that he, Samsonov, could be taken in by such  cock-and-bull story as his scheme, or his jealousy of Grushenka, i whose name this \"scapegrace\" had rushed in on him with such a tale t get money which worked on the old man, I can't tell. But at the instan when Mitya stood before him, feeling his legs grow weak under him, an frantically exclaiming that he was ruined, at that moment the old ma looked at him with intense spite, and resolved to make a laughingstoc of him. When Mitya had gone, Kuzma Kuzmitch, white with rage, turned t his son and bade him see to it that that beggar be never seen again and never admitted even into the yard, or else he'd--"},
{"text":"He did not utter his threat. But even his son, who often saw hi enraged, trembled with fear. For a whole hour afterwards, the old ma was shaking with anger, and by evening he was worse, and sent for th doctor."},
{"text":" II"},
{"text":"Lyagavy"},
{"text":"So he must drive at full speed, and he had not the money for horses. H had forty kopecks, and that was all, all that was left after so man years of prosperity! But he had at home an old silver watch which ha long ceased to go. He snatched it up and carried it to a Jewis watchmaker who had a shop in the marketplace. The Jew gave him si roubles for it."},
{"text":"\"And I didn't expect that,\" cried Mitya, ecstatically. (He was still i a state of ecstasy.) He seized his six roubles and ran home. At home h borrowed three roubles from the people of the house, who loved him s much that they were pleased to give it him, though it was all they had Mitya in his excitement told them on the spot that his fate would b decided that day, and he described, in desperate haste, the whol scheme he had put before Samsonov, the latter's decision, his own hope for the future, and so on. These people had been told many of thei lodger's secrets before, and so looked upon him as a gentleman who wa not at all proud, and almost one of themselves. Having thus collecte nine roubles Mitya sent for posting-horses to take him to the Volovy station. This was how the fact came to be remembered and establishe that \"at midday, on the day before the event, Mitya had not a farthing and that he had sold his watch to get money and had borrowed thre roubles from his landlord, all in the presence of witnesses.\""},
{"text":"I note this fact, later on it will be apparent why I do so."},
{"text":"Though he was radiant with the joyful anticipation that he would a last solve all his difficulties, yet, as he drew near Volovya station he trembled at the thought of what Grushenka might be doing in hi absence. What if she made up her mind today to go to Fyodor Pavlovitch This was why he had gone off without telling her and why he left order with his landlady not to let out where he had gone, if anyone came t inquire for him."},
{"text":"\"I must, I must get back tonight,\" he repeated, as he was jolted alon in the cart, \"and I dare say I shall have to bring this Lyagavy bac here ... to draw up the deed.\" So mused Mitya, with a throbbin heart, but alas! his dreams were not fated to be carried out."},
{"text":"To begin with, he was late, taking a shortcut from Volovya statio which turned out to be eighteen versts instead of twelve. Secondly, h did not find the priest at home at Ilyinskoe; he had gone off to  neighboring village. While Mitya, setting off there with the sam exhausted horses, was looking for him, it was almost dark."},
{"text":"The priest, a shy and amiable looking little man, informed him at onc that though Lyagavy had been staying with him at first, he was now a Suhoy Possyolok, that he was staying the night in the forester' cottage, as he was buying timber there too. At Mitya's urgent reques that he would take him to Lyagavy at once, and by so doing \"save him so to speak,\" the priest agreed, after some demur, to conduct him t Suhoy Possyolok; his curiosity was obviously aroused. But, unluckily he advised their going on foot, as it would not be \"much over\" a verst Mitya, of course, agreed, and marched off with his yard-long strides so that the poor priest almost ran after him. He was a very cautiou man, though not old."},
{"text":"Mitya at once began talking to him, too, of his plans, nervously an excitedly asking advice in regard to Lyagavy, and talking all the way The priest listened attentively, but gave little advice. He turned of Mitya's questions with: \"I don't know. Ah, I can't say. How can  tell?\" and so on. When Mitya began to speak of his quarrel with hi father over his inheritance, the priest was positively alarmed, as h was in some way dependent on Fyodor Pavlovitch. He inquired, however with surprise, why he called the peasant-trader Gorstkin, Lyagavy, an obligingly explained to Mitya that, though the man's name really wa Lyagavy, he was never called so, as he would be grievously offended a the name, and that he must be sure to call him Gorstkin, \"or you'll d nothing with him; he won't even listen to you,\" said the priest i conclusion."},
{"text":"Mitya was somewhat surprised for a moment, and explained that that wa what Samsonov had called him. On hearing this fact, the priest droppe the subject, though he would have done well to put into words his doub whether, if Samsonov had sent him to that peasant, calling him Lyagavy there was not something wrong about it and he was turning him int ridicule. But Mitya had no time to pause over such trifles. He hurried striding along, and only when he reached Suhoy Possyolok did he realiz that they had come not one verst, nor one and a half, but at leas three. This annoyed him, but he controlled himself."},
{"text":"They went into the hut. The forester lived in one half of the hut, an Gorstkin was lodging in the other, the better room the other side o the passage. They went into that room and lighted a tallow candle. Th hut was extremely overheated. On the table there was a samovar that ha gone out, a tray with cups, an empty rum bottle, a bottle of vodk partly full, and some half-eaten crusts of wheaten bread. The visito himself lay stretched at full length on the bench, with his coa crushed up under his head for a pillow, snoring heavily. Mitya stood i perplexity."},
{"text":"\"Of course I must wake him. My business is too important. I've come i such haste. I'm in a hurry to get back today,\" he said in grea agitation. But the priest and the forester stood in silence, not givin their opinion. Mitya went up and began trying to wake him himself; h tried vigorously, but the sleeper did not wake."},
{"text":"\"He's drunk,\" Mitya decided. \"Good Lord! What am I to do? What am I t do?\" And, terribly impatient, he began pulling him by the arms, by th legs, shaking his head, lifting him up and making him sit on the bench Yet, after prolonged exertions, he could only succeed in getting th drunken man to utter absurd grunts, and violent, but inarticulat oaths."},
{"text":"\"No, you'd better wait a little,\" the priest pronounced at last, \"fo he's obviously not in a fit state.\""},
{"text":"\"He's been drinking the whole day,\" the forester chimed in."},
{"text":"\"Good heavens!\" cried Mitya. \"If only you knew how important it is t me and how desperate I am!\""},
{"text":"\"No, you'd better wait till morning,\" the priest repeated."},
{"text":"\"Till morning? Mercy! that's impossible!\""},
{"text":"And in his despair he was on the point of attacking the sleeping ma again, but stopped short at once, realizing the uselessness of hi efforts. The priest said nothing, the sleepy forester looked gloomy."},
{"text":"\"What terrible tragedies real life contrives for people,\" said Mitya in complete despair. The perspiration was streaming down his face. Th priest seized the moment to put before him, very reasonably, that, eve if he succeeded in wakening the man, he would still be drunk an incapable of conversation. \"And your business is important,\" he said \"so you'd certainly better put it off till morning.\" With a gesture o despair Mitya agreed."},
{"text":"\"Father, I will stay here with a light, and seize the favorable moment As soon as he wakes I'll begin. I'll pay you for the light,\" he said t the forester, \"for the night's lodging, too; you'll remember Dmitr Karamazov. Only, Father, I don't know what we're to do with you. Wher will you sleep?\""},
{"text":"\"No, I'm going home. I'll take his horse and get home,\" he said indicating the forester. \"And now I'll say goodbye. I wish you al success.\""},
{"text":"So it was settled. The priest rode off on the forester's horse delighted to escape, though he shook his head uneasily, wonderin whether he ought not next day to inform his benefactor Fyodo Pavlovitch of this curious incident, \"or he may in an unlucky hour hea of it, be angry, and withdraw his favor.\""},
{"text":"The forester, scratching himself, went back to his room without a word and Mitya sat on the bench to \"catch the favorable moment,\" as h expressed it. Profound dejection clung about his soul like a heav mist. A profound, intense dejection! He sat thinking, but could reac no conclusion. The candle burnt dimly, a cricket chirped; it becam insufferably close in the overheated room. He suddenly pictured th garden, the path behind the garden, the door of his father's hous mysteriously opening and Grushenka running in. He leapt up from th bench."},
{"text":"\"It's a tragedy!\" he said, grinding his teeth. Mechanically he went u to the sleeping man and looked in his face. He was a lean, middle-age peasant, with a very long face, flaxen curls, and a long, thin, reddis beard, wearing a blue cotton shirt and a black waistcoat, from th pocket of which peeped the chain of a silver watch. Mitya looked at hi face with intense hatred, and for some unknown reason his curly hai particularly irritated him."},
{"text":"What was insufferably humiliating was, that after leaving things o such importance and making such sacrifices, he, Mitya, utterly wor out, should with business of such urgency be standing over this dolt o whom his whole fate depended, while he snored as though there wer nothing the matter, as though he'd dropped from another planet."},
{"text":"\"Oh, the irony of fate!\" cried Mitya, and, quite losing his head, h fell again to rousing the tipsy peasant. He roused him with a sort o ferocity, pulled at him, pushed him, even beat him; but after fiv minutes of vain exertions, he returned to his bench in helples despair, and sat down."},
{"text":"\"Stupid! Stupid!\" cried Mitya. \"And how dishonorable it all is!\"something made him add. His head began to ache horribly. \"Should h fling it up and go away altogether?\" he wondered. \"No, wait til tomorrow now. I'll stay on purpose. What else did I come for? Besides I've no means of going. How am I to get away from here now? Oh, th idiocy of it!\""},
{"text":"But his head ached more and more. He sat without moving, an unconsciously dozed off and fell asleep as he sat. He seemed to hav slept for two hours or more. He was waked up by his head aching s unbearably that he could have screamed. There was a hammering in hi temples, and the top of his head ached. It was a long time before h could wake up fully and understand what had happened to him."},
{"text":"At last he realized that the room was full of charcoal fumes from th stove, and that he might die of suffocation. And the drunken peasan still lay snoring. The candle guttered and was about to go out. Mity cried out, and ran staggering across the passage into the forester' room. The forester waked up at once, but hearing that the other roo was full of fumes, to Mitya's surprise and annoyance, accepted the fac with strange unconcern, though he did go to see to it."},
{"text":"\"But he's dead, he's dead! and ... what am I to do then?\" cried Mity frantically."},
{"text":"They threw open the doors, opened a window and the chimney. Mity brought a pail of water from the passage. First he wetted his own head then, finding a rag of some sort, dipped it into the water, and put i on Lyagavy's head. The forester still treated the matte contemptuously, and when he opened the window said grumpily:"},
{"text":"\"It'll be all right, now.\""},
{"text":"He went back to sleep, leaving Mitya a lighted lantern. Mitya fusse about the drunken peasant for half an hour, wetting his head, an gravely resolved not to sleep all night. But he was so worn out tha when he sat down for a moment to take breath, he closed his eyes unconsciously stretched himself full length on the bench and slept lik the dead."},
{"text":"It was dreadfully late when he waked. It was somewhere about nin o'clock. The sun was shining brightly in the two little windows of th hut. The curly-headed peasant was sitting on the bench and had his coa on. He had another samovar and another bottle in front of him Yesterday's bottle had already been finished, and the new one was mor than half empty. Mitya jumped up and saw at once that the curse peasant was drunk again, hopelessly and incurably. He stared at him fo a moment with wide opened eyes. The peasant was silently and slyl watching him, with insulting composure, and even a sort of contemptuou condescension, so Mitya fancied. He rushed up to him."},
{"text":"\"Excuse me, you see ... I ... you've most likely heard from th forester here in the hut. I'm Lieutenant Dmitri Karamazov, the son o the old Karamazov whose copse you are buying.\""},
{"text":"\"That's a lie!\" said the peasant, calmly and confidently."},
{"text":"\"A lie? You know Fyodor Pavlovitch?\""},
{"text":"\"I don't know any of your Fyodor Pavlovitches,\" said the peasant speaking thickly."},
{"text":"\"You're bargaining with him for the copse, for the copse. Do wake up and collect yourself. Father Pavel of Ilyinskoe brought me here. Yo wrote to Samsonov, and he has sent me to you,\" Mitya gaspe breathlessly."},
{"text":"\"You're l-lying!\" Lyagavy blurted out again. Mitya's legs went cold."},
{"text":"\"For mercy's sake! It isn't a joke! You're drunk, perhaps. Yet you ca speak and understand ... or else ... I understand nothing!\""},
{"text":"\"You're a painter!\""},
{"text":"\"For mercy's sake! I'm Karamazov, Dmitri Karamazov. I have an offer t make you, an advantageous offer ... very advantageous offer concerning the copse!\""},
{"text":"The peasant stroked his beard importantly."},
{"text":"\"No, you've contracted for the job and turned out a scamp. You're  scoundrel!\""},
{"text":"\"I assure you you're mistaken,\" cried Mitya, wringing his hands i despair. The peasant still stroked his beard, and suddenly screwed u his eyes cunningly."},
{"text":"\"No, you show me this: you tell me the law that allows roguery. D'yo hear? You're a scoundrel! Do you understand that?\""},
{"text":"Mitya stepped back gloomily, and suddenly \"something seemed to hit hi on the head,\" as he said afterwards. In an instant a light seemed t dawn in his mind, \"a light was kindled and I grasped it all.\" He stood stupefied, wondering how he, after all a man of intelligence, coul have yielded to such folly, have been led into such an adventure, an have kept it up for almost twenty-four hours, fussing round thi Lyagavy, wetting his head."},
{"text":"\"Why, the man's drunk, dead drunk, and he'll go on drinking now for  week; what's the use of waiting here? And what if Samsonov sent me her on purpose? What if she--? Oh, God, what have I done?\""},
{"text":"The peasant sat watching him and grinning. Another time Mitya migh have killed the fool in a fury, but now he felt as weak as a child. H went quietly to the bench, took up his overcoat, put it on without  word, and went out of the hut. He did not find the forester in the nex room; there was no one there. He took fifty kopecks in small change ou of his pocket and put them on the table for his night's lodging, th candle, and the trouble he had given. Coming out of the hut he sa nothing but forest all round. He walked at hazard, not knowing whic way to turn out of the hut, to the right or to the left. Hurrying ther the evening before with the priest, he had not noticed the road. He ha no revengeful feeling for anybody, even for Samsonov, in his heart. H strode along a narrow forest path, aimless, dazed, without heedin where he was going. A child could have knocked him down, so weak was h in body and soul. He got out of the forest somehow, however, and  vista of fields, bare after the harvest, stretched as far as the ey could see."},
{"text":"\"What despair! What death all round!\" he repeated, striding on and on."},
{"text":"He was saved by meeting an old merchant who was being driven acros country in a hired trap. When he overtook him, Mitya asked the way, an it turned out that the old merchant, too, was going to Volovya. Afte some discussion Mitya got into the trap. Three hours later the arrived. At Volovya, Mitya at once ordered posting-horses to drive t the town, and suddenly realized that he was appallingly hungry. Whil the horses were being harnessed, an omelette was prepared for him. H ate it all in an instant, ate a huge hunk of bread, ate a sausage, an swallowed three glasses of vodka. After eating, his spirits and hi heart grew lighter. He flew towards the town, urged on the driver, an suddenly made a new and \"unalterable\" plan to procure that \"accurse money\" before evening. \"And to think, only to think that a man's lif should be ruined for the sake of that paltry three thousand!\" he cried contemptuously. \"I'll settle it today.\" And if it had not been for th thought of Grushenka and of what might have happened to her, whic never left him, he would perhaps have become quite cheerful again. ... But the thought of her was stabbing him to the heart every moment like a sharp knife."},
{"text":"At last they arrived, and Mitya at once ran to Grushenka."},
{"text":" III"},
{"text":"Goldmines"},
{"text":"This was the visit of Mitya of which Grushenka had spoken to Rakiti with such horror. She was just then expecting the \"message,\" and wa much relieved that Mitya had not been to see her that day or the da before. She hoped that \"please God he won't come till I'm gone away,\"and he suddenly burst in on her. The rest we know already. To get hi off her hands she suggested at once that he should walk with her t Samsonov's, where she said she absolutely must go \"to settle hi accounts,\" and when Mitya accompanied her at once, she said goodbye t him at the gate, making him promise to come at twelve o'clock to tak her home again. Mitya, too, was delighted at this arrangement. If sh was sitting at Samsonov's she could not be going to Fyodo Pavlovitch's, \"if only she's not lying,\" he added at once. But h thought she was not lying from what he saw."},
{"text":"He was that sort of jealous man who, in the absence of the belove woman, at once invents all sorts of awful fancies of what may b happening to her, and how she may be betraying him, but, when shaken heartbroken, convinced of her faithlessness, he runs back to her; a the first glance at her face, her gay, laughing, affectionate face, h revives at once, lays aside all suspicion and with joyful shame abuse himself for his jealousy."},
{"text":"After leaving Grushenka at the gate he rushed home. Oh, he had so muc still to do that day! But a load had been lifted from his heart anyway."},
{"text":"\"Now I must only make haste and find out from Smerdyakov whethe anything happened there last night, whether, by any chance, she went t Fyodor Pavlovitch; ough!\" floated through his mind."},
{"text":"Before he had time to reach his lodging, jealousy had surged up agai in his restless heart."},
{"text":"Jealousy! \"Othello was not jealous, he was trustful,\" observed Pushkin And that remark alone is enough to show the deep insight of our grea poet. Othello's soul was shattered and his whole outlook clouded simpl because his ideal was destroyed. But Othello did not begin hiding spying, peeping. He was trustful, on the contrary. He had to be led up pushed on, excited with great difficulty before he could entertain th idea of deceit. The truly jealous man is not like that. It i impossible to picture to oneself the shame and moral degradation t which the jealous man can descend without a qualm of conscience. An yet it's not as though the jealous were all vulgar and base souls. O the contrary, a man of lofty feelings, whose love is pure and full o self-sacrifice, may yet hide under tables, bribe the vilest people, an be familiar with the lowest ignominy of spying and eavesdropping."},
{"text":"Othello was incapable of making up his mind to faithlessness--no incapable of forgiving it, but of making up his mind to it--though hi soul was as innocent and free from malice as a babe's. It is not s with the really jealous man. It is hard to imagine what some jealou men can make up their mind to and overlook, and what they can forgive The jealous are the readiest of all to forgive, and all women know it The jealous man can forgive extraordinarily quickly (though, of course after a violent scene), and he is able to forgive infidelity almos conclusively proved, the very kisses and embraces he has seen, if onl he can somehow be convinced that it has all been \"for the last time,\"and that his rival will vanish from that day forward, will depart t the ends of the earth, or that he himself will carry her awa somewhere, where that dreaded rival will not get near her. Of cours the reconciliation is only for an hour. For, even if the rival di disappear next day, he would invent another one and would be jealous o him. And one might wonder what there was in a love that had to be s watched over, what a love could be worth that needed such strenuou guarding. But that the jealous will never understand. And yet amon them are men of noble hearts. It is remarkable, too, that those ver men of noble hearts, standing hidden in some cupboard, listening an spying, never feel the stings of conscience at that moment, anyway though they understand clearly enough with their \"noble hearts\" th shameful depths to which they have voluntarily sunk."},
{"text":"At the sight of Grushenka, Mitya's jealousy vanished, and, for a instant he became trustful and generous, and positively despise himself for his evil feelings. But it only proved that, in his love fo the woman, there was an element of something far higher than he himsel imagined, that it was not only a sensual passion, not only the \"curv of her body,\" of which he had talked to Alyosha. But, as soon a Grushenka had gone, Mitya began to suspect her of all the low cunnin of faithlessness, and he felt no sting of conscience at it."},
{"text":"And so jealousy surged up in him again. He had, in any case, to mak haste. The first thing to be done was to get hold of at least a small temporary loan of money. The nine roubles had almost all gone on hi expedition. And, as we all know, one can't take a step without money But he had thought over in the cart where he could get a loan. He had  brace of fine dueling pistols in a case, which he had not pawned til then because he prized them above all his possessions."},
{"text":"In the Metropolis tavern he had some time since made acquaintance wit a young official and had learnt that this very opulent bachelor wa passionately fond of weapons. He used to buy pistols, revolvers daggers, hang them on his wall and show them to acquaintances. H prided himself on them, and was quite a specialist on the mechanism o the revolver. Mitya, without stopping to think, went straight to him and offered to pawn his pistols to him for ten roubles. The official delighted, began trying to persuade him to sell them outright. Bu Mitya would not consent, so the young man gave him ten roubles protesting that nothing would induce him to take interest. They parte friends."},
{"text":"Mitya was in haste; he rushed towards Fyodor Pavlovitch's by the bac way, to his arbor, to get hold of Smerdyakov as soon as possible. I this way the fact was established that three or four hours before  certain event, of which I shall speak later on, Mitya had not  farthing, and pawned for ten roubles a possession he valued, though three hours later, he was in possession of thousands. ... But I a anticipating. From Marya Kondratyevna (the woman living near Fyodo Pavlovitch's) he learned the very disturbing fact of Smerdyakov' illness. He heard the story of his fall in the cellar, his fit, th doctor's visit, Fyodor Pavlovitch's anxiety; he heard with interest too, that his brother Ivan had set off that morning for Moscow."},
{"text":"\"Then he must have driven through Volovya before me,\" thought Dmitri but he was terribly distressed about Smerdyakov. \"What will happen now Who'll keep watch for me? Who'll bring me word?\" he thought. He bega greedily questioning the women whether they had seen anything th evening before. They quite understood what he was trying to find out and completely reassured him. No one had been there. Ivan Fyodorovitc had been there the night; everything had been perfectly as usual. Mity grew thoughtful. He would certainly have to keep watch today, bu where? Here or at Samsonov's gate? He decided that he must be on th look out both here and there, and meanwhile ... meanwhile. ... Th difficulty was that he had to carry out the new plan that he had mad on the journey back. He was sure of its success, but he must not dela acting upon it. Mitya resolved to sacrifice an hour to it: \"In an hou I shall know everything, I shall settle everything, and then, then first of all to Samsonov's. I'll inquire whether Grushenka's there an instantly be back here again, stay till eleven, and then to Samsonov' again to bring her home.\" This was what he decided."},
{"text":"He flew home, washed, combed his hair, brushed his clothes, dressed and went to Madame Hohlakov's. Alas! he had built his hopes on her. H had resolved to borrow three thousand from that lady. And what wa more, he felt suddenly convinced that she would not refuse to lend i to him. It may be wondered why, if he felt so certain, he had not gon to her at first, one of his own sort, so to speak, instead of t Samsonov, a man he did not know, who was not of his own class, and t whom he hardly knew how to speak."},
{"text":"But the fact was that he had never known Madame Hohlakov well, and ha seen nothing of her for the last month, and that he knew she could no endure him. She had detested him from the first because he was engage to Katerina Ivanovna, while she had, for some reason, suddenl conceived the desire that Katerina Ivanovna should throw him over, an marry the \"charming, chivalrously refined Ivan, who had such excellen manners.\" Mitya's manners she detested. Mitya positively laughed a her, and had once said about her that she was just as lively and at he ease as she was uncultivated. But that morning in the cart a brillian idea had struck him: \"If she is so anxious I should not marry Katerin Ivanovna\" (and he knew she was positively hysterical upon the subject \"why should she refuse me now that three thousand, just to enable me t leave Katya and get away from her forever. These spoilt fine ladies, i they set their hearts on anything, will spare no expense to satisf their caprice. Besides, she's so rich,\" Mitya argued."},
{"text":"As for his \"plan\" it was just the same as before; it consisted of th offer of his rights to Tchermashnya--but not with a commercial object as it had been with Samsonov, not trying to allure the lady with th possibility of making a profit of six or seven thousand--but simply a a security for the debt. As he worked out this new idea, Mitya wa enchanted with it, but so it always was with him in all hi undertakings, in all his sudden decisions. He gave himself up to ever new idea with passionate enthusiasm. Yet, when he mounted the steps o Madame Hohlakov's house he felt a shiver of fear run down his spine. A that moment he saw fully, as a mathematical certainty, that this wa his last hope, that if this broke down, nothing else was left him i the world, but to \"rob and murder someone for the three thousand.\" I was half-past seven when he rang at the bell."},
{"text":"At first fortune seemed to smile upon him. As soon as he was announce he was received with extraordinary rapidity. \"As though she wer waiting for me,\" thought Mitya, and as soon as he had been led to th drawing-room, the lady of the house herself ran in, and declared a once that she was expecting him."},
{"text":"\"I was expecting you! I was expecting you! Though I'd no reason t suppose you would come to see me, as you will admit yourself. Yet,  did expect you. You may marvel at my instinct, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, bu I was convinced all the morning that you would come.\""},
{"text":"\"That is certainly wonderful, madam,\" observed Mitya, sitting dow limply, \"but I have come to you on a matter of great importance. .. On a matter of supreme importance for me, that is, madam ... for m alone ... and I hasten--\""},
{"text":"\"I know you've come on most important business, Dmitri Fyodorovitch it's not a case of presentiment, no reactionary harking back to th miraculous (have you heard about Father Zossima?). This is a case o mathematics: you couldn't help coming, after all that has passed wit Katerina Ivanovna; you couldn't, you couldn't, that's a mathematica certainty.\""},
{"text":"\"The realism of actual life, madam, that's what it is. But allow me t explain--\""},
{"text":"\"Realism indeed, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. I'm all for realism now. I'v seen too much of miracles. You've heard that Father Zossima is dead?\""},
{"text":"\"No, madam, it's the first time I've heard of it.\" Mitya was a littl surprised. The image of Alyosha rose to his mind."},
{"text":"\"Last night, and only imagine--\""},
{"text":"\"Madam,\" said Mitya, \"I can imagine nothing except that I'm in  desperate position, and that if you don't help me, everything will com to grief, and I first of all. Excuse me for the triviality of th expression, but I'm in a fever--\""},
{"text":"\"I know, I know that you're in a fever. You could hardly fail to be and whatever you may say to me, I know beforehand. I have long bee thinking over your destiny, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, I am watching over i and studying it. ... Oh, believe me, I'm an experienced doctor of th soul, Dmitri Fyodorovitch.\""},
{"text":"\"Madam, if you are an experienced doctor, I'm certainly an experience patient,\" said Mitya, with an effort to be polite, \"and I feel that i you are watching over my destiny in this way, you will come to my hel in my ruin, and so allow me, at least to explain to you the plan wit which I have ventured to come to you ... and what I am hoping o you. ... I have come, madam--\""},
{"text":"\"Don't explain it. It's of secondary importance. But as for help you're not the first I have helped, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. You have mos likely heard of my cousin, Madame Belmesov. Her husband was ruined `had come to grief,' as you characteristically express it, Dmitr Fyodorovitch. I recommended him to take to horse-breeding, and now he' doing well. Have you any idea of horse-breeding, Dmitri Fyodorovitch?\""},
{"text":"\"Not the faintest, madam; ah, madam, not the faintest!\" cried Mitya, i nervous impatience, positively starting from his seat. \"I simpl implore you, madam, to listen to me. Only give me two minutes of fre speech that I may just explain to you everything, the whole plan wit which I have come. Besides, I am short of time. I'm in a fearfu hurry,\" Mitya cried hysterically, feeling that she was just going t begin talking again, and hoping to cut her short. \"I have come i despair ... in the last gasp of despair, to beg you to lend me th sum of three thousand, a loan, but on safe, most safe security, madam with the most trustworthy guarantees! Only let me explain--\""},
{"text":"\"You must tell me all that afterwards, afterwards!\" Madame Hohlako with a gesture demanded silence in her turn, \"and whatever you may tel me, I know it all beforehand; I've told you so already. You ask for  certain sum, for three thousand, but I can give you more, immeasurabl more, I will save you, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, but you must listen to me.\""},
{"text":"Mitya started from his seat again."},
{"text":"\"Madam, will you really be so good!\" he cried, with strong feeling \"Good God, you've saved me! You have saved a man from a violent death from a bullet. ... My eternal gratitude--\""},
{"text":"\"I will give you more, infinitely more than three thousand!\" crie Madame Hohlakov, looking with a radiant smile at Mitya's ecstasy."},
{"text":"\"Infinitely? But I don't need so much. I only need that fatal thre thousand, and on my part I can give security for that sum with infinit gratitude, and I propose a plan which--\""},
{"text":"\"Enough, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, it's said and done.\" Madame Hohlakov cu him short, with the modest triumph of beneficence: \"I have promised t save you, and I will save you. I will save you as I did Belmesov. Wha do you think of the goldmines, Dmitri Fyodorovitch?\""},
{"text":"\"Of the goldmines, madam? I have never thought anything about them.\""},
{"text":"\"But I have thought of them for you. Thought of them over and ove again. I have been watching you for the last month. I've watched you  hundred times as you've walked past, saying to myself: that's a man o energy who ought to be at the goldmines. I've studied your gait an come to the conclusion: that's a man who would find gold.\""},
{"text":"\"From my gait, madam?\" said Mitya, smiling."},
{"text":"\"Yes, from your gait. You surely don't deny that character can be tol from the gait, Dmitri Fyodorovitch? Science supports the idea. I'm al for science and realism now. After all this business with Fathe Zossima, which has so upset me, from this very day I'm a realist and  want to devote myself to practical usefulness. I'm cured. `Enough!' a Turgenev says.\""},
{"text":"\"But, madam, the three thousand you so generously promised to len me--\""},
{"text":"\"It is yours, Dmitri Fyodorovitch,\" Madame Hohlakov cut in at once \"The money is as good as in your pocket, not three thousand, but thre million, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, in less than no time. I'll make you  present of the idea: you shall find goldmines, make millions, retur and become a leading man, and wake us up and lead us to better things Are we to leave it all to the Jews? You will found institutions an enterprises of all sorts. You will help the poor, and they will bles you. This is the age of railways, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. You'll becom famous and indispensable to the Department of Finance, which is s badly off at present. The depreciation of the rouble keeps me awake a night, Dmitri Fyodorovitch; people don't know that side of me--\""},
{"text":"\"Madam, madam!\" Dmitri interrupted with an uneasy presentiment. \" shall indeed, perhaps, follow your advice, your wise advice, madam. ... I shall perhaps set off ... to the goldmines. ... I'll com and see you again about it ... many times, indeed ... but now, tha three thousand you so generously ... oh, that would set me free, an if you could today ... you see, I haven't a minute, a minute to los today--\""},
{"text":"\"Enough, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, enough!\" Madame Hohlakov interrupte emphatically. \"The question is, will you go to the goldmines or not have you quite made up your mind? Answer yes or no.\""},
{"text":"\"I will go, madam, afterwards. ... I'll go where you like ... bu now--\""},
{"text":"\"Wait!\" cried Madame Hohlakov. And jumping up and running to a handsom bureau with numerous little drawers, she began pulling out one drawe after another, looking for something with desperate haste."},
{"text":"\"The three thousand,\" thought Mitya, his heart almost stopping, \"and a the instant ... without any papers or formalities ... that's doin things in gentlemanly style! She's a splendid woman, if only she didn' talk so much!\""},
{"text":"\"Here!\" cried Madame Hohlakov, running back joyfully to Mitya, \"here i what I was looking for!\""},
{"text":"It was a tiny silver icon on a cord, such as is sometimes worn next th skin with a cross."},
{"text":"\"This is from Kiev, Dmitri Fyodorovitch,\" she went on reverently, \"fro the relics of the Holy Martyr, Varvara. Let me put it on your nec myself, and with it dedicate you to a new life, to a new career.\""},
{"text":"And she actually put the cord round his neck, and began arranging it In extreme embarrassment, Mitya bent down and helped her, and at las he got it under his necktie and collar through his shirt to his chest."},
{"text":"\"Now you can set off,\" Madame Hohlakov pronounced, sitting dow triumphantly in her place again."},
{"text":"\"Madam, I am so touched. I don't know how to thank you, indeed .. for such kindness, but ... If only you knew how precious time is t me. ... That sum of money, for which I shall be indebted to you generosity. ... Oh, madam, since you are so kind, so touchingl generous to me,\" Mitya exclaimed impulsively, \"then let me reveal t you ... though, of course, you've known it a long time ... that  love somebody here. ... I have been false to Katya ... Katerin Ivanovna I should say. ... Oh, I've behaved inhumanly, dishonorabl to her, but I fell in love here with another woman ... a woman who you, madam, perhaps, despise, for you know everything already, but who I cannot leave on any account, and therefore that three thousan now--\""},
{"text":"\"Leave everything, Dmitri Fyodorovitch,\" Madame Hohlakov interrupted i the most decisive tone. \"Leave everything, especially women. Goldmine are your goal, and there's no place for women there. Afterwards, whe you come back rich and famous, you will find the girl of your heart i the highest society. That will be a modern girl, a girl of educatio and advanced ideas. By that time the dawning woman question will hav gained ground, and the new woman will have appeared.\""},
{"text":"\"Madam, that's not the point, not at all. ...\" Mitya clasped hi hands in entreaty."},
{"text":"\"Yes, it is, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, just what you need; the very thin you're yearning for, though you don't realize it yourself. I am not a all opposed to the present woman movement, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. Th development of woman, and even the political emancipation of woman i the near future--that's my ideal. I've a daughter myself, Dmitr Fyodorovitch, people don't know that side of me. I wrote a letter t the author, Shtchedrin, on that subject. He has taught me so much, s much about the vocation of woman. So last year I sent him an anonymou letter of two lines: `I kiss and embrace you, my teacher, for th modern woman. Persevere.' And I signed myself, `A Mother.' I thought o signing myself `A contemporary Mother,' and hesitated, but I stuck t the simple `Mother'; there's more moral beauty in that, Dmitr Fyodorovitch. And the word `contemporary' might have reminded him o The Contemporary--a painful recollection owing to the censorship. ... Good Heavens, what is the matter!\""},
{"text":"\"Madam!\" cried Mitya, jumping up at last, clasping his hands before he in helpless entreaty. \"You will make me weep if you delay what you hav so generously--\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, do weep, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, do weep! That's a noble feeling ... such a path lies open before you! Tears will ease your heart, an later on you will return rejoicing. You will hasten to me from Siberi on purpose to share your joy with me--\""},
{"text":"\"But allow me, too!\" Mitya cried suddenly. \"For the last time I entrea you, tell me, can I have the sum you promised me today, if not, whe may I come for it?\""},
{"text":"\"What sum, Dmitri Fyodorovitch?\""},
{"text":"\"The three thousand you promised me ... that you so generously--\""},
{"text":"\"Three thousand? Roubles? Oh, no, I haven't got three thousand,\" Madam Hohlakov announced with serene amazement. Mitya was stupefied."},
{"text":"\"Why, you said just now ... you said ... you said it was as good a in my hands--\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, no, you misunderstood me, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. In that case yo misunderstood me. I was talking of the goldmines. It's true I promise you more, infinitely more than three thousand, I remember it all now but I was referring to the goldmines.\""},
{"text":"\"But the money? The three thousand?\" Mitya exclaimed, awkwardly."},
{"text":"\"Oh, if you meant money, I haven't any. I haven't a penny, Dmitr Fyodorovitch. I'm quarreling with my steward about it, and I've jus borrowed five hundred roubles from Misov, myself. No, no, I've n money. And, do you know, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, if I had, I wouldn't giv it to you. In the first place I never lend money. Lending money mean losing friends. And I wouldn't give it to you particularly. I wouldn' give it you, because I like you and want to save you, for all you nee is the goldmines, the goldmines, the goldmines!\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, the devil!\" roared Mitya, and with all his might brought his fis down on the table."},
{"text":"\"Aie! Aie!\" cried Madame Hohlakov, alarmed, and she flew to the othe end of the drawing-room."},
{"text":"Mitya spat on the ground, and strode rapidly out of the room, out o the house, into the street, into the darkness! He walked like on possessed, and beating himself on the breast, on the spot where he ha struck himself two days previously, before Alyosha, the last time h saw him in the dark, on the road. What those blows upon his breas signified, on that spot, and what he meant by it--that was, for th time, a secret which was known to no one in the world, and had not bee told even to Alyosha. But that secret meant for him more than disgrace it meant ruin, suicide. So he had determined, if he did not get hold o the three thousand that would pay his debt to Katerina Ivanovna, and s remove from his breast, from that spot on his breast, the shame h carried upon it, that weighed on his conscience. All this will be full explained to the reader later on, but now that his last hope ha vanished, this man, so strong in appearance, burst out crying like  little child a few steps from the Hohlakovs' house. He walked on, an not knowing what he was doing, wiped away his tears with his fist. I this way he reached the square, and suddenly became aware that he ha stumbled against something. He heard a piercing wail from an old woma whom he had almost knocked down."},
{"text":"\"Good Lord, you've nearly killed me! Why don't you look where you'r going, scapegrace?\""},
{"text":"\"Why, it's you!\" cried Mitya, recognizing the old woman in the dark. I was the old servant who waited on Samsonov, whom Mitya had particularl noticed the day before."},
{"text":"\"And who are you, my good sir?\" said the old woman, in quite  different voice. \"I don't know you in the dark.\""},
{"text":"\"You live at Kuzma Kuzmitch's. You're the servant there?\""},
{"text":"\"Just so, sir, I was only running out to Prohoritch's. ... But  don't know you now.\""},
{"text":"\"Tell me, my good woman, is Agrafena Alexandrovna there now?\" sai Mitya, beside himself with suspense. \"I saw her to the house some tim ago.\""},
{"text":"\"She has been there, sir. She stayed a little while, and went of again.\""},
{"text":"\"What? Went away?\" cried Mitya. \"When did she go?\""},
{"text":"\"Why, as soon as she came. She only stayed a minute. She only tol Kuzma Kuzmitch a tale that made him laugh, and then she ran away.\""},
{"text":"\"You're lying, damn you!\" roared Mitya."},
{"text":"\"Aie! Aie!\" shrieked the old woman, but Mitya had vanished."},
{"text":"He ran with all his might to the house where Grushenka lived. At th moment he reached it, Grushenka was on her way to Mokroe. It was no more than a quarter of an hour after her departure."},
{"text":"Fenya was sitting with her grandmother, the old cook, Matryona, in th kitchen when \"the captain\" ran in. Fenya uttered a piercing shriek o seeing him."},
{"text":"\"You scream?\" roared Mitya, \"where is she?\""},
{"text":"But without giving the terror-stricken Fenya time to utter a word, h fell all of a heap at her feet."},
{"text":"\"Fenya, for Christ's sake, tell me, where is she?\""},
{"text":"\"I don't know. Dmitri Fyodorovitch, my dear, I don't know. You may kil me but I can't tell you.\" Fenya swore and protested. \"You went out wit her yourself not long ago--\""},
{"text":"\"She came back!\""},
{"text":"\"Indeed she didn't. By God I swear she didn't come back.\""},
{"text":"\"You're lying!\" shouted Mitya. \"From your terror I know where she is.\""},
{"text":"He rushed away. Fenya in her fright was glad she had got off so easily But she knew very well that it was only that he was in such haste, o she might not have fared so well. But as he ran, he surprised bot Fenya and old Matryona by an unexpected action. On the table stood  brass mortar, with a pestle in it, a small brass pestle, not much mor than six inches long. Mitya already had opened the door with one han when, with the other, he snatched up the pestle, and thrust it in hi side-pocket."},
{"text":"\"Oh, Lord! He's going to murder someone!\" cried Fenya, flinging up he hands."},
{"text":" IV"},
{"text":"In the Dark"},
{"text":"Where was he running? \"Where could she be except at Fyodo Pavlovitch's? She must have run straight to him from Samsonov's, tha was clear now. The whole intrigue, the whole deceit was evident.\" .. It all rushed whirling through his mind. He did not run to Mary Kondratyevna's. \"There was no need to go there ... not the slightes need ... he must raise no alarm ... they would run and tel directly. ... Marya Kondratyevna was clearly in the plot, Smerdyako too, he too, all had been bought over!\""},
{"text":"He formed another plan of action: he ran a long way round Fyodo Pavlovitch's house, crossing the lane, running down Dmitrovsky Street then over the little bridge, and so came straight to the deserted alle at the back, which was empty and uninhabited, with, on one side th hurdle fence of a neighbor's kitchen-garden, on the other the stron high fence, that ran all round Fyodor Pavlovitch's garden. Here h chose a spot, apparently the very place, where according to th tradition, he knew Lizaveta had once climbed over it: \"If she coul climb over it,\" the thought, God knows why, occurred to him, \"surely  can.\" He did in fact jump up, and instantly contrived to catch hold o the top of the fence. Then he vigorously pulled himself up and sa astride on it. Close by, in the garden stood the bathhouse, but fro the fence he could see the lighted windows of the house too."},
{"text":"\"Yes, the old man's bedroom is lighted up. She's there!\" and he leap from the fence into the garden. Though he knew Grigory was ill and ver likely Smerdyakov, too, and that there was no one to hear him, h instinctively hid himself, stood still, and began to listen. But ther was dead silence on all sides and, as though of design, complet stillness, not the slightest breath of wind."},
{"text":"\"And naught but the whispering silence,\" the line for some reason ros to his mind. \"If only no one heard me jump over the fence! I thin not.\" Standing still for a minute, he walked softly over the grass i the garden, avoiding the trees and shrubs. He walked slowly, creepin stealthily at every step, listening to his own footsteps. It took hi five minutes to reach the lighted window. He remembered that just unde the window there were several thick and high bushes of elder an whitebeam. The door from the house into the garden on the left-han side, was shut; he had carefully looked on purpose to see, in passing At last he reached the bushes and hid behind them. He held his breath \"I must wait now,\" he thought, \"to reassure them, in case they heard m footsteps and are listening ... if only I don't cough or sneeze.\""},
{"text":"He waited two minutes. His heart was beating violently, and, a moments, he could scarcely breathe. \"No, this throbbing at my hear won't stop,\" he thought. \"I can't wait any longer.\" He was standin behind a bush in the shadow. The light of the window fell on the fron part of the bush."},
{"text":"\"How red the whitebeam berries are!\" he murmured, not knowing why Softly and noiselessly, step by step, he approached the window, an raised himself on tiptoe. All Fyodor Pavlovitch's bedroom lay ope before him. It was not a large room, and was divided in two parts by  red screen, \"Chinese,\" as Fyodor Pavlovitch used to call it. The wor \"Chinese\" flashed into Mitya's mind, \"and behind the screen, i Grushenka,\" thought Mitya. He began watching Fyodor Pavlovitch, who wa wearing his new striped-silk dressing-gown, which Mitya had never seen and a silk cord with tassels round the waist. A clean, dandified shir of fine linen with gold studs peeped out under the collar of th dressing-gown. On his head Fyodor Pavlovitch had the same red bandag which Alyosha had seen."},
{"text":"\"He has got himself up,\" thought Mitya."},
{"text":"His father was standing near the window, apparently lost in thought Suddenly he jerked up his head, listened a moment, and hearing nothin went up to the table, poured out half a glass of brandy from a decante and drank it off. Then he uttered a deep sigh, again stood still  moment, walked carelessly up to the looking-glass on the wall, with hi right hand raised the red bandage on his forehead a little, and bega examining his bruises and scars, which had not yet disappeared."},
{"text":"\"He's alone,\" thought Mitya, \"in all probability he's alone.\""},
{"text":"Fyodor Pavlovitch moved away from the looking-glass, turned suddenly t the window and looked out. Mitya instantly slipped away into th shadow."},
{"text":"\"She may be there behind the screen. Perhaps she's asleep by now,\" h thought, with a pang at his heart. Fyodor Pavlovitch moved away fro the window. \"He's looking for her out of the window, so she's no there. Why should he stare out into the dark? He's wild wit impatience.\" ... Mitya slipped back at once, and fell to gazing in a the window again. The old man was sitting down at the table, apparentl disappointed. At last he put his elbow on the table, and laid his righ cheek against his hand. Mitya watched him eagerly."},
{"text":"\"He's alone, he's alone!\" he repeated again. \"If she were here, hi face would be different.\""},
{"text":"Strange to say, a queer, irrational vexation rose up in his heart tha she was not here. \"It's not that she's not here,\" he explained t himself, immediately, \"but that I can't tell for certain whether she i or not.\" Mitya remembered afterwards that his mind was at that momen exceptionally clear, that he took in everything to the slightes detail, and missed no point. But a feeling of misery, the misery o uncertainty and indecision, was growing in his heart with ever instant. \"Is she here or not?\" The angry doubt filled his heart, an suddenly, making up his mind, he put out his hand and softly knocked o the window frame. He knocked the signal the old man had agreed upo with Smerdyakov, twice slowly and then three times more quickly, th signal that meant \"Grushenka is here!\""},
{"text":"The old man started, jerked up his head, and, jumping up quickly, ra to the window. Mitya slipped away into the shadow. Fyodor Pavlovitc opened the window and thrust his whole head out."},
{"text":"\"Grushenka, is it you? Is it you?\" he said, in a sort of tremblin half-whisper. \"Where are you, my angel, where are you?\" He wa fearfully agitated and breathless."},
{"text":"\"He's alone.\" Mitya decided."},
{"text":"\"Where are you?\" cried the old man again; and he thrust his head ou farther, thrust it out to the shoulders, gazing in all directions right and left. \"Come here, I've a little present for you. Come, I'l show you. ...\""},
{"text":"\"He means the three thousand,\" thought Mitya."},
{"text":"\"But where are you? Are you at the door? I'll open it directly.\""},
{"text":"And the old man almost climbed out of the window, peering out to th right, where there was a door into the garden, trying to see into th darkness. In another second he would certainly have run out to open th door without waiting for Grushenka's answer."},
{"text":"Mitya looked at him from the side without stirring. The old man' profile that he loathed so, his pendent Adam's apple, his hooked nose his lips that smiled in greedy expectation, were all brightly lighte up by the slanting lamplight falling on the left from the room.  horrible fury of hatred suddenly surged up in Mitya's heart: \"There h was, his rival, the man who had tormented him, had ruined his life!\" I was a rush of that sudden, furious, revengeful anger of which he ha spoken, as though foreseeing it, to Alyosha, four days ago in th arbor, when, in answer to Alyosha's question, \"How can you say you'l kill our father?\" \"I don't know, I don't know,\" he had said then \"Perhaps I shall not kill him, perhaps I shall. I'm afraid he'l suddenly be so loathsome to me at that moment. I hate his double chin his nose, his eyes, his shameless grin. I feel a personal repulsion That's what I'm afraid of, that's what may be too much for me.\" .. This personal repulsion was growing unendurable. Mitya was besid himself, he suddenly pulled the brass pestle out of his pocket   __________________________________________________________________"},
{"text":"\"God was watching over me then,\" Mitya himself said afterwards. At tha very moment Grigory waked up on his bed of sickness. Earlier in th evening he had undergone the treatment which Smerdyakov had describe to Ivan. He had rubbed himself all over with vodka mixed with a secret very strong decoction, had drunk what was left of the mixture while hi wife repeated a \"certain prayer\" over him, after which he had gone t bed. Marfa Ignatyevna had tasted the stuff, too, and, being unused t strong drink, slept like the dead beside her husband."},
{"text":"But Grigory waked up in the night, quite suddenly, and, after  moment's reflection, though he immediately felt a sharp pain in hi back, he sat up in bed. Then he deliberated again, got up and dresse hurriedly. Perhaps his conscience was uneasy at the thought of sleepin while the house was unguarded \"in such perilous times.\" Smerdyakov exhausted by his fit, lay motionless in the next room. Marfa Ignatyevn did not stir. \"The stuff's been too much for the woman,\" Grigor thought, glancing at her, and groaning, he went out on the steps. N doubt he only intended to look out from the steps, for he was hardl able to walk, the pain in his back and his right leg was intolerable But he suddenly remembered that he had not locked the little gate int the garden that evening. He was the most punctual and precise of men,  man who adhered to an unchangeable routine, and habits that lasted fo years. Limping and writhing with pain he went down the steps an towards the garden. Yes, the gate stood wide open. Mechanically h stepped into the garden. Perhaps he fancied something, perhaps caugh some sound, and, glancing to the left he saw his master's window open No one was looking out of it then."},
{"text":"\"What's it open for? It's not summer now,\" thought Grigory, an suddenly, at that very instant he caught a glimpse of somethin extraordinary before him in the garden. Forty paces in front of him  man seemed to be running in the dark, a sort of shadow was moving ver fast."},
{"text":"\"Good Lord!\" cried Grigory beside himself, and forgetting the pain i his back, he hurried to intercept the running figure. He took  shortcut, evidently he knew the garden better; the flying figure wen towards the bathhouse, ran behind it and rushed to the garden fence Grigory followed, not losing sight of him, and ran, forgettin everything. He reached the fence at the very moment the man wa climbing over it. Grigory cried out, beside himself, pounced on him and clutched his leg in his two hands."},
{"text":"Yes, his foreboding had not deceived him. He recognized him, it was he the \"monster,\" the \"parricide.\""},
{"text":"\"Parricide!\" the old man shouted so that the whole neighborhood coul hear, but he had not time to shout more, he fell at once, as thoug struck by lightning."},
{"text":"Mitya jumped back into the garden and bent over the fallen man. I Mitya's hands was a brass pestle, and he flung it mechanically in th grass. The pestle fell two paces from Grigory, not in the grass but o the path, in a most conspicuous place. For some seconds he examined th prostrate figure before him. The old man's head was covered with blood Mitya put out his hand and began feeling it. He remembered afterward clearly, that he had been awfully anxious to make sure whether he ha broken the old man's skull, or simply stunned him with the pestle. Bu the blood was flowing horribly; and in a moment Mitya's fingers wer drenched with the hot stream. He remembered taking out of his pocke the clean white handkerchief with which he had provided himself for hi visit to Madame Hohlakov, and putting it to the old man's head senselessly trying to wipe the blood from his face and temples. But th handkerchief was instantly soaked with blood."},
{"text":"\"Good heavens! what am I doing it for?\" thought Mitya, suddenly pullin himself together. \"If I have broken his skull, how can I find out now And what difference does it make now?\" he added, hopelessly. \"If I'v killed him, I've killed him. ... You've come to grief, old man, s there you must lie!\" he said aloud. And suddenly turning to the fence he vaulted over it into the lane and fell to running--the handkerchie soaked with blood he held, crushed up in his right fist, and as he ra he thrust it into the back pocket of his coat. He ran headlong, and th few passersby who met him in the dark, in the streets, remembere afterwards that they had met a man running that night. He flew bac again to the widow Morozov's house."},
{"text":"Immediately after he had left it that evening, Fenya had rushed to th chief porter, Nazar Ivanovitch, and besought him, for Christ's sake \"not to let the captain in again today or tomorrow.\" Nazar Ivanovitc promised, but went upstairs to his mistress who had suddenly sent fo him, and meeting his nephew, a boy of twenty, who had recently com from the country, on the way up told him to take his place, but forgo to mention \"the captain.\" Mitya, running up to the gate, knocked. Th lad instantly recognized him, for Mitya had more than once tipped him Opening the gate at once, he let him in, and hastened to inform hi with a good-humored smile that \"Agrafena Alexandrovna is not at hom now, you know.\""},
{"text":"\"Where is she then, Prohor?\" asked Mitya, stopping short."},
{"text":"\"She set off this evening, some two hours ago, with Timofey, t Mokroe.\""},
{"text":"\"What for?\" cried Mitya."},
{"text":"\"That I can't say. To see some officer. Someone invited her and horse were sent to fetch her.\""},
{"text":"Mitya left him, and ran like a madman to Fenya."},
{"text":" V"},
{"text":"A Sudden Resolution"},
{"text":"She was sitting in the kitchen with her grandmother; they were bot just going to bed. Relying on Nazar Ivanovitch, they had not locke themselves in. Mitya ran in, pounced on Fenya and seized her by th throat."},
{"text":"\"Speak at once! Where is she? With whom is she now, at Mokroe?\" h roared furiously."},
{"text":"Both the women squealed."},
{"text":"\"Aie! I'll tell you. Aie! Dmitri Fyodorovitch, darling, I'll tell yo everything directly, I won't hide anything,\" gabbled Fenya, frightene to death; \"she's gone to Mokroe, to her officer.\""},
{"text":"\"What officer?\" roared Mitya."},
{"text":"\"To her officer, the same one she used to know, the one who threw he over five years ago,\" cackled Fenya, as fast as she could speak."},
{"text":"Mitya withdrew the hands with which he was squeezing her throat. H stood facing her, pale as death, unable to utter a word, but his eye showed that he realized it all, all, from the first word, and guesse the whole position. Poor Fenya was not in a condition at that moment t observe whether he understood or not. She remained sitting on the trun as she had been when he ran into the room, trembling all over, holdin her hands out before her as though trying to defend herself. She seeme to have grown rigid in that position. Her wide-opened, scared eyes wer fixed immovably upon him. And to make matters worse, both his hand were smeared with blood. On the way, as he ran, he must have touche his forehead with them, wiping off the perspiration, so that on hi forehead and his right cheek were bloodstained patches. Fenya was o the verge of hysterics. The old cook had jumped up and was staring a him like a mad woman, almost unconscious with terror."},
{"text":"Mitya stood for a moment, then mechanically sank on to a chair next t Fenya. He sat, not reflecting but, as it were, terror-stricken benumbed. Yet everything was clear as day: that officer, he knew abou him, he knew everything perfectly, he had known it from Grushenk herself, had known that a letter had come from him a month before. S that for a month, for a whole month, this had been going on, a secre from him, till the very arrival of this new man, and he had neve thought of him! But how could he, how could he not have thought of him Why was it he had forgotten this officer, like that, forgotten him a soon as he heard of him? That was the question that faced him like som monstrous thing. And he looked at this monstrous thing with horror growing cold with horror."},
{"text":"But suddenly, as gently and mildly as a gentle and affectionate child he began speaking to Fenya as though he had utterly forgotten how h had scared and hurt her just now. He fell to questioning Fenya with a extreme preciseness, astonishing in his position, and though the gir looked wildly at his bloodstained hands, she, too, with wonderfu readiness and rapidity, answered every question as though eager to pu the whole truth and nothing but the truth before him. Little by little even with a sort of enjoyment, she began explaining every detail, no wanting to torment him, but, as it were, eager to be of the utmos service to him. She described the whole of that day, in great detail the visit of Rakitin and Alyosha, how she, Fenya, had stood on th watch, how the mistress had set off, and how she had called out of th window to Alyosha to give him, Mitya, her greetings, and to tell hi \"to remember forever how she had loved him for an hour.\""},
{"text":"Hearing of the message, Mitya suddenly smiled, and there was a flush o color on his pale cheeks. At the same moment Fenya said to him, not  bit afraid now to be inquisitive:"},
{"text":"\"Look at your hands, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. They're all over blood!\""},
{"text":"\"Yes,\" answered Mitya mechanically. He looked carelessly at his hand and at once forgot them and Fenya's question."},
{"text":"He sank into silence again. Twenty minutes had passed since he had ru in. His first horror was over, but evidently some new fixe determination had taken possession of him. He suddenly stood up smiling dreamily."},
{"text":"\"What has happened to you, sir?\" said Fenya, pointing to his hand again. She spoke compassionately, as though she felt very near to hi now in his grief. Mitya looked at his hands again."},
{"text":"\"That's blood, Fenya,\" he said, looking at her with a strang expression. \"That's human blood, and my God! why was it shed? But .. Fenya ... there's a fence here\" (he looked at her as though settin her a riddle), \"a high fence, and terrible to look at. But at daw tomorrow, when the sun rises, Mitya will leap over that fence. .. You don't understand what fence, Fenya, and, never mind. ... You'l hear tomorrow and understand ... and now, goodbye. I won't stand i her way. I'll step aside, I know how to step aside. Live, my joy. .. You loved me for an hour, remember Mityenka Karamazov so forever. .. She always used to call me Mityenka, do you remember?\""},
{"text":"And with those words he went suddenly out of the kitchen. Fenya wa almost more frightened at this sudden departure than she had been whe he ran in and attacked her."},
{"text":"Just ten minutes later Dmitri went in to Pyotr Ilyitch Perhotin, th young official with whom he had pawned his pistols. It was by no half-past eight, and Pyotr Ilyitch had finished his evening tea, an had just put his coat on again to go to the Metropolis to pla billiards. Mitya caught him coming out."},
{"text":"Seeing him with his face all smeared with blood, the young man uttere a cry of surprise."},
{"text":"\"Good heavens! What is the matter?\""},
{"text":"\"I've come for my pistols,\" said Mitya, \"and brought you the money. An thanks very much. I'm in a hurry, Pyotr Ilyitch, please make haste.\""},
{"text":"Pyotr Ilyitch grew more and more surprised; he suddenly caught sight o a bundle of banknotes in Mitya's hand, and what was more, he had walke in holding the notes as no one walks in and no one carries money: h had them in his right hand, and held them outstretched as if to sho them. Perhotin's servant-boy, who met Mitya in the passage, sai afterwards that he walked into the passage in the same way, with th money outstretched in his hand, so he must have been carrying them lik that even in the streets. They were all rainbow-colored hundred-roubl notes, and the fingers holding them were covered with blood."},
{"text":"When Pyotr Ilyitch was questioned later on as to the sum of money, h said that it was difficult to judge at a glance, but that it might hav been two thousand, or perhaps three, but it was a big, \"fat\" bundle \"Dmitri Fyodorovitch,\" so he testified afterwards, \"seemed unlik himself, too; not drunk, but, as it were, exalted, lost to everything but at the same time, as it were, absorbed, as though pondering an searching for something and unable to come to a decision. He was i great haste, answered abruptly and very strangely, and at moment seemed not at all dejected but quite cheerful.\""},
{"text":"\"But what is the matter with you? What's wrong?\" cried Pyotr Ilyitch looking wildly at his guest. \"How is it that you're all covered wit blood? Have you had a fall? Look at yourself!\""},
{"text":"He took him by the elbow and led him to the glass."},
{"text":"Seeing his bloodstained face, Mitya started and scowled wrathfully."},
{"text":"\"Damnation! That's the last straw,\" he muttered angrily, hurriedl changing the notes from his right hand to the left, and impulsivel jerked the handkerchief out of his pocket. But the handkerchief turne out to be soaked with blood, too (it was the handkerchief he had use to wipe Grigory's face). There was scarcely a white spot on it, and i had not merely begun to dry, but had stiffened into a crumpled ball an could not be pulled apart. Mitya threw it angrily on the floor."},
{"text":"\"Oh, damn it!\" he said. \"Haven't you a rag of some sort ... to wip my face?\""},
{"text":"\"So you're only stained, not wounded? You'd better wash,\" said Pyot Ilyitch. \"Here's a washstand. I'll pour you out some water.\""},
{"text":"\"A washstand? That's all right ... but where am I to put this?\""},
{"text":"With the strangest perplexity he indicated his bundle of hundred-roubl notes, looking inquiringly at Pyotr Ilyitch as though it were for hi to decide what he, Mitya, was to do with his own money."},
{"text":"\"In your pocket, or on the table here. They won't be lost.\""},
{"text":"\"In my pocket? Yes, in my pocket. All right. ... But, I say, that' all nonsense,\" he cried, as though suddenly coming out of hi absorption. \"Look here, let's first settle that business of th pistols. Give them back to me. Here's your money ... because I am i great need of them ... and I haven't a minute, a minute to spare.\""},
{"text":"And taking the topmost note from the bundle he held it out to Pyot Ilyitch."},
{"text":"\"But I shan't have change enough. Haven't you less?\""},
{"text":"\"No,\" said Mitya, looking again at the bundle, and as though no trusting his own words he turned over two or three of the topmost ones."},
{"text":"\"No, they're all alike,\" he added, and again he looked inquiringly a Pyotr Ilyitch."},
{"text":"\"How have you grown so rich?\" the latter asked. \"Wait, I'll send my bo to Plotnikov's, they close late--to see if they won't change it. Here Misha!\" he called into the passage."},
{"text":"\"To Plotnikov's shop--first-rate!\" cried Mitya, as though struck by a idea. \"Misha,\" he turned to the boy as he came in, \"look here, run t Plotnikov's and tell them that Dmitri Fyodorovitch sends his greetings and will be there directly. ... But listen, listen, tell them to hav champagne, three dozen bottles, ready before I come, and packed as i was to take to Mokroe. I took four dozen with me then,\" he adde (suddenly addressing Pyotr Ilyitch); \"they know all about it, don't yo trouble, Misha,\" he turned again to the boy. \"Stay, listen; tell the to put in cheese, Strasburg pies, smoked fish, ham, caviar, an everything, everything they've got, up to a hundred roubles, or  hundred and twenty as before. ... But wait: don't let them forge dessert, sweets, pears, watermelons, two or three or four--no, on melon's enough, and chocolate, candy, toffee, fondants; in fact everything I took to Mokroe before, three hundred roubles' worth wit the champagne ... let it be just the same again. And remember, Misha if you are called Misha--His name is Misha, isn't it?\" He turned t Pyotr Ilyitch again."},
{"text":"\"Wait a minute,\" Protr Ilyitch intervened, listening and watching hi uneasily, \"you'd better go yourself and tell them. He'll muddle it.\""},
{"text":"\"He will, I see he will! Eh, Misha! Why, I was going to kiss you fo the commission. ... If you don't make a mistake, there's ten rouble for you, run along, make haste. ... Champagne's the chief thing, le them bring up champagne. And brandy, too, and red and white wine, an all I had then. ... They know what I had then.\""},
{"text":"\"But listen!\" Pyotr Ilyitch interrupted with some impatience. \"I say let him simply run and change the money and tell them not to close, an you go and tell them. ... Give him your note. Be off, Misha! Put you best leg forward!\""},
{"text":"Pyotr Ilyitch seemed to hurry Misha off on purpose, because the bo remained standing with his mouth and eyes wide open, apparentl understanding little of Mitya's orders, gazing up with amazement an terror at his bloodstained face and the trembling bloodstained finger that held the notes."},
{"text":"\"Well, now come and wash,\" said Pyotr Ilyitch sternly. \"Put the mone on the table or else in your pocket. ... That's right, come along But take off your coat.\""},
{"text":"And beginning to help him off with his coat, he cried out again:"},
{"text":"\"Look, your coat's covered with blood, too!\""},
{"text":"\"That ... it's not the coat. It's only a little here on the sleeve. ... And that's only here where the handkerchief lay. It must hav soaked through. I must have sat on the handkerchief at Fenya's, and th blood's come through,\" Mitya explained at once with a childlik unconsciousness that was astounding. Pyotr Ilyitch listened, frowning."},
{"text":"\"Well, you must have been up to something; you must have been fightin with someone,\" he muttered."},
{"text":"They began to wash. Pyotr Ilyitch held the jug and poured out th water. Mitya, in desperate haste, scarcely soaped his hands (they wer trembling, and Pyotr Ilyitch remembered it afterwards). But the youn official insisted on his soaping them thoroughly and rubbing them more He seemed to exercise more and more sway over Mitya, as time went on It may be noted in passing that he was a young man of sturdy character."},
{"text":"\"Look, you haven't got your nails clean. Now rub your face; here, o your temples, by your ear. ... Will you go in that shirt? Where ar you going? Look, all the cuff of your right sleeve is covered wit blood.\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, it's all bloody,\" observed Mitya, looking at the cuff of hi shirt."},
{"text":"\"Then change your shirt.\""},
{"text":"\"I haven't time. You see I'll ...\" Mitya went on with the sam confiding ingenuousness, drying his face and hands on the towel, an putting on his coat. \"I'll turn it up at the wrist. It won't be see under the coat. ... You see!\""},
{"text":"\"Tell me now, what game have you been up to? Have you been fightin with someone? In the tavern again, as before? Have you been beatin that captain again?\" Pyotr Ilyitch asked him reproachfully. \"Whom hav you been beating now ... or killing, perhaps?\""},
{"text":"\"Nonsense!\" said Mitya."},
{"text":"\"Why `nonsense'?\""},
{"text":"\"Don't worry,\" said Mitya, and he suddenly laughed. \"I smashed an ol woman in the marketplace just now.\""},
{"text":"\"Smashed? An old woman?\""},
{"text":"\"An old man!\" cried Mitya, looking Pyotr Ilyitch straight in the face laughing, and shouting at him as though he were deaf."},
{"text":"\"Confound it! An old woman, an old man. ... Have you killed someone?\""},
{"text":"\"We made it up. We had a row--and made it up. In a place I know of. W parted friends. A fool. ... He's forgiven me. ... He's sure to hav forgiven me by now ... if he had got up, he wouldn't have forgive me\"--Mitya suddenly winked--\"only damn him, you know, I say, Pyot Ilyitch, damn him! Don't worry about him! I don't want to just now!\"Mitya snapped out, resolutely."},
{"text":"\"Whatever do you want to go picking quarrels with everyone for? .. Just as you did with that captain over some nonsense. ... You've bee fighting and now you're rushing off on the spree--that's you all over Three dozen champagne--what do you want all that for?\""},
{"text":"\"Bravo! Now give me the pistols. Upon my honor I've no time now.  should like to have a chat with you, my dear boy, but I haven't th time. And there's no need, it's too late for talking. Where's my money Where have I put it?\" he cried, thrusting his hands into his pockets."},
{"text":"\"You put it on the table ... yourself. ... Here it is. Had yo forgotten? Money's like dirt or water to you, it seems. Here are you pistols. It's an odd thing, at six o'clock you pledged them for te roubles, and now you've got thousands. Two or three I should say.\""},
{"text":"\"Three, you bet,\" laughed Mitya, stuffing the notes into th side-pocket of his trousers."},
{"text":"\"You'll lose it like that. Have you found a goldmine?\""},
{"text":"\"The mines? The goldmines?\" Mitya shouted at the top of his voice an went off into a roar of laughter. \"Would you like to go to the mines Perhotin? There's a lady here who'll stump up three thousand for you if only you'll go. She did it for me, she's so awfully fond o goldmines. Do you know Madame Hohlakov?\""},
{"text":"\"I don't know her, but I've heard of her and seen her. Did she reall give you three thousand? Did she really?\" said Pyotr Ilyitch, eyein him dubiously."},
{"text":"\"As soon as the sun rises tomorrow, as soon as Phoebus, ever young flies upwards, praising and glorifying God, you go to her, this Madam Hohlakov, and ask her whether she did stump up that three thousand o not. Try and find out.\""},
{"text":"\"I don't know on what terms you are ... since you say it s positively, I suppose she did give it to you. You've got the money i your hand, but instead of going to Siberia you're spending it all. ... Where are you really off to now, eh?\""},
{"text":"\"To Mokroe.\""},
{"text":"\"To Mokroe? But it's night!\""},
{"text":"\"Once the lad had all, now the lad has naught,\" cried Mitya suddenly."},
{"text":"\"How `naught'? You say that with all those thousands!\""},
{"text":"\"I'm not talking about thousands. Damn thousands! I'm talking of th female character."},
{"text":"  Fickle is the heart of woma   Treacherous and full of vice;"},
{"text":"I agree with Ulysses. That's what he says.\""},
{"text":"\"I don't understand you!\""},
{"text":"\"Am I drunk?\""},
{"text":"\"Not drunk, but worse.\""},
{"text":"\"I'm drunk in spirit, Pyotr Ilyitch, drunk in spirit! But that' enough!\""},
{"text":"\"What are you doing, loading the pistol?\""},
{"text":"\"I'm loading the pistol.\""},
{"text":"Unfastening the pistol-case, Mitya actually opened the powder horn, an carefully sprinkled and rammed in the charge. Then he took the bulle and, before inserting it, held it in two fingers in front of th candle."},
{"text":"\"Why are you looking at the bullet?\" asked Pyotr Ilyitch, watching hi with uneasy curiosity."},
{"text":"\"Oh, a fancy. Why, if you meant to put that bullet in your brain, woul you look at it or not?\""},
{"text":"\"Why look at it?\""},
{"text":"\"It's going into my brain, so it's interesting to look and see wha it's like. But that's foolishness, a moment's foolishness. Now that' done,\" he added, putting in the bullet and driving it home with th ramrod. \"Pyotr Ilyitch, my dear fellow, that's nonsense, all nonsense and if only you knew what nonsense! Give me a little piece of pape now.\""},
{"text":"\"Here's some paper.\""},
{"text":"\"No, a clean new piece, writing-paper. That's right.\""},
{"text":"And taking a pen from the table, Mitya rapidly wrote two lines, folde the paper in four, and thrust it in his waistcoat pocket. He put th pistols in the case, locked it up, and kept it in his hand. Then h looked at Pyotr Ilyitch with a slow, thoughtful smile."},
{"text":"\"Now, let's go.\""},
{"text":"\"Where are we going? No, wait a minute. ... Are you thinking o putting that bullet in your brain, perhaps?\" Pyotr Ilyitch aske uneasily."},
{"text":"\"I was fooling about the bullet! I want to live. I love life! You ma be sure of that. I love golden-haired Phoebus and his warm light. .. Dear Pyotr Ilyitch, do you know how to step aside?\""},
{"text":"\"What do you mean by `stepping aside'?\""},
{"text":"\"Making way. Making way for a dear creature, and for one I hate. And t let the one I hate become dear--that's what making way means! And t say to them: God bless you, go your way, pass on, while I--\""},
{"text":"\"While you--?\""},
{"text":"\"That's enough, let's go.\""},
{"text":"\"Upon my word. I'll tell someone to prevent your going there,\" sai Pyotr Ilyitch, looking at him. \"What are you going to Mokroe for, now?\""},
{"text":"\"There's a woman there, a woman. That's enough for you. You shut up.\""},
{"text":"\"Listen, though you're such a savage I've always liked you. ...  feel anxious.\""},
{"text":"\"Thanks, old fellow. I'm a savage you say. Savages, savages! That' what I am always saying. Savages! Why, here's Misha! I was forgettin him.\""},
{"text":"Misha ran in, post-haste, with a handful of notes in change, an reported that everyone was in a bustle at the Plotnikovs'; \"They'r carrying down the bottles, and the fish, and the tea; it will all b ready directly.\" Mitya seized ten roubles and handed it to Pyot Ilyitch, then tossed another ten-rouble note to Misha."},
{"text":"\"Don't dare to do such a thing!\" cried Pyotr Ilyitch. \"I won't have i in my house, it's a bad, demoralizing habit. Put your money away. Here put it here, why waste it? It would come in handy tomorrow, and I dar say you'll be coming to me to borrow ten roubles again. Why do you kee putting the notes in your side-pocket? Ah, you'll lose them!\""},
{"text":"\"I say, my dear fellow, let's go to Mokroe together.\""},
{"text":"\"What should I go for?\""},
{"text":"\"I say, let's open a bottle at once, and drink to life! I want t drink, and especially to drink with you. I've never drunk with you have I?\""},
{"text":"\"Very well, we can go to the Metropolis. I was just going there.\""},
{"text":"\"I haven't time for that. Let's drink at the Plotnikovs', in the bac room. Shall I ask you a riddle?\""},
{"text":"\"Ask away.\""},
{"text":"Mitya took the piece of paper out of his waistcoat pocket, unfolded i and showed it. In a large, distinct hand was written: \"I punish mysel for my whole life, my whole life I punish!\""},
{"text":"\"I will certainly speak to someone, I'll go at once,\" said Pyot Ilyitch, after reading the paper."},
{"text":"\"You won't have time, dear boy, come and have a drink. March!\""},
{"text":"Plotnikov's shop was at the corner of the street, next door but one t Pyotr Ilyitch's. It was the largest grocery shop in our town, and by n means a bad one, belonging to some rich merchants. They kept everythin that could be got in a Petersburg shop, grocery of all sort, wine \"bottled by the brothers Eliseyev,\" fruits, cigars, tea, coffee, sugar and so on. There were three shop-assistants and two errand boys alway employed. Though our part of the country had grown poorer, th landowners had gone away, and trade had got worse, yet the grocer stores flourished as before, every year with increasing prosperity there were plenty of purchasers for their goods."},
{"text":"They were awaiting Mitya with impatience in the shop. They had vivi recollections of how he had bought, three or four weeks ago, wine an goods of all sorts to the value of several hundred roubles, paid for i cash (they would never have let him have anything on credit, o course). They remembered that then, as now, he had had a bundle o hundred-rouble notes in his hand, and had scattered them at random without bargaining, without reflecting, or caring to reflect what us so much wine and provisions would be to him. The story was told al over the town that, driving off then with Grushenka to Mokroe, he ha \"spent three thousand in one night and the following day, and had com back from the spree without a penny.\" He had picked up a whole troop o gypsies (encamped in our neighborhood at the time), who for two day got money without stint out of him while he was drunk, and dran expensive wine without stint. People used to tell, laughing at Mitya how he had given champagne to grimy-handed peasants, and feasted th village women and girls on sweets and Strasburg pies. Though to laug at Mitya to his face was rather a risky proceeding, there was muc laughter behind his back, especially in the tavern, at his ow ingenuous public avowal that all he had got out of Grushenka by thi \"escapade\" was \"permission to kiss her foot, and that was the utmos she had allowed him.\""},
{"text":"By the time Mitya and Pyotr Ilyitch reached the shop, they found a car with three horses harnessed abreast with bells, and with Andrey, th driver, ready waiting for Mitya at the entrance. In the shop they ha almost entirely finished packing one box of provisions, and were onl waiting for Mitya's arrival to nail it down and put it in the cart Pyotr Ilyitch was astounded."},
{"text":"\"Where did this cart come from in such a hurry?\" he asked Mitya."},
{"text":"\"I met Andrey as I ran to you, and told him to drive straight here t the shop. There's no time to lose. Last time I drove with Timofey, bu Timofey now has gone on before me with the witch. Shall we be ver late, Andrey?\""},
{"text":"\"They'll only get there an hour at most before us, not even that maybe I got Timofey ready to start. I know how he'll go. Their pace won't b ours, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. How could it be? They won't get there a hour earlier!\" Andrey, a lanky, red-haired, middle-aged driver, wearin a full-skirted coat, and with a kaftan on his arm, replied warmly."},
{"text":"\"Fifty roubles for vodka if we're only an hour behind them.\""},
{"text":"\"I warrant the time, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. Ech, they won't be half a hour before us, let alone an hour.\""},
{"text":"Though Mitya bustled about seeing after things, he gave his order strangely, as it were disconnectedly, and inconsecutively. He began  sentence and forgot the end of it. Pyotr Ilyitch found himself oblige to come to the rescue."},
{"text":"\"Four hundred roubles' worth, not less than four hundred roubles worth, just as it was then,\" commanded Mitya. \"Four dozen champagne not a bottle less.\""},
{"text":"\"What do you want with so much? What's it for? Stay!\" cried Pyot Ilyitch. \"What's this box? What's in it? Surely there isn't fou hundred roubles' worth here?\""},
{"text":"The officious shopmen began explaining with oily politeness that th first box contained only half a dozen bottles of champagne, and onl \"the most indispensable articles,\" such as savories, sweets, toffee etc. But the main part of the goods ordered would be packed and sen off, as on the previous occasion, in a special cart also with thre horses traveling at full speed, so that it would arrive not more tha an hour later than Dmitri Fyodorovitch himself."},
{"text":"\"Not more than an hour! Not more than an hour! And put in more toffe and fondants. The girls there are so fond of it,\" Mitya insisted hotly."},
{"text":"\"The fondants are all right. But what do you want with four dozen o champagne? One would be enough,\" said Pyotr Ilyitch, almost angry. H began bargaining, asking for a bill of the goods, and refused to b satisfied. But he only succeeded in saving a hundred roubles. In th end it was agreed that only three hundred roubles' worth should b sent."},
{"text":"\"Well, you may go to the devil!\" cried Pyotr Ilyitch, on secon thoughts. \"What's it to do with me? Throw away your money, since it' cost you nothing.\""},
{"text":"\"This way, my economist, this way, don't be angry.\" Mitya drew him int a room at the back of the shop. \"They'll give us a bottle her directly. We'll taste it. Ech, Pyotr Ilyitch, come along with me, fo you're a nice fellow, the sort I like.\""},
{"text":"Mitya sat down on a wicker chair, before a little table, covered with  dirty dinner-napkin. Pyotr Ilyitch sat down opposite, and the champagn soon appeared, and oysters were suggested to the gentlemen \"First-class oysters, the last lot in.\""},
{"text":"\"Hang the oysters. I don't eat them. And we don't need anything,\" crie Pyotr Ilyitch, almost angrily."},
{"text":"\"There's no time for oysters,\" said Mitya. \"And I'm not hungry. Do yo know, friend,\" he said suddenly, with feeling, \"I never have liked al this disorder.\""},
{"text":"\"Who does like it? Three dozen of champagne for peasants, upon my word that's enough to make anyone angry!\""},
{"text":"\"That's not what I mean. I'm talking of a higher order. There's n order in me, no higher order. But ... that's all over. There's n need to grieve about it. It's too late, damn it! My whole life has bee disorder, and one must set it in order. Is that a pun, eh?\""},
{"text":"\"You're raving, not making puns!\""},
{"text":"  \"Glory be to God in Heaven   Glory be to God in me. ..."},
{"text":"\"That verse came from my heart once, it's not a verse, but a tear. ... I made it myself ... not while I was pulling the captain' beard, though. ...\""},
{"text":"\"Why do you bring him in all of a sudden?\""},
{"text":"\"Why do I bring him in? Foolery! All things come to an end; all thing are made equal. That's the long and short of it.\""},
{"text":"\"You know, I keep thinking of your pistols.\""},
{"text":"\"That's all foolery, too! Drink, and don't be fanciful. I love life I've loved life too much, shamefully much. Enough! Let's drink to life dear boy, I propose the toast. Why am I pleased with myself? I'm  scoundrel, but I'm satisfied with myself. And yet I'm tortured by th thought that I'm a scoundrel, but satisfied with myself. I bless th creation. I'm ready to bless God and His creation directly, but ...  must kill one noxious insect for fear it should crawl and spoil lif for others. ... Let us drink to life, dear brother. What can be mor precious than life? Nothing! To life, and to one queen of queens!\""},
{"text":"\"Let's drink to life and to your queen, too, if you like.\""},
{"text":"They drank a glass each. Although Mitya was excited and expansive, ye he was melancholy, too. It was as though some heavy, overwhelmin anxiety were weighing upon him."},
{"text":"\"Misha ... here's your Misha come! Misha, come here, my boy, drin this glass to Phoebus, the golden-haired, of tomorrow morn. ...\""},
{"text":"\"What are you giving it him for?\" cried Pyotr Ilyitch, irritably."},
{"text":"\"Yes, yes, yes, let me! I want to!\""},
{"text":"\"E--ech!\""},
{"text":"Misha emptied the glass, bowed, and ran out."},
{"text":"\"He'll remember it afterwards,\" Mitya remarked. \"Woman, I love woman What is woman? The queen of creation! My heart is sad, my heart is sad Pyotr Ilyitch. Do you remember Hamlet? `I am very sorry, good Horatio Alas, poor Yorick!' Perhaps that's me, Yorick? Yes, I'm Yorick now, an a skull afterwards.\""},
{"text":"Pyotr Ilyitch listened in silence. Mitya, too, was silent for a while."},
{"text":"\"What dog's that you've got here?\" he asked the shopman, casually noticing a pretty little lapdog with dark eyes, sitting in the corner."},
{"text":"\"It belongs to Varvara Alexyevna, the mistress,\" answered the clerk \"She brought it and forgot it here. It must be taken back to her.\""},
{"text":"\"I saw one like it ... in the regiment ...\" murmured Mity dreamily, \"only that one had its hind leg broken. ... By the way Pyotr Ilyitch, I wanted to ask you: have you ever stolen anything i your life?\""},
{"text":"\"What a question!\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, I didn't mean anything. From somebody's pocket, you know. I don' mean government money, everyone steals that, and no doubt you do, too. ...\""},
{"text":"\"You go to the devil.\""},
{"text":"\"I'm talking of other people's money. Stealing straight out of  pocket? Out of a purse, eh?\""},
{"text":"\"I stole twenty copecks from my mother when I was nine years old.  took it off the table on the sly, and held it tight in my hand.\""},
{"text":"\"Well, and what happened?\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, nothing. I kept it three days, then I felt ashamed, confessed, an gave it back.\""},
{"text":"\"And what then?\""},
{"text":"\"Naturally I was whipped. But why do you ask? Have you stole something?\""},
{"text":"\"I have,\" said Mitya, winking slyly."},
{"text":"\"What have you stolen?\" inquired Pyotr Ilyitch curiously."},
{"text":"\"I stole twenty copecks from my mother when I was nine years old, an gave it back three days after.\""},
{"text":"As he said this, Mitya suddenly got up."},
{"text":"\"Dmitri Fyodorovitch, won't you come now?\" called Andrey from the doo of the shop."},
{"text":"\"Are you ready? We'll come!\" Mitya started. \"A few more last word and--Andrey, a glass of vodka at starting. Give him some brandy a well! That box\" (the one with the pistols) \"put under my seat. Goodbye Pyotr Ilyitch, don't remember evil against me.\""},
{"text":"\"But you're coming back tomorrow?\""},
{"text":"\"Of course.\""},
{"text":"\"Will you settle the little bill now?\" cried the clerk, springin forward."},
{"text":"\"Oh, yes, the bill. Of course.\""},
{"text":"He pulled the bundle of notes out of his pocket again, picked out thre hundred roubles, threw them on the counter, and ran hurriedly out o the shop. Everyone followed him out, bowing and wishing him good luck Andrey, coughing from the brandy he had just swallowed, jumped up o the box. But Mitya was only just taking his seat when suddenly to hi surprise he saw Fenya before him. She ran up panting, clasped her hand before him with a cry, and plumped down at his feet."},
{"text":"\"Dmitri Fyodorovitch, dear good Dmitri Fyodorovitch, don't harm m mistress. And it was I told you all about it. ... And don't murde him, he came first, he's hers! He'll marry Agrafena Alexandrovna now That's why he's come back from Siberia. Dmitri Fyodorovitch, dear don't take a fellow creature's life!\""},
{"text":"\"Tut--tut--tut! That's it, is it? So you're off there to mak trouble!\" muttered Pyotr Ilyitch. \"Now, it's all clear, as clear a daylight. Dmitri Fyodorovitch, give me your pistols at once if you mea to behave like a man,\" he shouted aloud to Mitya. \"Do you hear Dmitri?\""},
{"text":"\"The pistols? Wait a bit, brother, I'll throw them into the pool on th road,\" answered Mitya. \"Fenya, get up, don't kneel to me. Mitya won' hurt anyone, the silly fool won't hurt anyone again. But I say, Fenya,\"he shouted, after having taken his seat. \"I hurt you just now, s forgive me and have pity on me, forgive a scoundrel. ... But i doesn't matter if you don't. It's all the same now. Now then, Andrey look alive, fly along full speed!\""},
{"text":"Andrey whipped up the horses, and the bells began ringing."},
{"text":"\"Goodbye, Pyotr Ilyitch! My last tear is for you! ...\""},
{"text":"\"He's not drunk, but he keeps babbling like a lunatic,\" Pyotr Ilyitc thought as he watched him go. He had half a mind to stay and see th cart packed with the remaining wines and provisions, knowing that the would deceive and defraud Mitya. But, suddenly feeling vexed wit himself, he turned away with a curse and went to the tavern to pla billiards."},
{"text":"\"He's a fool, though he's a good fellow,\" he muttered as he went. \"I'v heard of that officer, Grushenka's former flame. Well, if he has turne up. ... Ech, those pistols! Damn it all! I'm not his nurse! Let the do what they like! Besides, it'll all come to nothing. They're a set o brawlers, that's all. They'll drink and fight, fight and make friend again. They are not men who do anything real. What does he mean by `I' stepping aside, I'm punishing myself?' It'll come to nothing! He' shouted such phrases a thousand times, drunk, in the taverns. But no he's not drunk. `Drunk in spirit'--they're fond of fine phrases, th villains. Am I his nurse? He must have been fighting, his face was al over blood. With whom? I shall find out at the Metropolis. And hi handkerchief was soaked in blood. ... It's still lying on my floor. ... Hang it!\""},
{"text":"He reached the tavern in a bad humor and at once made up a game. Th game cheered him. He played a second game, and suddenly began tellin one of his partners that Dmitri Karamazov had come in for some cas again--something like three thousand roubles, and had gone to Mokro again to spend it with Grushenka. ... This news roused singula interest in his listeners. They all spoke of it, not laughing, but wit a strange gravity. They left off playing."},
{"text":"\"Three thousand? But where can he have got three thousand?\""},
{"text":"Questions were asked. The story of Madame Hohlakov's present wa received with skepticism."},
{"text":"\"Hasn't he robbed his old father?--that's the question.\""},
{"text":"\"Three thousand! There's something odd about it.\""},
{"text":"\"He boasted aloud that he would kill his father; we all heard him here. And it was three thousand he talked about ...\""},
{"text":"Pyotr Ilyitch listened. All at once he became short and dry in hi answers. He said not a word about the blood on Mitya's face and hands though he had meant to speak of it at first."},
{"text":"They began a third game, and by degrees the talk about Mitya died away But by the end of the third game, Pyotr Ilyitch felt no more desire fo billiards; he laid down the cue, and without having supper as he ha intended, he walked out of the tavern. When he reached the marketplac he stood still in perplexity, wondering at himself. He realized tha what he wanted was to go to Fyodor Pavlovitch's and find out i anything had happened there. \"On account of some stupid nonsense--a it's sure to turn out--am I going to wake up the household and make  scandal? Fooh! damn it, is it my business to look after them?\""},
{"text":"In a very bad humor he went straight home, and suddenly remembere Fenya. \"Damn it all! I ought to have questioned her just now,\" h thought with vexation, \"I should have heard everything.\" And the desir to speak to her, and so find out, became so pressing and importunat that when he was halfway home he turned abruptly and went towards th house where Grushenka lodged. Going up to the gate he knocked. Th sound of the knock in the silence of the night sobered him and made hi feel annoyed. And no one answered him; everyone in the house wa asleep."},
{"text":"\"And I shall be making a fuss!\" he thought, with a feeling of positiv discomfort. But instead of going away altogether, he fell to knockin again with all his might, filling the street with clamor."},
{"text":"\"Not coming? Well, I will knock them up, I will!\" he muttered at eac knock, fuming at himself, but at the same time he redoubled his knock on the gate."},
{"text":" VI"},
{"text":"\"I Am Coming, Too!\""},
{"text":"But Dmitri Fyodorovitch was speeding along the road. It was a littl more than twenty versts to Mokroe, but Andrey's three horses gallope at such a pace that the distance might be covered in an hour and  quarter. The swift motion revived Mitya. The air was fresh and cool there were big stars shining in the sky. It was the very night, an perhaps the very hour, in which Alyosha fell on the earth, an rapturously swore to love it forever and ever."},
{"text":"All was confusion, confusion, in Mitya's soul, but although many thing were goading his heart, at that moment his whole being was yearning fo her, his queen, to whom he was flying to look on her for the last time One thing I can say for certain; his heart did not waver for on instant. I shall perhaps not be believed when I say that this jealou lover felt not the slightest jealousy of this new rival, who seemed t have sprung out of the earth. If any other had appeared on the scene he would have been jealous at once, and would perhaps have stained hi fierce hands with blood again. But as he flew through the night, h felt no envy, no hostility even, for the man who had been her firs lover. ... It is true he had not yet seen him."},
{"text":"\"Here there was no room for dispute: it was her right and his; this wa her first love which, after five years, she had not forgotten; so sh had loved him only for those five years, and I, how do I come in? Wha right have I? Step aside, Mitya, and make way! What am I now? No everything is over apart from the officer--even if he had no appeared, everything would be over ...\""},
{"text":"These words would roughly have expressed his feelings, if he had bee capable of reasoning. But he could not reason at that moment. Hi present plan of action had arisen without reasoning. At Fenya's firs words, it had sprung from feeling, and been adopted in a flash, wit all its consequences. And yet, in spite of his resolution, there wa confusion in his soul, an agonizing confusion: his resolution did no give him peace. There was so much behind that tortured him. And i seemed strange to him, at moments, to think that he had written his ow sentence of death with pen and paper: \"I punish myself,\" and the pape was lying there in his pocket, ready; the pistol was loaded; he ha already resolved how, next morning, he would meet the first warm ray o \"golden-haired Phoebus.\""},
{"text":"And yet he could not be quit of the past, of all that he had lef behind and that tortured him. He felt that miserably, and the though of it sank into his heart with despair. There was one moment when h felt an impulse to stop Andrey, to jump out of the cart, to pull ou his loaded pistol, and to make an end of everything without waiting fo the dawn. But that moment flew by like a spark. The horses galloped on \"devouring space,\" and as he drew near his goal, again the thought o her, of her alone, took more and more complete possession of his soul chasing away the fearful images that had been haunting it. Oh, how h longed to look upon her, if only for a moment, if only from a distance!"},
{"text":"\"She's now with him,\" he thought, \"now I shall see what she looks lik with him, her first love, and that's all I want.\" Never had this woman who was such a fateful influence in his life, aroused such love in hi breast, such new and unknown feeling, surprising even to himself,  feeling tender to devoutness, to self-effacement before her! \"I wil efface myself!\" he said, in a rush of almost hysterical ecstasy."},
{"text":"They had been galloping nearly an hour. Mitya was silent, and thoug Andrey was, as a rule, a talkative peasant, he did not utter a word either. He seemed afraid to talk, he only whipped up smartly his thre lean, but mettlesome, bay horses. Suddenly Mitya cried out in horribl anxiety:"},
{"text":"\"Andrey! What if they're asleep?\""},
{"text":"This thought fell upon him like a blow. It had not occurred to hi before."},
{"text":"\"It may well be that they're gone to bed, by now, Dmitri Fyodorovitch.\""},
{"text":"Mitya frowned as though in pain. Yes, indeed ... he was rushin there ... with such feelings ... while they were asleep ... sh was asleep, perhaps, there too. ... An angry feeling surged up in hi heart."},
{"text":"\"Drive on, Andrey! Whip them up! Look alive!\" he cried, beside himself."},
{"text":"\"But maybe they're not in bed!\" Andrey went on after a pause. \"Timofe said they were a lot of them there--\""},
{"text":"\"At the station?\""},
{"text":"\"Not at the posting-station, but at Plastunov's, at the inn, where the let out horses, too.\""},
{"text":"\"I know. So you say there are a lot of them? How's that? Who are they?\"cried Mitya, greatly dismayed at this unexpected news."},
{"text":"\"Well, Timofey was saying they're all gentlefolk. Two from ou town--who they are I can't say--and there are two others, strangers maybe more besides. I didn't ask particularly. They've set to playin cards, so Timofey said.\""},
{"text":"\"Cards?\""},
{"text":"\"So, maybe they're not in bed if they're at cards. It's most likely no more than eleven.\""},
{"text":"\"Quicker, Andrey! Quicker!\" Mitya cried again, nervously."},
{"text":"\"May I ask you something, sir?\" said Andrey, after a pause. \"Only I' afraid of angering you, sir.\""},
{"text":"\"What is it?\""},
{"text":"\"Why, Fenya threw herself at your feet just now, and begged you not t harm her mistress, and someone else, too ... so you see, sir--It's  am taking you there ... forgive me, sir, it's my conscience .. maybe it's stupid of me to speak of it--\""},
{"text":"Mitya suddenly seized him by the shoulders from behind."},
{"text":"\"Are you a driver?\" he asked frantically."},
{"text":"\"Yes, sir.\""},
{"text":"\"Then you know that one has to make way. What would you say to a drive who wouldn't make way for anyone, but would just drive on and crus people? No, a driver mustn't run over people. One can't run over a man One can't spoil people's lives. And if you have spoilt a life--punis yourself. ... If only you've spoilt, if only you've ruined anyone' life--punish yourself and go away.\""},
{"text":"These phrases burst from Mitya almost hysterically. Though Andrey wa surprised at him, he kept up the conversation."},
{"text":"\"That's right, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, you're quite right, one mustn' crush or torment a man, or any kind of creature, for every creature i created by God. Take a horse, for instance, for some folks, even amon us drivers, drive anyhow. Nothing will restrain them, they just forc it along.\""},
{"text":"\"To hell?\" Mitya interrupted, and went off into his abrupt, shor laugh. \"Andrey, simple soul,\" he seized him by the shoulders again \"tell me, will Dmitri Fyodorovitch Karamazov go to hell, or not, wha do you think?\""},
{"text":"\"I don't know, darling, it depends on you, for you are ... you see sir, when the Son of God was nailed on the Cross and died, He wen straight down to hell from the Cross, and set free all sinners tha were in agony. And the devil groaned, because he thought that he woul get no more sinners in hell. And God said to him, then, `Don't groan for you shall have all the mighty of the earth, the rulers, the chie judges, and the rich men, and shall be filled up as you have been i all the ages till I come again.' Those were His very words ...\""},
{"text":"\"A peasant legend! Capital! Whip up the left, Andrey!\""},
{"text":"\"So you see, sir, who it is hell's for,\" said Andrey, whipping up th left horse, \"but you're like a little child ... that's how we look o you ... and though you're hasty-tempered, sir, yet God will forgiv you for your kind heart.\""},
{"text":"\"And you, do you forgive me, Andrey?\""},
{"text":"\"What should I forgive you for, sir? You've never done me any harm.\""},
{"text":"\"No, for everyone, for everyone, you here alone, on the road, will yo forgive me for everyone? Speak, simple peasant heart!\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, sir! I feel afraid of driving you, your talk is so strange.\""},
{"text":"But Mitya did not hear. He was frantically praying and muttering t himself."},
{"text":"\"Lord, receive me, with all my lawlessness, and do not condemn me. Le me pass by Thy judgment ... do not condemn me, for I have condemne myself, do not condemn me, for I love Thee, O Lord. I am a wretch, bu I love Thee. If Thou sendest me to hell, I shall love Thee there, an from there I shall cry out that I love Thee forever and ever. ... Bu let me love to the end. ... Here and now for just five hours .. till the first light of Thy day ... for I love the queen of my soul ... I love her and I cannot help loving her. Thou seest my whol heart. ... I shall gallop up, I shall fall before her and say, `Yo are right to pass on and leave me. Farewell and forget your victim ... never fret yourself about me!' \""},
{"text":"\"Mokroe!\" cried Andrey, pointing ahead with his whip."},
{"text":"Through the pale darkness of the night loomed a solid black mass o buildings, flung down, as it were, in the vast plain. The village o Mokroe numbered two thousand inhabitants, but at that hour all wer asleep, and only here and there a few lights still twinkled."},
{"text":"\"Drive on, Andrey, I come!\" Mitya exclaimed, feverishly."},
{"text":"\"They're not asleep,\" said Andrey again, pointing with his whip to th Plastunovs' inn, which was at the entrance to the village. The si windows, looking on the street, were all brightly lighted up."},
{"text":"\"They're not asleep,\" Mitya repeated joyously. \"Quicker, Andrey Gallop! Drive up with a dash! Set the bells ringing! Let all know tha I have come. I'm coming! I'm coming, too!\""},
{"text":"Andrey lashed his exhausted team into a gallop, drove with a dash an pulled up his steaming, panting horses at the high flight of steps."},
{"text":"Mitya jumped out of the cart just as the innkeeper, on his way to bed peeped out from the steps curious to see who had arrived."},
{"text":"\"Trifon Borissovitch, is that you?\""},
{"text":"The innkeeper bent down, looked intently, ran down the steps, an rushed up to the guest with obsequious delight."},
{"text":"\"Dmitri Fyodorovitch, your honor! Do I see you again?\""},
{"text":"Trifon Borissovitch was a thickset, healthy peasant, of middle height with a rather fat face. His expression was severe and uncompromising especially with the peasants of Mokroe, but he had the power o assuming the most obsequious countenance, when he had an inkling tha it was to his interest. He dressed in Russian style, with a shir buttoning down on one side, and a full-skirted coat. He had saved  good sum of money, but was forever dreaming of improving his position More than half the peasants were in his clutches, everyone in th neighborhood was in debt to him. From the neighboring landowners h bought and rented lands which were worked by the peasants, in paymen of debts which they could never shake off. He was a widower, with fou grownup daughters. One of them was already a widow and lived in the in with her two children, his grandchildren, and worked for him like  charwoman. Another of his daughters was married to a petty official and in one of the rooms of the inn, on the wall could be seen, amon the family photographs, a miniature photograph of this official i uniform and official epaulettes. The two younger daughters used to wea fashionable blue or green dresses, fitting tight at the back, and wit trains a yard long, on Church holidays or when they went to pay visits But next morning they would get up at dawn, as usual, sweep out th rooms with a birch-broom, empty the slops, and clean up after lodgers."},
{"text":"In spite of the thousands of roubles he had saved, Trifon Borissovitc was very fond of emptying the pockets of a drunken guest, an remembering that not a month ago he had, in twenty-four hours, made tw if not three hundred roubles out of Dmitri, when he had come on hi escapade with Grushenka, he met him now with eager welcome, scentin his prey the moment Mitya drove up to the steps."},
{"text":"\"Dmitri Fyodorovitch, dear sir, we see you once more!\""},
{"text":"\"Stay, Trifon Borissovitch,\" began Mitya, \"first and foremost, where i she?\""},
{"text":"\"Agrafena Alexandrovna?\" The innkeeper understood at once, lookin sharply into Mitya's face. \"She's here, too ...\""},
{"text":"\"With whom? With whom?\""},
{"text":"\"Some strangers. One is an official gentleman, a Pole, to judge fro his speech. He sent the horses for her from here; and there's anothe with him, a friend of his, or a fellow traveler, there's no telling They're dressed like civilians.\""},
{"text":"\"Well, are they feasting? Have they money?\""},
{"text":"\"Poor sort of a feast! Nothing to boast of, Dmitri Fyodorovitch.\""},
{"text":"\"Nothing to boast of? And who are the others?\""},
{"text":"\"They're two gentlemen from the town. ... They've come back fro Tcherny, and are putting up here. One's quite a young gentleman,  relative of Mr. Misov, he must be, but I've forgotten his name .. and I expect you know the other, too, a gentleman called Maximov. He' been on a pilgrimage, so he says, to the monastery in the town. He' traveling with this young relation of Mr. Misov.\""},
{"text":"\"Is that all?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes.\""},
{"text":"\"Stay, listen, Trifon Borissovitch. Tell me the chief thing: What o her? How is she?\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, she's only just come. She's sitting with them.\""},
{"text":"\"Is she cheerful? Is she laughing?\""},
{"text":"\"No, I think she's not laughing much. She's sitting quite dull. She' combing the young gentleman's hair.\""},
{"text":"\"The Pole--the officer?\""},
{"text":"\"He's not young, and he's not an officer, either. Not him, sir. It' the young gentleman that's Mr. Misov's relation ... I've forgotte his name.\""},
{"text":"\"Kalganov.\""},
{"text":"\"That's it, Kalganov!\""},
{"text":"\"All right. I'll see for myself. Are they playing cards?\""},
{"text":"\"They have been playing, but they've left off. They've been drinkin tea, the official gentleman asked for liqueurs.\""},
{"text":"\"Stay, Trifon Borissovitch, stay, my good soul, I'll see for myself Now answer one more question: are the gypsies here?\""},
{"text":"\"You can't have the gypsies now, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. The authoritie have sent them away. But we've Jews that play the cymbals and th fiddle in the village, so one might send for them. They'd come.\""},
{"text":"\"Send for them. Certainly send for them!\" cried Mitya. \"And you can ge the girls together as you did then, Marya especially, Stepanida, too and Arina. Two hundred roubles for a chorus!\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, for a sum like that I can get all the village together, though b now they're asleep. Are the peasants here worth such kindness, Dmitr Fyodorovitch, or the girls either? To spend a sum like that on suc coarseness and rudeness! What's the good of giving a peasant a cigar t smoke, the stinking ruffian! And the girls are all lousy. Besides, I'l get my daughters up for nothing, let alone a sum like that. They'v only just gone to bed, I'll give them a kick and set them singing fo you. You gave the peasants champagne to drink the other day, e--ech!\""},
{"text":"For all his pretended compassion for Mitya, Trifon Borissovitch ha hidden half a dozen bottles of champagne on that last occasion, and ha picked up a hundred-rouble note under the table, and it had remained i his clutches."},
{"text":"\"Trifon Borissovitch, I sent more than one thousand flying last time  was here. Do you remember?\""},
{"text":"\"You did send it flying. I may well remember. You must have left thre thousand behind you.\""},
{"text":"\"Well, I've come to do the same again, do you see?\""},
{"text":"And he pulled out his roll of notes, and held them up before th innkeeper's nose."},
{"text":"\"Now, listen and remember. In an hour's time the wine will arrive savories, pies, and sweets--bring them all up at once. That box Andre has got is to be brought up at once, too. Open it, and hand champagn immediately. And the girls, we must have the girls, Marya especially.\""},
{"text":"He turned to the cart and pulled out the box of pistols."},
{"text":"\"Here, Andrey, let's settle. Here's fifteen roubles for the drive, an fifty for vodka ... for your readiness, for your love. ... Remembe Karamazov!\""},
{"text":"\"I'm afraid, sir,\" faltered Andrey. \"Give me five roubles extra, bu more I won't take. Trifon Borissovitch, bear witness. Forgive m foolish words ...\""},
{"text":"\"What are you afraid of?\" asked Mitya, scanning him. \"Well, go to th devil, if that's it!\" he cried, flinging him five roubles. \"Now, Trifo Borissovitch, take me up quietly and let me first get a look at them so that they don't see me. Where are they? In the blue room?\""},
{"text":"Trifon Borissovitch looked apprehensively at Mitya, but at onc obediently did his bidding. Leading him into the passage, he wen himself into the first large room, adjoining that in which the visitor were sitting, and took the light away. Then he stealthily led Mitya in and put him in a corner in the dark, whence he could freely watch th company without being seen. But Mitya did not look long, and, indeed he could not see them, he saw her, his heart throbbed violently, an all was dark before his eyes."},
{"text":"She was sitting sideways to the table in a low chair, and beside her on the sofa, was the pretty youth, Kalganov. She was holding his han and seemed to be laughing, while he, seeming vexed and not looking a her, was saying something in a loud voice to Maximov, who sat the othe side of the table, facing Grushenka. Maximov was laughing violently a something. On the sofa sat he, and on a chair by the sofa there wa another stranger. The one on the sofa was lolling backwards, smoking  pipe, and Mitya had an impression of a stoutish, broad-faced, shor little man, who was apparently angry about something. His friend, th other stranger, struck Mitya as extraordinarily tall, but he could mak out nothing more. He caught his breath. He could not bear it for  minute, he put the pistol-case on a chest, and with a throbbing hear he walked, feeling cold all over, straight into the blue room to fac the company."},
{"text":"\"Aie!\" shrieked Grushenka, the first to notice him."},
{"text":" VII"},
{"text":"The First and Rightful Lover"},
{"text":"With his long, rapid strides, Mitya walked straight up to the table."},
{"text":"\"Gentlemen,\" he said in a loud voice, almost shouting, yet stammerin at every word, \"I ... I'm all right! Don't be afraid!\" he exclaimed \"I--there's nothing the matter,\" he turned suddenly to Grushenka, wh had shrunk back in her chair towards Kalganov, and clasped his han tightly. \"I ... I'm coming, too. I'm here till morning. Gentlemen may I stay with you till morning? Only till morning, for the last time in this same room?\""},
{"text":"So he finished, turning to the fat little man, with the pipe, sittin on the sofa. The latter removed his pipe from his lips with dignity an observed severely:"},
{"text":"\"Panie, we're here in private. There are other rooms.\""},
{"text":"\"Why, it's you, Dmitri Fyodorovitch! What do you mean?\" answere Kalganov suddenly. \"Sit down with us. How are you?\""},
{"text":"\"Delighted to see you, dear ... and precious fellow, I always though a lot of you.\" Mitya responded, joyfully and eagerly, at once holdin out his hand across the table."},
{"text":"\"Aie! How tight you squeeze! You've quite broken my fingers,\" laughe Kalganov."},
{"text":"\"He always squeezes like that, always,\" Grushenka put in gayly, with  timid smile, seeming suddenly convinced from Mitya's face that he wa not going to make a scene. She was watching him with intense curiosit and still some uneasiness. She was impressed by something about him and indeed the last thing she expected of him was that he would come i and speak like this at such a moment."},
{"text":"\"Good evening,\" Maximov ventured blandly on the left. Mitya rushed u to him, too."},
{"text":"\"Good evening. You're here, too! How glad I am to find you here, too Gentlemen, gentlemen, I--\" (He addressed the Polish gentleman with th pipe again, evidently taking him for the most important perso present.) \"I flew here. ... I wanted to spend my last day, my las hour in this room, in this very room ... where I, too, adored .. my queen. ... Forgive me, panie,\" he cried wildly, \"I flew here an vowed--Oh, don't be afraid, it's my last night! Let's drink to ou good understanding. They'll bring the wine at once. ... I brough this with me.\" (Something made him pull out his bundle of notes. \"Allow me, panie! I want to have music, singing, a revel, as we ha before. But the worm, the unnecessary worm, will crawl away, an there'll be no more of him. I will commemorate my day of joy on my las night.\""},
{"text":"He was almost choking. There was so much, so much he wanted to say, bu strange exclamations were all that came from his lips. The Pole gaze fixedly at him, at the bundle of notes in his hand; looked a Grushenka, and was in evident perplexity."},
{"text":"\"If my suverin lady is permitting--\" he was beginning."},
{"text":"\"What does `suverin' mean? `Sovereign,' I suppose?\" interrupte Grushenka. \"I can't help laughing at you, the way you talk. Sit down Mitya, what are you talking about? Don't frighten us, please. You won' frighten us, will you? If you won't, I am glad to see you ...\""},
{"text":"\"Me, me frighten you?\" cried Mitya, flinging up his hands. \"Oh, pass m by, go your way, I won't hinder you! ...\""},
{"text":"And suddenly he surprised them all, and no doubt himself as well, b flinging himself on a chair, and bursting into tears, turning his hea away to the opposite wall, while his arms clasped the back of the chai tight, as though embracing it."},
{"text":"\"Come, come, what a fellow you are!\" cried Grushenka reproachfully \"That's just how he comes to see me--he begins talking, and I can' make out what he means. He cried like that once before, and now he' crying again! It's shameful! Why are you crying? As though you ha anything to cry for!\" she added enigmatically, emphasizing each wor with some irritability."},
{"text":"\"I ... I'm not crying. ... Well, good evening!\" He instantly turne round in his chair, and suddenly laughed, not his abrupt wooden laugh but a long, quivering, inaudible nervous laugh."},
{"text":"\"Well, there you are again. ... Come, cheer up, cheer up!\" Grushenk said to him persuasively. \"I'm very glad you've come, very glad, Mitya do you hear, I'm very glad! I want him to stay here with us,\" she sai peremptorily, addressing the whole company, though her words wer obviously meant for the man sitting on the sofa. \"I wish it, I wish it And if he goes away I shall go, too!\" she added with flashing eyes."},
{"text":"\"What my queen commands is law!\" pronounced the Pole, gallantly kissin Grushenka's hand. \"I beg you, panie, to join our company,\" he adde politely, addressing Mitya."},
{"text":"Mitya was jumping up with the obvious intention of delivering anothe tirade, but the words did not come."},
{"text":"\"Let's drink, panie,\" he blurted out instead of making a speech Everyone laughed."},
{"text":"\"Good heavens! I thought he was going to begin again!\" Grushenk exclaimed nervously. \"Do you hear, Mitya,\" she went on insistently \"don't prance about, but it's nice you've brought the champagne. I wan some myself, and I can't bear liqueurs. And best of all, you've com yourself. We were fearfully dull here. ... You've come for a spre again, I suppose? But put your money in your pocket. Where did you ge such a lot?\""},
{"text":"Mitya had been, all this time, holding in his hand the crumpled bundl of notes on which the eyes of all, especially of the Poles, were fixed In confusion he thrust them hurriedly into his pocket. He flushed. A that moment the innkeeper brought in an uncorked bottle of champagne and glasses on a tray. Mitya snatched up the bottle, but he was s bewildered that he did not know what to do with it. Kalganov took i from him and poured out the champagne."},
{"text":"\"Another! Another bottle!\" Mitya cried to the innkeeper, and forgetting to clink glasses with the Pole whom he had so solemnl invited to drink to their good understanding, he drank off his glas without waiting for anyone else. His whole countenance suddenl changed. The solemn and tragic expression with which he had entere vanished completely, and a look of something childlike came into hi face. He seemed to have become suddenly gentle and subdued. He looke shyly and happily at everyone, with a continual nervous little laugh and the blissful expression of a dog who has done wrong, been punished and forgiven. He seemed to have forgotten everything, and was lookin round at everyone with a childlike smile of delight. He looked a Grushenka, laughing continually, and bringing his chair close up t her. By degrees he had gained some idea of the two Poles, though he ha formed no definite conception of them yet."},
{"text":"The Pole on the sofa struck him by his dignified demeanor and hi Polish accent; and, above all, by his pipe. \"Well, what of it? It's  good thing he's smoking a pipe,\" he reflected. The Pole's puffy middle-aged face, with its tiny nose and two very thin, pointed, dye and impudent-looking mustaches, had not so far roused the faintes doubts in Mitya. He was not even particularly struck by the Pole' absurd wig made in Siberia, with love-locks foolishly combed forwar over the temples. \"I suppose it's all right since he wears a wig,\" h went on, musing blissfully. The other, younger Pole, who was starin insolently and defiantly at the company and listening to th conversation with silent contempt, still only impressed Mitya by hi great height, which was in striking contrast to the Pole on the sofa \"If he stood up he'd be six foot three.\" The thought flitted throug Mitya's mind. It occurred to him, too, that this Pole must be th friend of the other, as it were, a \"bodyguard,\" and no doubt the bi Pole was at the disposal of the little Pole with the pipe. But this al seemed to Mitya perfectly right and not to be questioned. In his moo of doglike submissiveness all feeling of rivalry had died away."},
{"text":"Grushenka's mood and the enigmatic tone of some of her words h completely failed to grasp. All he understood, with thrilling heart was that she was kind to him, that she had forgiven him, and made hi sit by her. He was beside himself with delight, watching her sip he glass of champagne. The silence of the company seemed somehow to strik him, however, and he looked round at everyone with expectant eyes."},
{"text":"\"Why are we sitting here though, gentlemen? Why don't you begin doin something?\" his smiling eyes seemed to ask."},
{"text":"\"He keeps talking nonsense, and we were all laughing,\" Kalganov bega suddenly, as though divining his thought, and pointing to Maximov."},
{"text":"Mitya immediately stared at Kalganov and then at Maximov."},
{"text":"\"He's talking nonsense?\" he laughed, his short, wooden laugh, seemin suddenly delighted at something--\"ha ha!\""},
{"text":"\"Yes. Would you believe it, he will have it that all our cavalr officers in the twenties married Polish women. That's awful rot, isn' it?\""},
{"text":"\"Polish women?\" repeated Mitya, perfectly ecstatic."},
{"text":"Kalganov was well aware of Mitya's attitude to Grushenka, and h guessed about the Pole, too, but that did not so much interest him perhaps did not interest him at all; what he was interested in wa Maximov. He had come here with Maximov by chance, and he met the Pole here at the inn for the first time in his life. Grushenka he kne before, and had once been with someone to see her; but she had no taken to him. But here she looked at him very affectionately: befor Mitya's arrival, she had been making much of him, but he seemed someho to be unmoved by it. He was a boy, not over twenty, dressed like  dandy, with a very charming fair-skinned face, and splendid thick, fai hair. From his fair face looked out beautiful pale blue eyes, with a intelligent and sometimes even deep expression, beyond his age indeed although the young man sometimes looked and talked quite like a child and was not at all ashamed of it, even when he was aware of it himself As a rule he was very willful, even capricious, though always friendly Sometimes there was something fixed and obstinate in his expression. H would look at you and listen, seeming all the while to be persistentl dreaming over something else. Often he was listless and lazy, at othe times he would grow excited, sometimes, apparently, over the mos trivial matters."},
{"text":"\"Only imagine, I've been taking him about with me for the last fou days,\" he went on, indolently drawling his words, quite naturall though, without the slightest affectation. \"Ever since your brother, d you remember, shoved him off the carriage and sent him flying. Tha made me take an interest in him at the time, and I took him into th country, but he keeps talking such rot I'm ashamed to be with him. I' taking him back.\""},
{"text":"\"The gentleman has not seen Polish ladies, and says what i impossible,\" the Pole with the pipe observed to Maximov."},
{"text":"He spoke Russian fairly well, much better, anyway, than he pretended If he used Russian words, he always distorted them into a Polish form."},
{"text":"\"But I was married to a Polish lady myself,\" tittered Maximov."},
{"text":"\"But did you serve in the cavalry? You were talking about the cavalry Were you a cavalry officer?\" put in Kalganov at once."},
{"text":"\"Was he a cavalry officer indeed? Ha ha!\" cried Mitya, listenin eagerly, and turning his inquiring eyes to each as he spoke, as thoug there were no knowing what he might hear from each."},
{"text":"\"No, you see,\" Maximov turned to him. \"What I mean is that those prett Polish ladies ... when they danced the mazurka with our Uhlans .. when one of them dances a mazurka with a Uhlan she jumps on his kne like a kitten ... a little white one ... and the pan-father an pan- mother look on and allow it. ... They allow it ... and nex day the Uhlan comes and offers her his hand. ... That's how it is ... offers her his hand, he he!\" Maximov ended, tittering."},
{"text":"\"The pan is a l/ajdak!\" the tall Pole on the chair growled suddenly an crossed one leg over the other. Mitya's eye was caught by his hug greased boot, with its thick, dirty sole. The dress of both the Pole looked rather greasy."},
{"text":"\"Well, now it's l/ajdak! What's he scolding about?\" said Grushenka suddenly vexed."},
{"text":"\"Pani Agrippina, what the gentleman saw in Poland were servant girls and not ladies of good birth,\" the Pole with the pipe observed t Grushenka."},
{"text":"\"You can reckon on that,\" the tall Pole snapped contemptuously."},
{"text":"\"What next! Let him talk! People talk, why hinder them? It makes i cheerful,\" Grushenka said crossly."},
{"text":"\"I'm not hindering them, pani,\" said the Pole in the wig, with a lon look at Grushenka, and relapsing into dignified silence he sucked hi pipe again."},
{"text":"\"No, no. The Polish gentleman spoke the truth.\" Kalganov got excite again, as though it were a question of vast import. \"He's never been i Poland, so how can he talk about it? I suppose you weren't married i Poland, were you?\""},
{"text":"\"No, in the Province of Smolensk. Only, a Uhlan had brought her t Russia before that, my future wife, with her mamma and her aunt, an another female relation with a grownup son. He brought her straigh from Poland and gave her up to me. He was a lieutenant in our regiment a very nice young man. At first he meant to marry her himself. But h didn't marry her, because she turned out to be lame.\""},
{"text":"\"So you married a lame woman?\" cried Kalganov."},
{"text":"\"Yes. They both deceived me a little bit at the time, and concealed it I thought she was hopping; she kept hopping. ... I thought it was fo fun.\""},
{"text":"\"So pleased she was going to marry you!\" yelled Kalganov, in a ringing childish voice."},
{"text":"\"Yes, so pleased. But it turned out to be quite a different cause Afterwards, when we were married, after the wedding, that very evening she confessed, and very touchingly asked forgiveness. `I once jumpe over a puddle when I was a child,' she said, `and injured my leg.' H he!\""},
{"text":"Kalganov went off into the most childish laughter, almost falling o the sofa. Grushenka, too, laughed. Mitya was at the pinnacle o happiness."},
{"text":"\"Do you know, that's the truth, he's not lying now,\" exclaime Kalganov, turning to Mitya; \"and do you know, he's been married twice it's his first wife he's talking about. But his second wife, do yo know, ran away, and is alive now.\""},
{"text":"\"Is it possible?\" said Mitya, turning quickly to Maximov with a expression of the utmost astonishment."},
{"text":"\"Yes. She did run away. I've had that unpleasant experience,\" Maximo modestly assented, \"with a monsieur. And what was worse, she'd had al my little property transferred to her beforehand. `You're an educate man,' she said to me. `You can always get your living.' She settled m business with that. A venerable bishop once said to me: `One of you wives was lame, but the other was too light-footed.' He he!\""},
{"text":"\"Listen, listen!\" cried Kalganov, bubbling over, \"if he's tellin lies--and he often is--he's only doing it to amuse us all. There's n harm in that, is there? You know, I sometimes like him. He's awfull low, but it's natural to him, eh? Don't you think so? Some people ar low from self-interest, but he's simply so, from nature. Only fancy, h claims (he was arguing about it all the way yesterday) that Gogol wrot Dead Souls about him. Do you remember, there's a landowner calle Maximov in it, whom Nozdryov thrashed. He was charged, do you remember `for inflicting bodily injury with rods on the landowner Maximov in  drunken condition.' Would you believe it, he claims that he was tha Maximov and that he was beaten! Now can it be so? Tchitchikov made hi journey, at the very latest, at the beginning of the twenties, so tha the dates don't fit. He couldn't have been thrashed then, he couldn't could he?\""},
{"text":"It was difficult to imagine what Kalganov was excited about, but hi excitement was genuine. Mitya followed his lead without protest."},
{"text":"\"Well, but if they did thrash him!\" he cried, laughing."},
{"text":"\"It's not that they thrashed me exactly, but what I mean is--\" put i Maximov."},
{"text":"\"What do you mean? Either they thrashed you or they didn't.\""},
{"text":"\"What o'clock is it, panie?\" the Pole, with the pipe, asked his tal friend, with a bored expression. The other shrugged his shoulders i reply. Neither of them had a watch."},
{"text":"\"Why not talk? Let other people talk. Mustn't other people talk becaus you're bored?\" Grushenka flew at him with evident intention of findin fault. Something seemed for the first time to flash upon Mitya's mind This time the Pole answered with unmistakable irritability."},
{"text":"\"Pani, I didn't oppose it. I didn't say anything.\""},
{"text":"\"All right then. Come, tell us your story,\" Grushenka cried to Maximov \"Why are you all silent?\""},
{"text":"\"There's nothing to tell, it's all so foolish,\" answered Maximov a once, with evident satisfaction, mincing a little. \"Besides, all that' by way of allegory in Gogol, for he's made all the names have  meaning. Nozdryov was really called Nosov, and Kuvshinikov had quite  different name, he was called Shkvornev. Fenardi really was calle Fenardi, only he wasn't an Italian but a Russian, and Mamsel Fenard was a pretty girl with her pretty little legs in tights, and she had  little short skirt with spangles, and she kept turning round and round only not for four hours but for four minutes only, and she bewitche everyone ...\""},
{"text":"\"But what were you beaten for?\" cried Kalganov."},
{"text":"\"For Piron!\" answered Maximov."},
{"text":"\"What Piron?\" cried Mitya."},
{"text":"\"The famous French writer, Piron. We were all drinking then, a bi party of us, in a tavern at that very fair. They'd invited me, an first of all I began quoting epigrams. `Is that you, Boileau? What  funny getup!' and Boileau answers that he's going to a masquerade, tha is to the baths, he he! And they took it to themselves, so I made hast to repeat another, very sarcastic, well known to all educated people:"},
{"text":"  Yes, Sappho and Phaon are we   But one grief is weighing on me   You don't know your way to the sea!"},
{"text":"They were still more offended and began abusing me in the most unseeml way for it. And as ill-luck would have it, to set things right, I bega telling a very cultivated anecdote about Piron, how he was not accepte into the French Academy, and to revenge himself wrote his own epitaph:"},
{"text":"  Ci-git Piron qui ne fut rien   Pas mme acadmicien."},
{"text":"They seized me and thrashed me.\""},
{"text":"\"But what for? What for?\""},
{"text":"\"For my education. People can thrash a man for anything,\" Maximo concluded, briefly and sententiously."},
{"text":"\"Eh, that's enough! That's all stupid, I don't want to listen.  thought it would be amusing,\" Grushenka cut them short, suddenly."},
{"text":"Mitya started, and at once left off laughing. The tall Pole rose upo his feet, and with the haughty air of a man, bored and out of hi element, began pacing from corner to corner of the room, his hand behind his back."},
{"text":"\"Ah, he can't sit still,\" said Grushenka, looking at hi contemptuously. Mitya began to feel anxious. He noticed besides, tha the Pole on the sofa was looking at him with an irritable expression."},
{"text":"\"Panie!\" cried Mitya, \"let's drink! and the other pan, too! Let u drink.\""},
{"text":"In a flash he had pulled three glasses towards him, and filled the with champagne."},
{"text":"\"To Poland, panovie, I drink to your Poland!\" cried Mitya."},
{"text":"\"I shall be delighted, panie,\" said the Pole on the sofa, with dignit and affable condescension, and he took his glass."},
{"text":"\"And the other pan, what's his name? Drink, most illustrious, take you glass!\" Mitya urged."},
{"text":"\"Pan Vrublevsky,\" put in the Pole on the sofa."},
{"text":"Pan Vrublevsky came up to the table, swaying as he walked."},
{"text":"\"To Poland, panovie!\" cried Mitya, raising his glass. \"Hurrah!\""},
{"text":"All three drank. Mitya seized the bottle and again poured out thre glasses."},
{"text":"\"Now to Russia, panovie, and let us be brothers!\""},
{"text":"\"Pour out some for us,\" said Grushenka; \"I'll drink to Russia, too!\""},
{"text":"\"So will I,\" said Kalganov."},
{"text":"\"And I would, too ... to Russia, the old grandmother!\" tittere Maximov."},
{"text":"\"All! All!\" cried Mitya. \"Trifon Borissovitch, some more bottles!\""},
{"text":"The other three bottles Mitya had brought with him were put on th table. Mitya filled the glasses."},
{"text":"\"To Russia! Hurrah!\" he shouted again. All drank the toast except th Poles, and Grushenka tossed off her whole glass at once. The Poles di not touch theirs."},
{"text":"\"How's this, panovie?\" cried Mitya, \"won't you drink it?\""},
{"text":"Pan Vrublevsky took the glass, raised it and said with a resonan voice:"},
{"text":"\"To Russia as she was before 1772.\""},
{"text":"\"Come, that's better!\" cried the other Pole, and they both emptie their glasses at once."},
{"text":"\"You're fools, you panovie,\" broke suddenly from Mitya."},
{"text":"\"Panie!\" shouted both the Poles, menacingly, setting on Mitya like  couple of cocks. Pan Vrublevsky was specially furious."},
{"text":"\"Can one help loving one's own country?\" he shouted."},
{"text":"\"Be silent! Don't quarrel! I won't have any quarreling!\" crie Grushenka imperiously, and she stamped her foot on the floor. Her fac glowed, her eyes were shining. The effects of the glass she had jus drunk were apparent. Mitya was terribly alarmed."},
{"text":"\"Panovie, forgive me! It was my fault, I'm sorry. Vrublevsky, pani Vrublevsky, I'm sorry.\""},
{"text":"\"Hold your tongue, you, anyway! Sit down, you stupid!\" Grushenk scolded with angry annoyance."},
{"text":"Everyone sat down, all were silent, looking at one another."},
{"text":"\"Gentlemen, I was the cause of it all,\" Mitya began again, unable t make anything of Grushenka's words. \"Come, why are we sitting here What shall we do ... to amuse ourselves again?\""},
{"text":"\"Ach, it's certainly anything but amusing!\" Kalganov mumbled lazily."},
{"text":"\"Let's play faro again, as we did just now,\" Maximov tittered suddenly."},
{"text":"\"Faro? Splendid!\" cried Mitya. \"If only the panovie--\""},
{"text":"\"It's lite, panovie,\" the Pole on the sofa responded, as it wer unwillingly."},
{"text":"\"That's true,\" assented Pan Vrublevsky."},
{"text":"\"Lite? What do you mean by `lite'?\" asked Grushenka."},
{"text":"\"Late, pani! `a late hour' I mean,\" the Pole on the sofa explained."},
{"text":"\"It's always late with them. They can never do anything!\" Grushenk almost shrieked in her anger. \"They're dull themselves, so they wan others to be dull. Before you came, Mitya, they were just as silent an kept turning up their noses at me.\""},
{"text":"\"My goddess!\" cried the Pole on the sofa, \"I see you're no well-disposed to me, that's why I'm gloomy. I'm ready, panie,\" adde he, addressing Mitya."},
{"text":"\"Begin, panie,\" Mitya assented, pulling his notes out of his pocket and laying two hundred-rouble notes on the table. \"I want to lose a lo to you. Take your cards. Make the bank.\""},
{"text":"\"We'll have cards from the landlord, panie,\" said the little Pole gravely and emphatically."},
{"text":"\"That's much the best way,\" chimed in Pan Vrublevsky."},
{"text":"\"From the landlord? Very good, I understand, let's get them from him Cards!\" Mitya shouted to the landlord."},
{"text":"The landlord brought in a new, unopened pack, and informed Mitya tha the girls were getting ready, and that the Jews with the cymbals woul most likely be here soon; but the cart with the provisions had not ye arrived. Mitya jumped up from the table and ran into the next room t give orders, but only three girls had arrived, and Marya was not ther yet. And he did not know himself what orders to give and why he had ru out. He only told them to take out of the box the presents for th girls, the sweets, the toffee and the fondants. \"And vodka for Andrey vodka for Andrey!\" he cried in haste. \"I was rude to Andrey!\""},
{"text":"Suddenly Maximov, who had followed him out, touched him on th shoulder."},
{"text":"\"Give me five roubles,\" he whispered to Mitya. \"I'll stake something a faro, too, he he!\""},
{"text":"\"Capital! Splendid! Take ten, here!\""},
{"text":"Again he took all the notes out of his pocket and picked out one fo ten roubles. \"And if you lose that, come again, come again.\""},
{"text":"\"Very good,\" Maximov whispered joyfully, and he ran back again. Mitya too, returned, apologizing for having kept them waiting. The Poles ha already sat down, and opened the pack. They looked much more amiable almost cordial. The Pole on the sofa had lighted another pipe and wa preparing to throw. He wore an air of solemnity."},
{"text":"\"To your places, gentlemen,\" cried Pan Vrublevsky."},
{"text":"\"No, I'm not going to play any more,\" observed Kalganov, \"I've los fifty roubles to them just now.\""},
{"text":"\"The pan had no luck, perhaps he'll be lucky this time,\" the Pole o the sofa observed in his direction."},
{"text":"\"How much in the bank? To correspond?\" asked Mitya."},
{"text":"\"That's according, panie, maybe a hundred, maybe two hundred, as muc as you will stake.\""},
{"text":"\"A million!\" laughed Mitya."},
{"text":"\"The Pan Captain has heard of Pan Podvysotsky, perhaps?\""},
{"text":"\"What Podvysotsky?\""},
{"text":"\"In Warsaw there was a bank and anyone comes and stakes against it Podvysotsky comes, sees a thousand gold pieces, stakes against th bank. The banker says, `Panie Podvysotsky, are you laying down th gold, or must we trust to your honor?' `To my honor, panie,' say Podvysotsky. `So much the better.' The banker throws the dice Podvysotsky wins. `Take it, panie,' says the banker, and pulling ou the drawer he gives him a million. `Take it, panie, this is your gain. There was a million in the bank. `I didn't know that,' say Podvysotsky. `Panie Podvysotsky,' said the banker, `you pledged you honor and we pledged ours.' Podvysotsky took the million.\""},
{"text":"\"That's not true,\" said Kalganov."},
{"text":"\"Panie Kalganov, in gentlemanly society one doesn't say such things.\""},
{"text":"\"As if a Polish gambler would give away a million!\" cried Mitya, bu checked himself at once. \"Forgive me, panie, it's my fault again, h would, he would give away a million, for honor, for Polish honor. Yo see how I talk Polish, ha ha! Here, I stake ten roubles, the knav leads.\""},
{"text":"\"And I put a rouble on the queen, the queen of hearts, the prett little panienotchka, he he!\" laughed Maximov, pulling out his queen and, as though trying to conceal it from everyone, he moved right u and crossed himself hurriedly under the table. Mitya won. The roubl won, too."},
{"text":"\"A corner!\" cried Mitya."},
{"text":"\"I'll bet another rouble, a `single' stake,\" Maximov muttere gleefully, hugely delighted at having won a rouble."},
{"text":"\"Lost!\" shouted Mitya. \"A `double' on the seven!\""},
{"text":"The seven too was trumped."},
{"text":"\"Stop!\" cried Kalganov suddenly."},
{"text":"\"Double! Double!\" Mitya doubled his stakes, and each time he double the stake, the card he doubled was trumped by the Poles. The roubl stakes kept winning."},
{"text":"\"On the double!\" shouted Mitya furiously."},
{"text":"\"You've lost two hundred, panie. Will you stake another hundred?\" th Pole on the sofa inquired."},
{"text":"\"What? Lost two hundred already? Then another two hundred! Al doubles!\""},
{"text":"And pulling his money out of his pocket, Mitya was about to fling tw hundred roubles on the queen, but Kalganov covered it with his hand."},
{"text":"\"That's enough!\" he shouted in his ringing voice."},
{"text":"\"What's the matter?\" Mitya stared at him."},
{"text":"\"That's enough! I don't want you to play any more. Don't!\""},
{"text":"\"Why?\""},
{"text":"\"Because I don't. Hang it, come away. That's why. I won't let you go o playing.\""},
{"text":"Mitya gazed at him in astonishment."},
{"text":"\"Give it up, Mitya. He may be right. You've lost a lot as it is,\" sai Grushenka, with a curious note in her voice. Both the Poles rose fro their seats with a deeply offended air."},
{"text":"\"Are you joking, panie?\" said the short man, looking severely a Kalganov."},
{"text":"\"How dare you!\" Pan Vrublevsky, too, growled at Kalganov."},
{"text":"\"Don't dare to shout like that,\" cried Grushenka. \"Ah, yo turkey-cocks!\""},
{"text":"Mitya looked at each of them in turn. But something in Grushenka's fac suddenly struck him, and at the same instant something new flashed int his mind--a strange new thought!"},
{"text":"\"Pani Agrippina,\" the little Pole was beginning, crimson with anger when Mitya suddenly went up to him and slapped him on the shoulder."},
{"text":"\"Most illustrious, two words with you.\""},
{"text":"\"What do you want?\""},
{"text":"\"In the next room, I've two words to say to you, something pleasant very pleasant. You'll be glad to hear it.\""},
{"text":"The little pan was taken aback and looked apprehensively at Mitya. H agreed at once, however, on condition that Pan Vrublevsky went wit them."},
{"text":"\"The bodyguard? Let him come, and I want him, too. I must have him!\"cried Mitya. \"March, panovie!\""},
{"text":"\"Where are you going?\" asked Grushenka, anxiously."},
{"text":"\"We'll be back in one moment,\" answered Mitya."},
{"text":"There was a sort of boldness, a sudden confidence shining in his eyes His face had looked very different when he entered the room an hou before."},
{"text":"He led the Poles, not into the large room where the chorus of girls wa assembling and the table was being laid, but into the bedroom on th right, where the trunks and packages were kept, and there were tw large beds, with pyramids of cotton pillows on each. There was  lighted candle on a small deal table in the corner. The small man an Mitya sat down to this table, facing each other, while the hug Vrublevsky stood beside them, his hands behind his back. The Pole looked severe but were evidently inquisitive."},
{"text":"\"What can I do for you, panie?\" lisped the little Pole."},
{"text":"\"Well, look here, panie, I won't keep you long. There's money for you,\"he pulled out his notes. \"Would you like three thousand? Take it and g your way.\""},
{"text":"The Pole gazed open-eyed at Mitya, with a searching look."},
{"text":"\"Three thousand, panie?\" He exchanged glances with Vrublevsky."},
{"text":"\"Three, panovie, three! Listen, panie, I see you're a sensible man Take three thousand and go to the devil, and Vrublevsky wit you--d'you hear? But, at once, this very minute, and forever. Yo understand that, panie, forever. Here's the door, you go out of it What have you got there, a greatcoat, a fur coat? I'll bring it out t you. They'll get the horses out directly, and then--goodbye, panie!\""},
{"text":"Mitya awaited an answer with assurance. He had no doubts. An expressio of extraordinary resolution passed over the Pole's face."},
{"text":"\"And the money, panie?\""},
{"text":"\"The money, panie? Five hundred roubles I'll give you this moment fo the journey, and as a first installment, and two thousand five hundre tomorrow, in the town--I swear on my honor, I'll get it, I'll get i at any cost!\" cried Mitya."},
{"text":"The Poles exchanged glances again. The short man's face looked mor forbidding."},
{"text":"\"Seven hundred, seven hundred, not five hundred, at once, this minute cash down!\" Mitya added, feeling something wrong. \"What's the matter panie? Don't you trust me? I can't give you the whole three thousan straight off. If I give it, you may come back to her tomorrow. .. Besides, I haven't the three thousand with me. I've got it at home i the town,\" faltered Mitya, his spirit sinking at every word he uttered \"Upon my word, the money's there, hidden.\""},
{"text":"In an instant an extraordinary sense of personal dignity showed itsel in the little man's face."},
{"text":"\"What next?\" he asked ironically. \"For shame!\" and he spat on th floor. Pan Vrublevsky spat too."},
{"text":"\"You do that, panie,\" said Mitya, recognizing with despair that all wa over, \"because you hope to make more out of Grushenka? You're a coupl of capons, that's what you are!\""},
{"text":"\"This is a mortal insult!\" The little Pole turned as red as a crab, an he went out of the room, briskly, as though unwilling to hear anothe word. Vrublevsky swung out after him, and Mitya followed, confused an crestfallen. He was afraid of Grushenka, afraid that the pan would a once raise an outcry. And so indeed he did. The Pole walked into th room and threw himself in a theatrical attitude before Grushenka."},
{"text":"\"Pani Agrippina, I have received a mortal insult!\" he exclaimed. Bu Grushenka suddenly lost all patience, as though they had wounded her i the tenderest spot."},
{"text":"\"Speak Russian! Speak Russian!\" she cried, \"not another word of Polish You used to talk Russian. You can't have forgotten it in five years.\""},
{"text":"She was red with passion."},
{"text":"\"Pani Agrippina--\""},
{"text":"\"My name's Agrafena, Grushenka, speak Russian or I won't listen!\""},
{"text":"The Pole gasped with offended dignity, and quickly and pompousl delivered himself in broken Russian:"},
{"text":"\"Pani Agrafena, I came here to forget the past and forgive it, t forget all that has happened till today--\""},
{"text":"\"Forgive? Came here to forgive me?\" Grushenka cut him short, jumping u from her seat."},
{"text":"\"Just so, pani, I'm not pusillanimous, I'm magnanimous. But I wa astounded when I saw your lovers. Pan Mitya offered me three thousand in the other room to depart. I spat in the pan's face.\""},
{"text":"\"What? He offered you money for me?\" cried Grushenka, hysterically. \"I it true, Mitya? How dare you? Am I for sale?\""},
{"text":"\"Panie, panie!\" yelled Mitya, \"she's pure and shining, and I have neve been her lover! That's a lie. ...\""},
{"text":"\"How dare you defend me to him?\" shrieked Grushenka. \"It wasn't virtu kept me pure, and it wasn't that I was afraid of Kuzma, but that  might hold up my head when I met him, and tell him he's a scoundrel And he did actually refuse the money?\""},
{"text":"\"He took it! He took it!\" cried Mitya; \"only he wanted to get the whol three thousand at once, and I could only give him seven hundre straight off.\""},
{"text":"\"I see: he heard I had money, and came here to marry me!\""},
{"text":"\"Pani Agrippina!\" cried the little Pole. \"I'm--a knight, I'm-- nobleman, and not a l/ajdak. I came here to make you my wife and I fin you a different woman, perverse and shameless.\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, go back where you came from! I'll tell them to turn you out an you'll be turned out,\" cried Grushenka, furious. \"I've been a fool,  fool, to have been miserable these five years! And it wasn't for hi sake, it was my anger made me miserable. And this isn't he at all! Wa he like this? It might be his father! Where did you get your wig from He was a falcon, but this is a gander. He used to laugh and sing t me. ... And I've been crying for five years, damned fool, abject shameless I was!\""},
{"text":"She sank back in her low chair and hid her face in her hands. At tha instant the chorus of Mokroe began singing in the room on the left-- rollicking dance song."},
{"text":"\"A regular Sodom!\" Vrublevsky roared suddenly. \"Landlord, send th shameless hussies away!\""},
{"text":"The landlord, who had been for some time past inquisitively peeping i at the door, hearing shouts and guessing that his guests wer quarreling, at once entered the room."},
{"text":"\"What are you shouting for? D'you want to split your throat?\" he said addressing Vrublevsky, with surprising rudeness."},
{"text":"\"Animal!\" bellowed Pan Vrublevsky."},
{"text":"\"Animal? And what sort of cards were you playing with just now? I gav you a pack and you hid it. You played with marked cards! I could sen you to Siberia for playing with false cards, d'you know that, for it' just the same as false banknotes. ...\""},
{"text":"And going up to the sofa he thrust his fingers between the sofa bac and the cushion, and pulled out an unopened pack of cards."},
{"text":"\"Here's my pack unopened!\""},
{"text":"He held it up and showed it to all in the room. \"From where I stood  saw him slip my pack away, and put his in place of it--you're a chea and not a gentleman!\""},
{"text":"\"And I twice saw the pan change a card!\" cried Kalganov."},
{"text":"\"How shameful! How shameful!\" exclaimed Grushenka, clasping her hands and blushing for genuine shame. \"Good Lord, he's come to that!\""},
{"text":"\"I thought so, too!\" said Mitya. But before he had uttered the words Vrublevsky, with a confused and infuriated face, shook his fist a Grushenka, shouting:"},
{"text":"\"You low harlot!\""},
{"text":"Mitya flew at him at once, clutched him in both hands, lifted him i the air, and in one instant had carried him into the room on the right from which they had just come."},
{"text":"\"I've laid him on the floor, there,\" he announced, returning at once gasping with excitement. \"He's struggling, the scoundrel! But he won' come back, no fear of that! ...\""},
{"text":"He closed one half of the folding doors, and holding the other aja called out to the little Pole:"},
{"text":"\"Most illustrious, will you be pleased to retire as well?\""},
{"text":"\"My dear Dmitri Fyodorovitch,\" said Trifon Borissovitch, \"make the give you back the money you lost. It's as good as stolen from you.\""},
{"text":"\"I don't want my fifty roubles back,\" Kalganov declared suddenly."},
{"text":"\"I don't want my two hundred, either,\" cried Mitya, \"I wouldn't take i for anything! Let him keep it as a consolation.\""},
{"text":"\"Bravo, Mitya! You're a trump, Mitya!\" cried Grushenka, and there was  note of fierce anger in the exclamation."},
{"text":"The little pan, crimson with fury but still mindful of his dignity, wa making for the door, but he stopped short and said suddenly, addressin Grushenka:"},
{"text":"\"Pani, if you want to come with me, come. If not, goodbye.\""},
{"text":"And swelling with indignation and importance he went to the door. Thi was a man of character: he had so good an opinion of himself that afte all that had passed, he still expected that she would marry him. Mity slammed the door after him."},
{"text":"\"Lock it,\" said Kalganov. But the key clicked on the other side, the had locked it from within."},
{"text":"\"That's capital!\" exclaimed Grushenka relentlessly. \"Serve them right!\""},
{"text":" VIII"},
{"text":"Delirium"},
{"text":"What followed was almost an orgy, a feast to which all were welcome Grushenka was the first to call for wine."},
{"text":"\"I want to drink. I want to be quite drunk, as we were before. Do yo remember, Mitya, do you remember how we made friends here last time!\""},
{"text":"Mitya himself was almost delirious, feeling that his happiness was a hand. But Grushenka was continually sending him away from her."},
{"text":"\"Go and enjoy yourself. Tell them to dance, to make merry, `let th stove and cottage dance'; as we had it last time,\" she kept exclaiming She was tremendously excited. And Mitya hastened to obey her. Th chorus were in the next room. The room in which they had been sittin till that moment was too small, and was divided in two by cotto curtains, behind which was a huge bed with a puffy feather mattress an a pyramid of cotton pillows. In the four rooms for visitors there wer beds. Grushenka settled herself just at the door. Mitya set an eas chair for her. She had sat in the same place to watch the dancing an singing \"the time before,\" when they had made merry there. All th girls who had come had been there then; the Jewish band with fiddle and zithers had come, too, and at last the long expected cart ha arrived with the wines and provisions."},
{"text":"Mitya bustled about. All sorts of people began coming into the room t look on, peasants and their women, who had been roused from sleep an attracted by the hopes of another marvelous entertainment such as the had enjoyed a month before. Mitya remembered their faces, greeting an embracing everyone he knew. He uncorked bottles and poured out wine fo everyone who presented himself. Only the girls were very eager for th champagne. The men preferred rum, brandy, and, above all, hot punch Mitya had chocolate made for all the girls, and ordered that thre samovars should be kept boiling all night to provide tea and punch fo everyone to help himself."},
{"text":"An absurd chaotic confusion followed, but Mitya was in his natura element, and the more foolish it became, the more his spirits rose. I the peasants had asked him for money at that moment, he would hav pulled out his notes and given them away right and left. This wa probably why the landlord, Trifon Borissovitch, kept hovering abou Mitya to protect him. He seemed to have given up all idea of going t bed that night; but he drank little, only one glass of punch, and kep a sharp lookout on Mitya's interests after his own fashion. H intervened in the nick of time, civilly and obsequiously persuadin Mitya not to give away \"cigars and Rhine wine,\" and, above all, mone to the peasants as he had done before. He was very indignant, too, a the peasant girls drinking liqueur, and eating sweets."},
{"text":"\"They're a lousy lot, Dmitri Fyodorovitch,\" he said. \"I'd give them  kick, every one of them, and they'd take it as an honor--that's al they're worth!\""},
{"text":"Mitya remembered Andrey again, and ordered punch to be sent out to him \"I was rude to him just now,\" he repeated with a sinking, softene voice. Kalganov did not want to drink, and at first did not care fo the girls' singing; but after he had drunk a couple of glasses o champagne he became extraordinarily lively, strolling about the room laughing and praising the music and the songs, admiring everyone an everything. Maximov, blissfully drunk, never left his side. Grushenka too, was beginning to get drunk. Pointing to Kalganov, she said t Mitya:"},
{"text":"\"What a dear, charming boy he is!\""},
{"text":"And Mitya, delighted, ran to kiss Kalganov and Maximov. Oh, great wer his hopes! She had said nothing yet, and seemed, indeed, purposely t refrain from speaking. But she looked at him from time to time wit caressing and passionate eyes. At last she suddenly gripped his han and drew him vigorously to her. She was sitting at the moment in th low chair by the door."},
{"text":"\"How was it you came just now, eh? Have you walked in! ... I wa frightened. So you wanted to give me up to him, did you? Did you reall want to?\""},
{"text":"\"I didn't want to spoil your happiness!\" Mitya faltered blissfully. Bu she did not need his answer."},
{"text":"\"Well, go and enjoy yourself ...\" she sent him away once more. \"Don' cry, I'll call you back again.\""},
{"text":"He would run away, and she listened to the singing and looked at th dancing, though her eyes followed him wherever he went. But in anothe quarter of an hour she would call him once more and again he would ru back to her."},
{"text":"\"Come, sit beside me, tell me, how did you hear about me, and my comin here yesterday? From whom did you first hear it?\""},
{"text":"And Mitya began telling her all about it, disconnectedly, incoherently feverishly. He spoke strangely, often frowning, and stopping abruptly."},
{"text":"\"What are you frowning at?\" she asked."},
{"text":"\"Nothing. ... I left a man ill there. I'd give ten years of my lif for him to get well, to know he was all right!\""},
{"text":"\"Well, never mind him, if he's ill. So you meant to shoot yoursel tomorrow! What a silly boy! What for? I like such reckless fellows a you,\" she lisped, with a rather halting tongue. \"So you would go an length for me, eh? Did you really mean to shoot yourself tomorrow, yo stupid? No, wait a little. Tomorrow I may have something to say t you. ... I won't say it today, but tomorrow. You'd like it to b today? No, I don't want to today. Come, go along now, go and amus yourself.\""},
{"text":"Once, however, she called him, as it were, puzzled and uneasy."},
{"text":"\"Why are you sad? I see you're sad. ... Yes, I see it,\" she added looking intently into his eyes. \"Though you keep kissing the peasant and shouting, I see something. No, be merry. I'm merry; you be merry too. ... I love somebody here. Guess who it is. Ah, look, my boy ha fallen asleep, poor dear, he's drunk.\""},
{"text":"She meant Kalganov. He was, in fact, drunk, and had dropped asleep fo a moment, sitting on the sofa. But he was not merely drowsy from drink he felt suddenly dejected, or, as he said, \"bored.\" He was intensel depressed by the girls' songs, which, as the drinking went on gradually became coarse and more reckless. And the dances were as bad Two girls dressed up as bears, and a lively girl, called Stepanida with a stick in her hand, acted the part of keeper, and began to \"sho them.\""},
{"text":"\"Look alive, Marya, or you'll get the stick!\""},
{"text":"The bears rolled on the ground at last in the most unseemly fashion amid roars of laughter from the closely-packed crowd of men and women."},
{"text":"\"Well, let them! Let them!\" said Grushenka sententiously, with a ecstatic expression on her face. \"When they do get a day to enjo themselves, why shouldn't folks be happy?\""},
{"text":"Kalganov looked as though he had been besmirched with dirt."},
{"text":"\"It's swinish, all this peasant foolery,\" he murmured, moving away \"it's the game they play when it's light all night in summer.\""},
{"text":"He particularly disliked one \"new\" song to a jaunty dance-tune. I described how a gentleman came and tried his luck with the girls, t see whether they would love him:"},
{"text":"  The master came to try the girls   Would they love him, would they not?"},
{"text":"But the girls could not love the master:"},
{"text":"  He would beat me cruell   And such love won't do for me."},
{"text":"Then a gypsy comes along and he, too, tries:"},
{"text":"  The gypsy came to try the girls   Would they love him, would they not?"},
{"text":"But they couldn't love the gypsy either:"},
{"text":"  He would be a thief, I fear   And would cause me many a tear."},
{"text":"And many more men come to try their luck, among them a soldier:"},
{"text":"  The soldier came to try the girls   Would they love him, would they not?"},
{"text":"But the soldier is rejected with contempt, in two indecent lines, sun with absolute frankness and producing a furore in the audience. Th song ends with a merchant:"},
{"text":"  The merchant came to try the girls   Would they love him, would they not?"},
{"text":"And it appears that he wins their love because:"},
{"text":"  The merchant will make gold for m   And his queen I'll gladly be."},
{"text":"Kalvanov was positively indignant."},
{"text":"\"That's just a song of yesterday,\" he said aloud. \"Who writes suc things for them? They might just as well have had a railwayman or a Je come to try his luck with the girls; they'd have carried all befor them.\""},
{"text":"And, almost as though it were a personal affront, he declared, on th spot, that he was bored, sat down on the sofa and immediately fel asleep. His pretty little face looked rather pale, as it fell back o the sofa cushion."},
{"text":"\"Look how pretty he is,\" said Grushenka, taking Mitya up to him. \"I wa combing his hair just now; his hair's like flax, and so thick. ...\""},
{"text":"And, bending over him tenderly, she kissed his forehead. Kalgano instantly opened his eyes, looked at her, stood up, and with the mos anxious air inquired where was Maximov?"},
{"text":"\"So that's who it is you want.\" Grushenka laughed. \"Stay with me  minute. Mitya, run and find his Maximov.\""},
{"text":"Maximov, it appeared, could not tear himself away from the girls, onl running away from time to time to pour himself out a glass of liqueur He had drunk two cups of chocolate. His face was red, and his nose wa crimson; his eyes were moist and mawkishly sweet. He ran up an announced that he was going to dance the \"sabotire.\""},
{"text":"\"They taught me all those well-bred, aristocratic dances when I wa little. ...\""},
{"text":"\"Go, go with him, Mitya, and I'll watch from here how he dances,\" sai Grushenka."},
{"text":"\"No, no, I'm coming to look on, too,\" exclaimed Kalganov, brushin aside in the most naive way Grushenka's offer to sit with him. They al went to look on. Maximov danced his dance. But it roused no grea admiration in anyone but Mitya. It consisted of nothing but skippin and hopping, kicking up the feet, and at every skip Maximov slapped th upturned sole of his foot. Kalganov did not like it at all, but Mity kissed the dancer."},
{"text":"\"Thanks. You're tired perhaps? What are you looking for here? Would yo like some sweets? A cigar, perhaps?\""},
{"text":"\"A cigarette.\""},
{"text":"\"Don't you want a drink?\""},
{"text":"\"I'll just have a liqueur. ... Have you any chocolates?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, there's a heap of them on the table there. Choose one, my dea soul!\""},
{"text":"\"I like one with vanilla ... for old people. He he!\""},
{"text":"\"No, brother, we've none of that special sort.\""},
{"text":"\"I say,\" the old man bent down to whisper in Mitya's ear. \"That gir there, little Marya, he he! How would it be if you were to help me mak friends with her?\""},
{"text":"\"So that's what you're after! No, brother, that won't do!\""},
{"text":"\"I'd do no harm to anyone,\" Maximov muttered disconsolately."},
{"text":"\"Oh, all right, all right. They only come here to dance and sing, yo know, brother. But damn it all, wait a bit! ... Eat and drink and b merry, meanwhile. Don't you want money?\""},
{"text":"\"Later on, perhaps,\" smiled Maximov."},
{"text":"\"All right, all right. ...\""},
{"text":"Mitya's head was burning. He went outside to the wooden balcony whic ran round the whole building on the inner side, overlooking th courtyard. The fresh air revived him. He stood alone in a dark corner and suddenly clutched his head in both hands. His scattered thought came together; his sensations blended into a whole and threw a sudde light into his mind. A fearful and terrible light! \"If I'm to shoo myself, why not now?\" passed through his mind. \"Why not go for th pistols, bring them here, and here, in this dark dirty corner, make a end?\" Almost a minute he stood, undecided. A few hours earlier, when h had been dashing here, he was pursued by disgrace, by the theft he ha committed, and that blood, that blood! ... But yet it was easier fo him then. Then everything was over: he had lost her, given her up. Sh was gone, for him--oh, then his death sentence had been easier fo him; at least it had seemed necessary, inevitable, for what had he t stay on earth for?"},
{"text":"But now? Was it the same as then? Now one phantom, one terror at leas was at an end: that first, rightful lover, that fateful figure ha vanished, leaving no trace. The terrible phantom had turned int something so small, so comic; it had been carried into the bedroom an locked in. It would never return. She was ashamed, and from her eyes h could see now whom she loved. Now he had everything to make life happy ... but he could not go on living, he could not; oh, damnation! \" God! restore to life the man I knocked down at the fence! Let thi fearful cup pass from me! Lord, thou hast wrought miracles for suc sinners as me! But what, what if the old man's alive? Oh, then th shame of the other disgrace I would wipe away. I would restore th stolen money. I'd give it back; I'd get it somehow. ... No trace o that shame will remain except in my heart forever! But no, no; oh impossible cowardly dreams! Oh, damnation!\""},
{"text":"Yet there was a ray of light and hope in his darkness. He jumped up an ran back to the room--to her, to her, his queen forever! Was not on moment of her love worth all the rest of life, even in the agonies o disgrace? This wild question clutched at his heart. \"To her, to he alone, to see her, to hear her, to think of nothing, to forge everything, if only for that night, for an hour, for a moment!\" Just a he turned from the balcony into the passage, he came upon the landlord Trifon Borissovitch. He thought he looked gloomy and worried, an fancied he had come to find him."},
{"text":"\"What is it, Trifon Borissovitch? are you looking for me?\""},
{"text":"\"No, sir.\" The landlord seemed disconcerted. \"Why should I be lookin for you? Where have you been?\""},
{"text":"\"Why do you look so glum? You're not angry, are you? Wait a bit, yo shall soon get to bed. ... What's the time?\""},
{"text":"\"It'll be three o'clock. Past three, it must be.\""},
{"text":"\"We'll leave off soon. We'll leave off.\""},
{"text":"\"Don't mention it; it doesn't matter. Keep it up as long as you like. ...\""},
{"text":"\"What's the matter with him?\" Mitya wondered for an instant, and he ra back to the room where the girls were dancing. But she was not there She was not in the blue room either; there was no one but Kalgano asleep on the sofa. Mitya peeped behind the curtain--she was there She was sitting in the corner, on a trunk. Bent forward, with her hea and arms on the bed close by, she was crying bitterly, doing her utmos to stifle her sobs that she might not be heard. Seeing Mitya, sh beckoned him to her, and when he ran to her, she grasped his han tightly."},
{"text":"\"Mitya, Mitya, I loved him, you know. How I have loved him these fiv years, all that time! Did I love him or only my own anger? No, him him! It's a lie that it was my anger I loved and not him. Mitya, I wa only seventeen then; he was so kind to me, so merry; he used to sing t me. ... Or so it seemed to a silly girl like me. ... And now,  Lord, it's not the same man. Even his face is not the same; he' different altogether. I shouldn't have known him. I drove here wit Timofey, and all the way I was thinking how I should meet him, what  should say to him, how we should look at one another. My soul wa faint, and all of a sudden it was just as though he had emptied a pai of dirty water over me. He talked to me like a schoolmaster, all s grave and learned; he met me so solemnly that I was struck dumb.  couldn't get a word in. At first I thought he was ashamed to tal before his great big Pole. I sat staring at him and wondering why  couldn't say a word to him now. It must have been his wife that ruine him; you know he threw me up to get married. She must have changed hi like that. Mitya, how shameful it is! Oh, Mitya, I'm ashamed, I' ashamed for all my life. Curse it, curse it, curse those five years!\""},
{"text":"And again she burst into tears, but clung tight to Mitya's hand and di not let it go."},
{"text":"\"Mitya, darling, stay, don't go away. I want to say one word to you,\"she whispered, and suddenly raised her face to him. \"Listen, tell m who it is I love? I love one man here. Who is that man? That's what yo must tell me.\""},
{"text":"A smile lighted up her face that was swollen with weeping, and her eye shone in the half darkness."},
{"text":"\"A falcon flew in, and my heart sank. `Fool! that's the man you love! That was what my heart whispered to me at once. You came in and al grew bright. What's he afraid of? I wondered. For you were frightened you couldn't speak. It's not them he's afraid of--could you b frightened of anyone? It's me he's afraid of, I thought, only me. S Fenya told you, you little stupid, how I called to Alyosha out of th window that I'd loved Mityenka for one hour, and that I was going no to love ... another. Mitya, Mitya, how could I be such a fool as t think I could love anyone after you? Do you forgive me, Mitya? Do yo forgive me or not? Do you love me? Do you love me?\" She jumped up an held him with both hands on his shoulders. Mitya, dumb with rapture gazed into her eyes, at her face, at her smile, and suddenly claspe her tightly in his arms and kissed her passionately."},
{"text":"\"You will forgive me for having tormented you? It was through spite  tormented you all. It was for spite I drove the old man out of hi mind. ... Do you remember how you drank at my house one day and brok the wineglass? I remembered that and I broke a glass today and dran `to my vile heart.' Mitya, my falcon, why don't you kiss me? He kisse me once, and now he draws back and looks and listens. Why listen to me Kiss me, kiss me hard, that's right. If you love, well, then, love I'll be your slave now, your slave for the rest of my life. It's swee to be a slave. Kiss me! Beat me, ill-treat me, do what you will wit me. ... And I do deserve to suffer. Stay, wait, afterwards, I won' have that. ...\" she suddenly thrust him away. \"Go along, Mitya, I'l come and have some wine, I want to be drunk, I'm going to get drunk an dance; I must, I must!\" She tore herself away from him and disappeare behind the curtain. Mitya followed like a drunken man."},
{"text":"\"Yes, come what may--whatever may happen now, for one minute I'd giv the whole world,\" he thought. Grushenka did, in fact, toss off a whol glass of champagne at one gulp, and became at once very tipsy. She sa down in the same chair as before, with a blissful smile on her face Her cheeks were glowing, her lips were burning, her flashing eyes wer moist; there was passionate appeal in her eyes. Even Kalganov felt  stir at the heart and went up to her."},
{"text":"\"Did you feel how I kissed you when you were asleep just now?\" she sai thickly. \"I'm drunk now, that's what it is. ... And aren't you drunk And why isn't Mitya drinking? Why don't you drink, Mitya? I'm drunk and you don't drink. ...\""},
{"text":"\"I am drunk! I'm drunk as it is ... drunk with you ... and now I'l be drunk with wine, too.\""},
{"text":"He drank off another glass, and--he thought it strange himself--tha glass made him completely drunk. He was suddenly drunk, although til that moment he had been quite sober, he remembered that. From tha moment everything whirled about him, as though he were delirious. H walked, laughed, talked to everybody, without knowing what he wa doing. Only one persistent burning sensation made itself fel continually, \"like a red-hot coal in his heart,\" he said afterwards. H went up to her, sat beside her, gazed at her, listened to her. .. She became very talkative, kept calling everyone to her, and beckone to different girls out of the chorus. When the girl came up, she eithe kissed her, or made the sign of the cross over her. In another minut she might have cried. She was greatly amused by the \"little old man,\"as she called Maximov. He ran up every minute to kiss her hands, \"eac little finger,\" and finally he danced another dance to an old song which he sang himself. He danced with special vigor to the refrain:"},
{"text":"  The little pig says--umph! umph! umph   The little calf says--moo, moo, moo   The little duck says--quack, quack, quack   The little goose says--ga, ga, ga   The hen goes strutting through the porch   Troo-roo-roo-roo-roo, she'll say   Troo-roo-roo-roo-roo, she'll say!"},
{"text":"\"Give him something, Mitya,\" said Grushenka. \"Give him a present, he' poor, you know. Ah, the poor, the insulted! ... Do you know, Mitya,  shall go into a nunnery. No, I really shall one day, Alyosha sai something to me today that I shall remember all my life. ... Yes. ... But today let us dance. Tomorrow to the nunnery, but today we'l dance. I want to play today, good people, and what of it? God wil forgive us. If I were God, I'd forgive everyone: `My dear sinners, fro this day forth I forgive you.' I'm going to beg forgiveness: `Forgiv me, good people, a silly wench.' I'm a beast, that's what I am. But  want to pray. I gave a little onion. Wicked as I've been, I want t pray. Mitya, let them dance, don't stop them. Everyone in the world i good. Everyone--even the worst of them. The world's a nice place Though we're bad the world's all right. We're good and bad, good an bad. ... Come, tell me, I've something to ask you: come her everyone, and I'll ask you: Why am I so good? You know I am good. I' very good. ... Come, why am I so good?\""},
{"text":"So Grushenka babbled on, getting more and more drunk. At last sh announced that she was going to dance, too. She got up from her chair staggering. \"Mitya, don't give me any more wine--if I ask you, don' give it to me. Wine doesn't give peace. Everything's going round, th stove, and everything. I want to dance. Let everyone see how I dance ... let them see how beautifully I dance. ...\""},
{"text":"She really meant it. She pulled a white cambric handkerchief out of he pocket, and took it by one corner in her right hand, to wave it in th dance. Mitya ran to and fro, the girls were quiet, and got ready t break into a dancing song at the first signal. Maximov, hearing tha Grushenka wanted to dance, squealed with delight, and ran skippin about in front of her, humming:"},
{"text":"  With legs so slim and sides so tri   And its little tail curled tight."},
{"text":"But Grushenka waved her handkerchief at him and drove him away."},
{"text":"\"Sh-h! Mitya, why don't they come? Let everyone come ... to look on Call them in, too, that were locked in. ... Why did you lock them in Tell them I'm going to dance. Let them look on, too. ...\""},
{"text":"Mitya walked with a drunken swagger to the locked door, and bega knocking to the Poles with his fist."},
{"text":"\"Hi, you ... Podvysotskys! Come, she's going to dance. She call you.\""},
{"text":"\"L/ajdak!\" one of the Poles shouted in reply."},
{"text":"\"You're a l/ajdak yourself! You're a little scoundrel, that's what yo are.\""},
{"text":"\"Leave off laughing at Poland,\" said Kalganov sententiously. He too wa drunk."},
{"text":"\"Be quiet, boy! If I call him a scoundrel, it doesn't mean that  called all Poland so. One l/ajdak doesn't make a Poland. Be quiet, m pretty boy, eat a sweetmeat.\""},
{"text":"\"Ach, what fellows! As though they were not men. Why won't they mak friends?\" said Grushenka, and went forward to dance. The chorus brok into \"Ah, my porch, my new porch!\" Grushenka flung back her head, hal opened her lips, smiled, waved her handkerchief, and suddenly, with  violent lurch, stood still in the middle of the room, lookin bewildered."},
{"text":"\"I'm weak. ...\" she said in an exhausted voice. \"Forgive me. .. I'm weak, I can't. ... I'm sorry.\""},
{"text":"She bowed to the chorus, and then began bowing in all directions."},
{"text":"\"I'm sorry. ... Forgive me. ...\""},
{"text":"\"The lady's been drinking. The pretty lady has been drinking,\" voice were heard saying."},
{"text":"\"The lady's drunk too much,\" Maximov explained to the girls, giggling."},
{"text":"\"Mitya, lead me away ... take me,\" said Grushenka helplessly. Mity pounced on her, snatched her up in his arms, and carried the preciou burden through the curtains."},
{"text":"\"Well, now I'll go,\" thought Kalganov, and walking out of the blu room, he closed the two halves of the door after him. But the orgy i the larger room went on and grew louder and louder. Mitya lai Grushenka on the bed and kissed her on the lips."},
{"text":"\"Don't touch me. ...\" she faltered, in an imploring voice. \"Don' touch me, till I'm yours. ... I've told you I'm yours, but don' touch me ... spare me. ... With them here, with them close, yo mustn't. He's here. It's nasty here. ...\""},
{"text":"\"I'll obey you! I won't think of it ... I worship you!\" muttere Mitya. \"Yes, it's nasty here, it's abominable.\""},
{"text":"And still holding her in his arms, he sank on his knees by the bedside."},
{"text":"\"I know, though you're a brute, you're generous,\" Grushenka articulate with difficulty. \"It must be honorable ... it shall be honorable fo the future ... and let us be honest, let us be good, not brutes, bu good ... take me away, take me far away, do you hear? I don't want i to be here, but far, far away. ...\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, yes, yes, it must be!\" said Mitya, pressing her in his arms. \"I'l take you and we'll fly away. ... Oh, I'd give my whole life for on year only to know about that blood!\""},
{"text":"\"What blood?\" asked Grushenka, bewildered."},
{"text":"\"Nothing,\" muttered Mitya, through his teeth. \"Grusha, you wanted to b honest, but I'm a thief. But I've stolen money from Katya. .. Disgrace, a disgrace!\""},
{"text":"\"From Katya, from that young lady? No, you didn't steal it. Give it he back, take it from me. ... Why make a fuss? Now everything of mine i yours. What does money matter? We shall waste it anyway. ... Folk like us are bound to waste money. But we'd better go and work the land I want to dig the earth with my own hands. We must work, do you hear Alyosha said so. I won't be your mistress, I'll be faithful to you I'll be your slave, I'll work for you. We'll go to the young lady an bow down to her together, so that she may forgive us, and then we'll g away. And if she won't forgive us, we'll go, anyway. Take her her mone and love me. ... Don't love her. ... Don't love her any more. I you love her, I shall strangle her. ... I'll put out both her eye with a needle. ...\""},
{"text":"\"I love you. I love only you. I'll love you in Siberia. ...\""},
{"text":"\"Why Siberia? Never mind, Siberia, if you like. I don't care .. we'll work ... there's snow in Siberia. ... I love driving in th snow ... and must have bells. ... Do you hear, there's a bel ringing? Where is that bell ringing? There are people coming. ... No it's stopped.\""},
{"text":"She closed her eyes, exhausted, and suddenly fell asleep for a instant. There had certainly been the sound of a bell in the distance but the ringing had ceased. Mitya let his head sink on her breast. H did not notice that the bell had ceased ringing, nor did he notice tha the songs had ceased, and that instead of singing and drunken clamo there was absolute stillness in the house. Grushenka opened her eyes."},
{"text":"\"What's the matter? Was I asleep? Yes ... a bell ... I've bee asleep and dreamt I was driving over the snow with bells, and I dozed I was with someone I loved, with you. And far, far away. I was holdin you and kissing you, nestling close to you. I was cold, and the sno glistened. ... You know how the snow glistens at night when the moo shines. It was as though I was not on earth. I woke up, and my dear on is close to me. How sweet that is! ...\""},
{"text":"\"Close to you,\" murmured Mitya, kissing her dress, her bosom, he hands. And suddenly he had a strange fancy: it seemed to him that sh was looking straight before her, not at him, not into his face, bu over his head, with an intent, almost uncanny fixity. An expression o wonder, almost of alarm, came suddenly into her face."},
{"text":"\"Mitya, who is that looking at us?\" she whispered."},
{"text":"Mitya turned, and saw that someone had, in fact, parted the curtain and seemed to be watching them. And not one person alone, it seemed."},
{"text":"He jumped up and walked quickly to the intruder."},
{"text":"\"Here, come to us, come here,\" said a voice, speaking not loudly, bu firmly and peremptorily."},
{"text":"Mitya passed to the other side of the curtain and stood stock still The room was filled with people, but not those who had been ther before. An instantaneous shiver ran down his back, and he shuddered. H recognized all those people instantly. That tall, stout old man in th overcoat and forage-cap with a cockade--was the police captain, Mihai Makarovitch. And that \"consumptive-looking\" trim dandy, \"who always ha such polished boots\"--that was the deputy prosecutor. \"He has  chronometer worth four hundred roubles; he showed it to me.\" And tha small young man in spectacles. ... Mitya forgot his surname though h knew him, had seen him: he was the \"investigating lawyer,\" from th \"school of jurisprudence,\" who had only lately come to the town. An this man--the inspector of police, Mavriky Mavrikyevitch, a man h knew well. And those fellows with the brass plates on, why are the here? And those other two ... peasants. ... And there at the doo Kalganov with Trifon Borissovitch. ..."},
{"text":"\"Gentlemen! What's this for, gentlemen?\" began Mitya, but suddenly, a though beside himself, not knowing what he was doing, he cried aloud at the top of his voice:"},
{"text":"\"I un--der--stand!\""},
{"text":"The young man in spectacles moved forward suddenly, and stepping up t Mitya, began with dignity, though hurriedly:"},
{"text":"\"We have to make ... in brief, I beg you to come this way, this wa to the sofa. ... It is absolutely imperative that you should give a explanation.\""},
{"text":"\"The old man!\" cried Mitya frantically. \"The old man and his blood! ... I understand.\""},
{"text":"And he sank, almost fell, on a chair close by, as though he had bee mown down by a scythe."},
{"text":"\"You understand? He understands it! Monster and parricide! You father's blood cries out against you!\" the old captain of police roare suddenly, stepping up to Mitya."},
{"text":"He was beside himself, crimson in the face and quivering all over."},
{"text":"\"This is impossible!\" cried the small young man. \"Mihail Makarovitch Mihail Makarovitch, this won't do! ... I beg you'll allow me t speak. I should never have expected such behavior from you. ...\""},
{"text":"\"This is delirium, gentlemen, raving delirium,\" cried the captain o police; \"look at him: drunk, at this time of night, in the company of  disreputable woman, with the blood of his father on his hands. .. It's delirium! ...\""},
{"text":"\"I beg you most earnestly, dear Mihail Makarovitch, to restrain you feelings,\" the prosecutor said in a rapid whisper to the old polic captain, \"or I shall be forced to resort to--\""},
{"text":"But the little lawyer did not allow him to finish. He turned to Mitya and delivered himself in a loud, firm, dignified voice:"},
{"text":"\"Ex-Lieutenant Karamazov, it is my duty to inform you that you ar charged with the murder of your father, Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov perpetrated this night. ...\""},
{"text":"He said something more, and the prosecutor, too, put in something, bu though Mitya heard them he did not understand them. He stared at the all with wild eyes."},
{"text":"ook IX"},
{"text":"The Preliminary Investigation"},
{"text":" I"},
{"text":"The Beginning of Perhotin's Official Career"},
{"text":"Pyotr Ilyitch Perhotin, whom we left knocking at the strong locke gates of the widow Morozov's house, ended, of course, by making himsel heard. Fenya, who was still excited by the fright she had had two hour before, and too much \"upset\" to go to bed, was almost frightened int hysterics on hearing the furious knocking at the gate. Though she ha herself seen him drive away, she fancied that it must be Dmitr Fyodorovitch knocking again, no one else could knock so savagely. Sh ran to the house-porter, who had already waked up and gone out to th gate, and began imploring him not to open it. But having questione Pyotr Ilyitch, and learned that he wanted to see Fenya on ver \"important business,\" the man made up his mind at last to open. Pyot Ilyitch was admitted into Fenya's kitchen, but the girl begged him t allow the house-porter to be present, \"because of her misgivings.\" H began questioning her and at once learnt the most vital fact, that is that when Dmitri Fyodorovitch had run out to look for Grushenka, he ha snatched up a pestle from the mortar, and that when he returned, th pestle was not with him and his hands were smeared with blood."},
{"text":"\"And the blood was simply flowing, dripping from him, dripping!\" Feny kept exclaiming. This horrible detail was simply the product of he disordered imagination. But although not \"dripping,\" Pyotr Ilyitch ha himself seen those hands stained with blood, and had helped to was them. Moreover, the question he had to decide was not how soon th blood had dried, but where Dmitri Fyodorovitch had run with the pestle or rather, whether it really was to Fyodor Pavlovitch's, and how h could satisfactorily ascertain. Pyotr Ilyitch persisted in returning t this point, and though he found out nothing conclusive, yet he carrie away a conviction that Dmitri Fyodorovitch could have gone nowhere bu to his father's house, and that therefore something must have happene there."},
{"text":"\"And when he came back,\" Fenya added with excitement, \"I told him th whole story, and then I began asking him, `Why have you got blood o your hands, Dmitri Fyodorovitch?' and he answered that that was huma blood, and that he had just killed someone. He confessed it all to me and suddenly ran off like a madman. I sat down and began thinking where's he run off to now like a madman? He'll go to Mokroe, I thought and kill my mistress there. I ran out to beg him not to kill her. I wa running to his lodgings, but I looked at Plotnikov's shop, and saw hi just setting off, and there was no blood on his hands then.\" (Fenya ha noticed this and remembered it.) Fenya's old grandmother confirmed he evidence as far as she was capable. After asking some furthe questions, Pyotr Ilyitch left the house, even more upset and uneas than he had been when he entered it."},
{"text":"The most direct and the easiest thing for him to do would have been t go straight to Fyodor Pavlovitch's, to find out whether anything ha happened there, and if so, what; and only to go to the police captain as Pyotr Ilyitch firmly intended doing, when he had satisfied himsel of the fact. But the night was dark, Fyodor Pavlovitch's gates wer strong, and he would have to knock again. His acquaintance with Fyodo Pavlovitch was of the slightest, and what if, after he had bee knocking, they opened to him, and nothing had happened? Then Fyodo Pavlovitch in his jeering way would go telling the story all over th town, how a stranger, called Perhotin, had broken in upon him a midnight to ask if anyone had killed him. It would make a scandal. An scandal was what Pyotr Ilyitch dreaded more than anything in the world."},
{"text":"Yet the feeling that possessed him was so strong, that though h stamped his foot angrily and swore at himself, he set off again, not t Fyodor Pavlovitch's but to Madame Hohlakov's. He decided that if sh denied having just given Dmitri Fyodorovitch three thousand roubles, h would go straight to the police captain, but if she admitted havin given him the money, he would go home and let the matter rest till nex morning."},
{"text":"It is, of course, perfectly evident that there was even more likelihoo of causing scandal by going at eleven o'clock at night to a fashionabl lady, a complete stranger, and perhaps rousing her from her bed to as her an amazing question, than by going to Fyodor Pavlovitch. But tha is just how it is, sometimes, especially in cases like the present one with the decisions of the most precise and phlegmatic people. Pyot Ilyitch was by no means phlegmatic at that moment. He remembered al his life how a haunting uneasiness gradually gained possession of him growing more and more painful and driving him on, against his will. Ye he kept cursing himself, of course, all the way for going to this lady but \"I will get to the bottom of it, I will!\" he repeated for the tent time, grinding his teeth, and he carried out his intention."},
{"text":"It was exactly eleven o'clock when he entered Madame Hohlakov's house He was admitted into the yard pretty quickly, but, in response to hi inquiry whether the lady was still up, the porter could give no answer except that she was usually in bed by that time."},
{"text":"\"Ask at the top of the stairs. If the lady wants to receive you, she'l receive you. If she won't, she won't.\""},
{"text":"Pyotr Ilyitch went up, but did not find things so easy here. Th footman was unwilling to take in his name, but finally called a maid Pyotr Ilyitch politely but insistently begged her to inform her lad that an official, living in the town, called Perhotin, had called o particular business, and that if it were not of the greatest importanc he would not have ventured to come. \"Tell her in those words, in thos words exactly,\" he asked the girl."},
{"text":"She went away. He remained waiting in the entry. Madame Hohlako herself was already in her bedroom, though not yet asleep. She had fel upset ever since Mitya's visit, and had a presentiment that she woul not get through the night without the sick headache which always, wit her, followed such excitement. She was surprised on hearing th announcement from the maid. She irritably declined to see him, however though the unexpected visit at such an hour, of an \"official living i the town,\" who was a total stranger, roused her feminine curiosit intensely. But this time Pyotr Ilyitch was as obstinate as a mule. H begged the maid most earnestly to take another message in these ver words:"},
{"text":"\"That he had come on business of the greatest importance, and tha Madame Hohlakov might have cause to regret it later, if she refused t see him now.\""},
{"text":"\"I plunged headlong,\" he described it afterwards."},
{"text":"The maid, gazing at him in amazement, went to take his message again Madame Hohlakov was impressed. She thought a little, asked what h looked like, and learned that he was \"very well dressed, young and s polite.\" We may note, parenthetically, that Pyotr Ilyitch was a rathe good-looking young man, and well aware of the fact. Madame Hohlako made up her mind to see him. She was in her dressing-gown and slippers but she flung a black shawl over her shoulders. \"The official\" wa asked to walk into the drawing-room, the very room in which Mitya ha been received shortly before. The lady came to meet her visitor, with  sternly inquiring countenance, and, without asking him to sit down began at once with the question:"},
{"text":"\"What do you want?\""},
{"text":"\"I have ventured to disturb you, madam, on a matter concerning ou common acquaintance, Dmitri Fyodorovitch Karamazov,\" Perhotin began."},
{"text":"But he had hardly uttered the name, when the lady's face showed sign of acute irritation. She almost shrieked, and interrupted him in  fury:"},
{"text":"\"How much longer am I to be worried by that awful man?\" she crie hysterically. \"How dare you, sir, how could you venture to disturb  lady who is a stranger to you, in her own house at such an hour! .. And to force yourself upon her to talk of a man who came here, to thi very drawing-room, only three hours ago, to murder me, and wen stamping out of the room, as no one would go out of a decent house. Le me tell you, sir, that I shall lodge a complaint against you, that  will not let it pass. Kindly leave me at once. ... I am a mother. ... I ... I--\""},
{"text":"\"Murder! then he tried to murder you, too?\""},
{"text":"\"Why, has he killed somebody else?\" Madame Hohlakov asked impulsively."},
{"text":"\"If you would kindly listen, madam, for half a moment, I'll explain i all in a couple of words,\" answered Perhotin, firmly. \"At five o'cloc this afternoon Dmitri Fyodorovitch borrowed ten roubles from me, and  know for a fact he had no money. Yet at nine o'clock, he came to see m with a bundle of hundred-rouble notes in his hand, about two or thre thousand roubles. His hands and face were all covered with blood, an he looked like a madman. When I asked him where he had got so muc money, he answered that he had just received it from you, that you ha given him a sum of three thousand to go to the goldmines. ...\""},
{"text":"Madame Hohlakov's face assumed an expression of intense and painfu excitement."},
{"text":"\"Good God! He must have killed his old father!\" she cried, clasping he hands. \"I have never given him money, never! Oh, run, run! ... Don' say another word! Save the old man ... run to his father ... run!\""},
{"text":"\"Excuse me, madam, then you did not give him money? You remember for  fact that you did not give him any money?\""},
{"text":"\"No, I didn't, I didn't! I refused to give it him, for he could no appreciate it. He ran out in a fury, stamping. He rushed at me, but  slipped away. ... And let me tell you, as I wish to hide nothing fro you now, that he positively spat at me. Can you fancy that! But why ar we standing? Ah, sit down.\""},
{"text":"\"Excuse me, I. ...\""},
{"text":"\"Or better run, run, you must run and save the poor old man from a awful death!\""},
{"text":"\"But if he has killed him already?\""},
{"text":"\"Ah, good heavens, yes! Then what are we to do now? What do you thin we must do now?\""},
{"text":"Meantime she had made Pyotr Ilyitch sit down and sat down herself facing him. Briefly, but fairly clearly, Pyotr Ilyitch told her th history of the affair, that part of it at least which he had himsel witnessed. He described, too, his visit to Fenya, and told her abou the pestle. All these details produced an overwhelming effect on th distracted lady, who kept uttering shrieks, and covering her face wit her hands. ..."},
{"text":"\"Would you believe it, I foresaw all this! I have that special faculty whatever I imagine comes to pass. And how often I've looked at tha awful man and always thought, that man will end by murdering me. An now it's happened ... that is, if he hasn't murdered me, but only hi own father, it's only because the finger of God preserved me, an what's more, he was ashamed to murder me because, in this very place,  put the holy icon from the relics of the holy martyr, Saint Varvara, o his neck. ... And to think how near I was to death at that minute,  went close up to him and he stretched out his neck to me! ... Do yo know, Pyotr Ilyitch (I think you said your name was Pyotr Ilyitch),  don't believe in miracles, but that icon and this unmistakable miracl with me now--that shakes me, and I'm ready to believe in anything yo like. Have you heard about Father Zossima? ... But I don't know wha I'm saying ... and only fancy, with the icon on his neck he spat a me. ... He only spat, it's true, he didn't murder me and ... h dashed away! But what shall we do, what must we do now? What do yo think?\""},
{"text":"Pyotr Ilyitch got up, and announced that he was going straight to th police captain, to tell him all about it, and leave him to do what h thought fit."},
{"text":"\"Oh, he's an excellent man, excellent! Mihail Makarovitch, I know him Of course, he's the person to go to. How practical you are, Pyot Ilyitch! How well you've thought of everything! I should never hav thought of it in your place!\""},
{"text":"\"Especially as I know the police captain very well, too,\" observe Pyotr Ilyitch, who still continued to stand, and was obviously anxiou to escape as quickly as possible from the impulsive lady, who would no let him say goodbye and go away."},
{"text":"\"And be sure, be sure,\" she prattled on, \"to come back and tell me wha you see there, and what you find out ... what comes to light .. how they'll try him ... and what he's condemned to. ... Tell me, w have no capital punishment, have we? But be sure to come, even if it' at three o'clock at night, at four, at half-past four. ... Tell the to wake me, to wake me, to shake me, if I don't get up. ... But, goo heavens, I shan't sleep! But wait, hadn't I better come with you?\""},
{"text":"\"N--no. But if you would write three lines with your own hand, statin that you did not give Dmitri Fyodorovitch money, it might, perhaps, b of use ... in case it's needed. ...\""},
{"text":"\"To be sure!\" Madame Hohlakov skipped, delighted, to her bureau. \"An you know I'm simply struck, amazed at your resourcefulness, your goo sense in such affairs. Are you in the service here? I'm delighted t think that you're in the service here!\""},
{"text":"And still speaking, she scribbled on half a sheet of notepaper th following lines:"},
{"text":"  I've never in my life lent to that unhappy man, Dmitri Fyodorovitc   Karamazov (for, in spite of all, he is unhappy), three thousan   roubles today. I've never given him money, never: That I swear b   all that's holy!"},
{"text":"  K. Hohlakov."},
{"text":"\"Here's the note!\" she turned quickly to Pyotr Ilyitch. \"Go, save him It's a noble deed on your part!\""},
{"text":"And she made the sign of the cross three times over him. She ran out t accompany him to the passage."},
{"text":"\"How grateful I am to you! You can't think how grateful I am to you fo having come to me, first. How is it I haven't met you before? I shal feel flattered at seeing you at my house in the future. How delightfu it is that you are living here! ... Such precision! Such practica ability! ... They must appreciate you, they must understand you. I there's anything I can do, believe me ... oh, I love young people I'm in love with young people! The younger generation are the one pro of our suffering country. Her one hope. ... Oh, go, go! ...\""},
{"text":"But Pyotr Ilyitch had already run away or she would not have let him g so soon. Yet Madame Hohlakov had made a rather agreeable impression o him, which had somewhat softened his anxiety at being drawn into suc an unpleasant affair. Tastes differ, as we all know. \"She's by no mean so elderly,\" he thought, feeling pleased, \"on the contrary I shoul have taken her for her daughter.\""},
{"text":"As for Madame Hohlakov, she was simply enchanted by the young man \"Such sense! such exactness! in so young a man! in our day! and al that with such manners and appearance! People say the young people o today are no good for anything, but here's an example!\" etc. So sh simply forgot this \"dreadful affair,\" and it was only as she wa getting into bed, that, suddenly recalling \"how near death she ha been,\" she exclaimed: \"Ah, it is awful, awful!\""},
{"text":"But she fell at once into a sound, sweet sleep."},
{"text":"I would not, however, have dwelt on such trivial and irrelevan details, if this eccentric meeting of the young official with the by n means elderly widow had not subsequently turned out to be th foundation of the whole career of that practical and precise young man His story is remembered to this day with amazement in our town, and  shall perhaps have something to say about it, when I have finished m long history of the Brothers Karamazov."},
{"text":" II"},
{"text":"The Alarm"},
{"text":"Our police captain, Mihail Makarovitch Makarov, a retire lieutenant-colonel, was a widower and an excellent man. He had onl come to us three years previously, but had won general esteem, chiefl because he \"knew how to keep society together.\" He was never withou visitors, and could not have got on without them. Someone or other wa always dining with him; he never sat down to table without guests. H gave regular dinners, too, on all sorts of occasions, sometimes mos surprising ones. Though the fare was not recherch, it was abundant The fish-pies were excellent, and the wine made up in quantity for wha it lacked in quality."},
{"text":"The first room his guests entered was a well-fitted billiard-room, wit pictures of English racehorses, in black frames on the walls, a essential decoration, as we all know, for a bachelor's billiard-room There was card-playing every evening at his house, if only at on table. But at frequent intervals, all the society of our town, with th mammas and young ladies, assembled at his house to dance. Though Mihai Makarovitch was a widower, he did not live alone. His widowed daughte lived with him, with her two unmarried daughters, grownup girls, wh had finished their education. They were of agreeable appearance an lively character, and though everyone knew they would have no dowry they attracted all the young men of fashion to their grandfather' house."},
{"text":"Mihail Makarovitch was by no means very efficient in his work, thoug he performed his duties no worse than many others. To speak plainly, h was a man of rather narrow education. His understanding of the limit of his administrative power could not always be relied upon. It was no so much that he failed to grasp certain reforms enacted during th present reign, as that he made conspicuous blunders in hi interpretation of them. This was not from any special lack o intelligence, but from carelessness, for he was always in too great  hurry to go into the subject."},
{"text":"\"I have the heart of a soldier rather than of a civilian,\" he used t say of himself. He had not even formed a definite idea of th fundamental principles of the reforms connected with the emancipatio of the serfs, and only picked it up, so to speak, from year to year involuntarily increasing his knowledge by practice. And yet he wa himself a landowner. Pyotr Ilyitch knew for certain that he would mee some of Mihail Makarovitch's visitors there that evening, but he didn' know which. As it happened, at that moment the prosecutor, an Varvinsky, our district doctor, a young man, who had only just come t us from Petersburg after taking a brilliant degree at the Academy o Medicine, were playing whist at the police captain's. Ippoli Kirillovitch, the prosecutor (he was really the deputy prosecutor, bu we always called him the prosecutor), was rather a peculiar man, o about five and thirty, inclined to be consumptive, and married to a fa and childless woman. He was vain and irritable, though he had a goo intellect, and even a kind heart. It seemed that all that was wron with him was that he had a better opinion of himself than his abilit warranted. And that made him seem constantly uneasy. He had, moreover certain higher, even artistic, leanings, towards psychology, fo instance, a special study of the human heart, a special knowledge o the criminal and his crime. He cherished a grievance on this ground considering that he had been passed over in the service, and bein firmly persuaded that in higher spheres he had not been properl appreciated, and had enemies. In gloomy moments he even threatened t give up his post, and practice as a barrister in criminal cases. Th unexpected Karamazov case agitated him profoundly: \"It was a case tha might well be talked about all over Russia.\" But I am anticipating."},
{"text":"Nikolay Parfenovitch Nelyudov, the young investigating lawyer, who ha only come from Petersburg two months before, was sitting in the nex room with the young ladies. People talked about it afterwards an wondered that all the gentlemen should, as though intentionally, on th evening of \"the crime\" have been gathered together at the house of th executive authority. Yet it was perfectly simple and happened quit naturally."},
{"text":"Ippolit Kirillovitch's wife had had toothache for the last two days and he was obliged to go out to escape from her groans. The doctor from the very nature of his being, could not spend an evening except a cards. Nikolay Parfenovitch Nelyudov had been intending for three day past to drop in that evening at Mihail Makarovitch's, so to spea casually, so as slyly to startle the eldest granddaughter, Olg Mihailovna, by showing that he knew her secret, that he knew it was he birthday, and that she was trying to conceal it on purpose, so as no to be obliged to give a dance. He anticipated a great deal o merriment, many playful jests about her age, and her being afraid t reveal it, about his knowing her secret and telling everybody, and s on. The charming young man was a great adept at such teasing; th ladies had christened him \"the naughty man,\" and he seemed to b delighted at the name. He was extremely well-bred, however, of goo family, education and feelings, and, though leading a life of pleasure his sallies were always innocent and in good taste. He was short, an delicate-looking. On his white, slender, little fingers he always wor a number of big, glittering rings. When he was engaged in his officia duties, he always became extraordinarily grave, as though realizing hi position and the sanctity of the obligations laid upon him. He had  special gift for mystifying murderers and other criminals of th peasant class during interrogation, and if he did not win thei respect, he certainly succeeded in arousing their wonder."},
{"text":"Pyotr Ilyitch was simply dumbfounded when he went into the polic captain's. He saw instantly that everyone knew. They had positivel thrown down their cards, all were standing up and talking. Even Nikola Parfenovitch had left the young ladies and run in, looking strenuou and ready for action. Pyotr Ilyitch was met with the astounding new that old Fyodor Pavlovitch really had been murdered that evening in hi own house, murdered and robbed. The news had only just reached them i the following manner."},
{"text":"Marfa Ignatyevna, the wife of old Grigory, who had been knocke senseless near the fence, was sleeping soundly in her bed and migh well have slept till morning after the draught she had taken. But, al of a sudden she waked up, no doubt roused by a fearful epileptic screa from Smerdyakov, who was lying in the next room unconscious. Tha scream always preceded his fits, and always terrified and upset Marf Ignatyevna. She could never get accustomed to it. She jumped up and ra half-awake to Smerdyakov's room. But it was dark there, and she coul only hear the invalid beginning to gasp and struggle. Then Marf Ignatyevna herself screamed out and was going to call her husband, bu suddenly realized that when she had got up, he was not beside her i bed. She ran back to the bedstead and began groping with her hands, bu the bed was really empty. Then he must have gone out--where? She ra to the steps and timidly called him. She got no answer, of course, bu she caught the sound of groans far away in the garden in the darkness She listened. The groans were repeated, and it was evident they cam from the garden."},
{"text":"\"Good Lord! Just as it was with Lizaveta Smerdyastchaya!\" she though distractedly. She went timidly down the steps and saw that the gat into the garden was open."},
{"text":"\"He must be out there, poor dear,\" she thought. She went up to the gat and all at once she distinctly heard Grigory calling her by name \"Marfa! Marfa!\" in a weak, moaning, dreadful voice."},
{"text":"\"Lord, preserve us from harm!\" Marfa Ignatyevna murmured, and ra towards the voice, and that was how she found Grigory. But she foun him not by the fence where he had been knocked down, but about twent paces off. It appeared later, that he had crawled away on coming t himself, and probably had been a long time getting so far, losin consciousness several times. She noticed at once that he was covere with blood, and screamed at the top of her voice. Grigory was mutterin incoherently:"},
{"text":"\"He has murdered ... his father murdered. ... Why scream, silly ... run ... fetch someone. ...\""},
{"text":"But Marfa continued screaming, and seeing that her master's window wa open and that there was a candle alight in the window, she ran ther and began calling Fyodor Pavlovitch. But peeping in at the window, sh saw a fearful sight. Her master was lying on his back, motionless, o the floor. His light-colored dressing-gown and white shirt were soake with blood. The candle on the table brightly lighted up the blood an the motionless dead face of Fyodor Pavlovitch. Terror-stricken, Marf rushed away from the window, ran out of the garden, drew the bolt o the big gate and ran headlong by the back way to the neighbor, Mary Kondratyevna. Both mother and daughter were asleep, but they waked u at Marfa's desperate and persistent screaming and knocking at th shutter. Marfa, shrieking and screaming incoherently, managed to tel them the main fact, and to beg for assistance. It happened that Fom had come back from his wanderings and was staying the night with them They got him up immediately and all three ran to the scene of th crime. On the way, Marya Kondratyevna remembered that at about eigh o'clock she heard a dreadful scream from their garden, and this was n doubt Grigory's scream, \"Parricide!\" uttered when he caught hold o Mitya's leg."},
{"text":"\"Someone person screamed out and then was silent,\" Marya Kondratyevn explained as she ran. Running to the place where Grigory lay, the tw women with the help of Foma carried him to the lodge. They lighted  candle and saw that Smerdyakov was no better, that he was writhing i convulsions, his eyes fixed in a squint, and that foam was flowing fro his lips. They moistened Grigory's forehead with water mixed wit vinegar, and the water revived him at once. He asked immediately:"},
{"text":"\"Is the master murdered?\""},
{"text":"Then Foma and both the women ran to the house and saw this time tha not only the window, but also the door into the garden was wide open though Fyodor Pavlovitch had for the last week locked himself in ever night and did not allow even Grigory to come in on any pretext. Seein that door open, they were afraid to go in to Fyodor Pavlovitch \"fo fear anything should happen afterwards.\" And when they returned t Grigory, the old man told them to go straight to the police captain Marya Kondratyevna ran there and gave the alarm to the whole party a the police captain's. She arrived only five minutes before Pyot Ilyitch, so that his story came, not as his own surmise and theory, bu as the direct confirmation, by a witness, of the theory held by all, a to the identity of the criminal (a theory he had in the bottom of hi heart refused to believe till that moment)."},
{"text":"It was resolved to act with energy. The deputy police inspector of th town was commissioned to take four witnesses, to enter Fyodo Pavlovitch's house and there to open an inquiry on the spot, accordin to the regular forms, which I will not go into here. The distric doctor, a zealous man, new to his work, almost insisted on accompanyin the police captain, the prosecutor, and the investigating lawyer."},
{"text":"I will note briefly that Fyodor Pavlovitch was found to be quite dead with his skull battered in. But with what? Most likely with the sam weapon with which Grigory had been attacked. And immediately tha weapon was found, Grigory, to whom all possible medical assistance wa at once given, described in a weak and breaking voice how he had bee knocked down. They began looking with a lantern by the fence and foun the brass pestle dropped in a most conspicuous place on the garde path. There were no signs of disturbance in the room where Fyodo Pavlovitch was lying. But by the bed, behind the screen, they picked u from the floor a big and thick envelope with the inscription: \" present of three thousand roubles for my angel Grushenka, if she i willing to come.\" And below had been added by Fyodor Pavlovitch, \"Fo my little chicken.\" There were three seals of red sealing-wax on th envelope, but it had been torn open and was empty: the money had bee removed. They found also on the floor a piece of narrow pink ribbon with which the envelope had been tied up."},
{"text":"One piece of Pyotr Ilyitch's evidence made a great impression on th prosecutor and the investigating magistrate, namely, his idea tha Dmitri Fyodorovitch would shoot himself before daybreak, that he ha resolved to do so, had spoken of it to Ilyitch, had taken the pistols loaded them before him, written a letter, put it in his pocket, etc When Pyotr Ilyitch, though still unwilling to believe in it, threatene to tell someone so as to prevent the suicide, Mitya had answere grinning: \"You'll be too late.\" So they must make haste to Mokroe t find the criminal, before he really did shoot himself."},
{"text":"\"That's clear, that's clear!\" repeated the prosecutor in grea excitement. \"That's just the way with mad fellows like that: `I shal kill myself tomorrow, so I'll make merry till I die!' \""},
{"text":"The story of how he had bought the wine and provisions excited th prosecutor more than ever."},
{"text":"\"Do you remember the fellow that murdered a merchant called Olsufyev gentlemen? He stole fifteen hundred, went at once to have his hai curled, and then, without even hiding the money, carrying it almost i his hand in the same way, he went off to the girls.\""},
{"text":"All were delayed, however, by the inquiry, the search, and th formalities, etc., in the house of Fyodor Pavlovitch. It all took tim and so, two hours before starting, they sent on ahead to Mokroe th officer of the rural police, Mavriky Mavrikyevitch Schmertsov, who ha arrived in the town the morning before to get his pay. He wa instructed to avoid raising the alarm when he reached Mokroe, but t keep constant watch over the \"criminal\" till the arrival of the prope authorities, to procure also witnesses for the arrest, polic constables, and so on. Mavriky Mavrikyevitch did as he was told preserving his incognito, and giving no one but his old acquaintance Trifon Borissovitch, the slightest hint of his secret business. He ha spoken to him just before Mitya met the landlord in the balcony looking for him in the dark, and noticed at once a change in Trifo Borissovitch's face and voice. So neither Mitya nor anyone else kne that he was being watched. The box with the pistols had been carrie off by Trifon Borissovitch and put in a suitable place. Only after fou o'clock, almost at sunrise, all the officials, the police captain, th prosecutor, the investigating lawyer, drove up in two carriages, eac drawn by three horses. The doctor remained at Fyodor Pavlovitch's t make a postmortem next day on the body. But he was particularl interested in the condition of the servant, Smerdyakov."},
{"text":"\"Such violent and protracted epileptic fits, recurring continually fo twenty-four hours, are rarely to be met with, and are of interest t science,\" he declared enthusiastically to his companions, and as the left they laughingly congratulated him on his find. The prosecutor an the investigating lawyer distinctly remembered the doctor's saying tha Smerdyakov could not outlive the night."},
{"text":"After these long, but I think necessary explanations, we will return t that moment of our tale at which we broke off."},
{"text":" III"},
{"text":"The Sufferings of a Soul, the First Ordeal"},
{"text":"And so Mitya sat looking wildly at the people round him, no understanding what was said to him. Suddenly he got up, flung up hi hands, and shouted aloud:"},
{"text":"\"I'm not guilty! I'm not guilty of that blood! I'm not guilty of m father's blood. ... I meant to kill him. But I'm not guilty. Not I.\""},
{"text":"But he had hardly said this, before Grushenka rushed from behind th curtain and flung herself at the police captain's feet."},
{"text":"\"It was my fault! Mine! My wickedness!\" she cried, in a heartrendin voice, bathed in tears, stretching out her clasped hands towards them \"He did it through me. I tortured him and drove him to it. I torture that poor old man that's dead, too, in my wickedness, and brought hi to this! It's my fault, mine first, mine most, my fault!\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, it's your fault! You're the chief criminal! You fury! You harlot You're the most to blame!\" shouted the police captain, threatening he with his hand. But he was quickly and resolutely suppressed. Th prosecutor positively seized hold of him."},
{"text":"\"This is absolutely irregular, Mihail Makarovitch!\" he cried. \"You ar positively hindering the inquiry. ... You're ruining the case. ...\"he almost gasped."},
{"text":"\"Follow the regular course! Follow the regular course!\" cried Nikola Parfenovitch, fearfully excited too, \"otherwise it's absolutel impossible! ...\""},
{"text":"\"Judge us together!\" Grushenka cried frantically, still kneeling \"Punish us together. I will go with him now, if it's to death!\""},
{"text":"\"Grusha, my life, my blood, my holy one!\" Mitya fell on his knee beside her and held her tight in his arms. \"Don't believe her,\" h cried, \"she's not guilty of anything, of any blood, of anything!\""},
{"text":"He remembered afterwards that he was forcibly dragged away from her b several men, and that she was led out, and that when he recovere himself he was sitting at the table. Beside him and behind him stoo the men with metal plates. Facing him on the other side of the tabl sat Nikolay Parfenovitch, the investigating lawyer. He kept persuadin him to drink a little water out of a glass that stood on the table."},
{"text":"\"That will refresh you, that will calm you. Be calm, don't b frightened,\" he added, extremely politely. Mitya (he remembered i afterwards) became suddenly intensely interested in his big rings, on with an amethyst, and another with a transparent bright yellow stone of great brilliance. And long afterwards he remembered with wonder ho those rings had riveted his attention through all those terrible hour of interrogation, so that he was utterly unable to tear himself awa from them and dismiss them, as things that had nothing to do with hi position. On Mitya's left side, in the place where Maximov had bee sitting at the beginning of the evening, the prosecutor was now seated and on Mitya's right hand, where Grushenka had been, was a rosy-cheeke young man in a sort of shabby hunting-jacket, with ink and paper befor him. This was the secretary of the investigating lawyer, who ha brought him with him. The police captain was now standing by the windo at the other end of the room, beside Kalganov, who was sitting there."},
{"text":"\"Drink some water,\" said the investigating lawyer softly, for the tent time."},
{"text":"\"I have drunk it, gentlemen, I have ... but ... come, gentlemen crush me, punish me, decide my fate!\" cried Mitya, staring wit terribly fixed wide-open eyes at the investigating lawyer."},
{"text":"\"So you positively declare that you are not guilty of the death of you father, Fyodor Pavlovitch?\" asked the investigating lawyer, softly bu insistently."},
{"text":"\"I am not guilty. I am guilty of the blood of another old man but no of my father's. And I weep for it! I killed, I killed the old man an knocked him down. ... But it's hard to have to answer for that murde with another, a terrible murder of which I am not guilty. ... It's  terrible accusation, gentlemen, a knockdown blow. But who has killed m father, who has killed him? Who can have killed him if I didn't? It' marvelous, extraordinary, impossible.\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, who can have killed him?\" the investigating lawyer was beginning but Ippolit Kirillovitch, the prosecutor, glancing at him, addresse Mitya."},
{"text":"\"You need not worry yourself about the old servant, Grigor Vassilyevitch. He is alive, he has recovered, and in spite of th terrible blows inflicted, according to his own and your evidence, b you, there seems no doubt that he will live, so the doctor says, a least.\""},
{"text":"\"Alive? He's alive?\" cried Mitya, flinging up his hands. His fac beamed. \"Lord, I thank Thee for the miracle Thou has wrought for me,  sinner and evildoer. That's an answer to my prayer. I've been prayin all night.\" And he crossed himself three times. He was almos breathless."},
{"text":"\"So from this Grigory we have received such important evidenc concerning you, that--\" The prosecutor would have continued, but Mity suddenly jumped up from his chair."},
{"text":"\"One minute, gentlemen, for God's sake, one minute; I will run t her--\""},
{"text":"\"Excuse me, at this moment it's quite impossible,\" Nikolay Parfenovitc almost shrieked. He, too, leapt to his feet. Mitya was seized by th men with the metal plates, but he sat down of his own accord. ..."},
{"text":"\"Gentlemen, what a pity! I wanted to see her for one minute only;  wanted to tell her that it has been washed away, it has gone, tha blood that was weighing on my heart all night, and that I am not  murderer now! Gentlemen, she is my betrothed!\" he said ecstatically an reverently, looking round at them all. \"Oh, thank you, gentlemen! Oh in one minute you have given me new life, new heart! ... That old ma used to carry me in his arms, gentlemen. He used to wash me in the tu when I was a baby three years old, abandoned by everyone, he was like  father to me! ...\""},
{"text":"\"And so you--\" the investigating lawyer began."},
{"text":"\"Allow me, gentlemen, allow me one minute more,\" interposed Mitya putting his elbows on the table and covering his face with his hands \"Let me have a moment to think, let me breathe, gentlemen. All this i horribly upsetting, horribly. A man is not a drum, gentlemen!\""},
{"text":"\"Drink a little more water,\" murmured Nikolay Parfenovitch."},
{"text":"Mitya took his hands from his face and laughed. His eyes wer confident. He seemed completely transformed in a moment. His whol bearing was changed; he was once more the equal of these men, with al of whom he was acquainted, as though they had all met the day before when nothing had happened, at some social gathering. We may note i passing that, on his first arrival, Mitya had been made very welcome a the police captain's, but later, during the last month especially Mitya had hardly called at all, and when the police captain met him, i the street, for instance, Mitya noticed that he frowned and only bowe out of politeness. His acquaintance with the prosecutor was les intimate, though he sometimes paid his wife, a nervous and fancifu lady, visits of politeness, without quite knowing why, and she alway received him graciously and had, for some reason, taken an interest i him up to the last. He had not had time to get to know th investigating lawyer, though he had met him and talked to him twice each time about the fair sex."},
{"text":"\"You're a most skillful lawyer, I see, Nikolay Parfenovitch,\" crie Mitya, laughing gayly, \"but I can help you now. Oh, gentlemen, I fee like a new man, and don't be offended at my addressing you so simpl and directly. I'm rather drunk, too, I'll tell you that frankly.  believe I've had the honor and pleasure of meeting you, Nikola Parfenovitch, at my kinsman Misov's. Gentlemen, gentlemen, I don' pretend to be on equal terms with you. I understand, of course, in wha character I am sitting before you. Oh, of course, there's a horribl suspicion ... hanging over me ... if Grigory has given evidence. ... A horrible suspicion! It's awful, awful, I understand that! But t business, gentlemen, I am ready, and we will make an end of it in on moment; for, listen, listen, gentlemen! Since I know I'm innocent, w can put an end to it in a minute. Can't we? Can't we?\""},
{"text":"Mitya spoke much and quickly, nervously and effusively, as though h positively took his listeners to be his best friends."},
{"text":"\"So, for the present, we will write that you absolutely deny the charg brought against you,\" said Nikolay Parfenovitch, impressively, an bending down to the secretary he dictated to him in an undertone wha to write."},
{"text":"\"Write it down? You want to write that down? Well, write it; I consent I give my full consent, gentlemen, only ... do you see? ... Stay stay, write this. Of disorderly conduct I am guilty, of violence on  poor old man I am guilty. And there is something else at the bottom o my heart, of which I am guilty, too--but that you need not write down\"(he turned suddenly to the secretary); \"that's my personal life gentlemen, that doesn't concern you, the bottom of my heart, that's t say. ... But of the murder of my old father I'm not guilty. That's  wild idea. It's quite a wild idea! ... I will prove you that an you'll be convinced directly. ... You will laugh, gentlemen. You'l laugh yourselves at your suspicion! ...\""},
{"text":"\"Be calm, Dmitri Fyodorovitch,\" said the investigating lawyer evidentl trying to allay Mitya's excitement by his own composure. \"Before we g on with our inquiry, I should like, if you will consent to answer, t hear you confirm the statement that you disliked your father, Fyodo Pavlovitch, that you were involved in continual disputes with him. Her at least, a quarter of an hour ago, you exclaimed that you wanted t kill him: `I didn't kill him,' you said, `but I wanted to kill him.' \""},
{"text":"\"Did I exclaim that? Ach, that may be so, gentlemen! Yes, unhappily,  did want to kill him ... many times I wanted to ... unhappily unhappily!\""},
{"text":"\"You wanted to. Would you consent to explain what motives precisely le you to such a sentiment of hatred for your parent?\""},
{"text":"\"What is there to explain, gentlemen?\" Mitya shrugged his shoulder sullenly, looking down. \"I have never concealed my feelings. All th town knows about it--everyone knows in the tavern. Only lately  declared them in Father Zossima's cell. ... And the very same day, i the evening I beat my father. I nearly killed him, and I swore I'd com again and kill him, before witnesses. ... Oh, a thousand witnesses I've been shouting it aloud for the last month, anyone can tell yo that! ... The fact stares you in the face, it speaks for itself, i cries aloud, but feelings, gentlemen, feelings are another matter. Yo see, gentlemen\"--Mitya frowned--\"it seems to me that about feeling you've no right to question me. I know that you are bound by you office, I quite understand that, but that's my affair, my private intimate affair, yet ... since I haven't concealed my feelings in th past ... in the tavern, for instance, I've talked to everyone, so ... so I won't make a secret of it now. You see, I understand gentlemen, that there are terrible facts against me in this business.  told everyone that I'd kill him, and now, all of a sudden, he's bee killed. So it must have been me! Ha ha! I can make allowances for you gentlemen, I can quite make allowances. I'm struck all of a hea myself, for who can have murdered him, if not I? That's what it come to, isn't it? If not I, who can it be, who? Gentlemen, I want to know I insist on knowing!\" he exclaimed suddenly. \"Where was he murdered How was he murdered? How, and with what? Tell me,\" he asked quickly looking at the two lawyers."},
{"text":"\"We found him in his study, lying on his back on the floor, with hi head battered in,\" said the prosecutor."},
{"text":"\"That's horrible!\" Mitya shuddered and, putting his elbows on th table, hid his face in his right hand."},
{"text":"\"We will continue,\" interposed Nikolay Parfenovitch. \"So what was i that impelled you to this sentiment of hatred? You have asserted i public, I believe, that it was based upon jealousy?\""},
{"text":"\"Well, yes, jealousy. And not only jealousy.\""},
{"text":"\"Disputes about money?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, about money, too.\""},
{"text":"\"There was a dispute about three thousand roubles, I think, which yo claimed as part of your inheritance?\""},
{"text":"\"Three thousand! More, more,\" cried Mitya hotly; \"more than si thousand, more than ten, perhaps. I told everyone so, shouted it a them. But I made up my mind to let it go at three thousand. I wa desperately in need of that three thousand ... so the bundle of note for three thousand that I knew he kept under his pillow, ready fo Grushenka, I considered as simply stolen from me. Yes, gentlemen,  looked upon it as mine, as my own property. ...\""},
{"text":"The prosecutor looked significantly at the investigating lawyer, an had time to wink at him on the sly."},
{"text":"\"We will return to that subject later,\" said the lawyer promptly. \"Yo will allow us to note that point and write it down; that you looke upon that money as your own property?\""},
{"text":"\"Write it down, by all means. I know that's another fact that tell against me, but I'm not afraid of facts and I tell them against myself Do you hear? Do you know, gentlemen, you take me for a different sor of man from what I am,\" he added, suddenly gloomy and dejected. \"Yo have to deal with a man of honor, a man of the highest honor; abov all--don't lose sight of it--a man who's done a lot of nasty things but has always been, and still is, honorable at bottom, in his inne being. I don't know how to express it. That's just what's made m wretched all my life, that I yearned to be honorable, that I was, so t say, a martyr to a sense of honor, seeking for it with a lantern, wit the lantern of Diogenes, and yet all my life I've been doing filth things like all of us, gentlemen ... that is like me alone. That wa a mistake, like me alone, me alone! ... Gentlemen, my head aches ...\" His brows contracted with pain. \"You see, gentlemen, I couldn' bear the look of him, there was something in him ignoble, impudent trampling on everything sacred, something sneering and irreverent loathsome, loathsome. But now that he's dead, I feel differently.\""},
{"text":"\"How do you mean?\""},
{"text":"\"I don't feel differently, but I wish I hadn't hated him so.\""},
{"text":"\"You feel penitent?\""},
{"text":"\"No, not penitent, don't write that. I'm not much good myself, I'm no very beautiful, so I had no right to consider him repulsive. That' what I mean. Write that down, if you like.\""},
{"text":"Saying this Mitya became very mournful. He had grown more and mor gloomy as the inquiry continued."},
{"text":"At that moment another unexpected scene followed. Though Grushenka ha been removed, she had not been taken far away, only into the room nex but one from the blue room, in which the examination was proceeding. I was a little room with one window, next beyond the large room in whic they had danced and feasted so lavishly. She was sitting there with n one by her but Maximov, who was terribly depressed, terribly scared and clung to her side, as though for security. At their door stood on of the peasants with a metal plate on his breast. Grushenka was crying and suddenly her grief was too much for her, she jumped up, flung u her arms and, with a loud wail of sorrow, rushed out of the room t him, to her Mitya, and so unexpectedly that they had not time to sto her. Mitya, hearing her cry, trembled, jumped up, and with a yel rushed impetuously to meet her, not knowing what he was doing. But the were not allowed to come together, though they saw one another. He wa seized by the arms. He struggled, and tried to tear himself away. I took three or four men to hold him. She was seized too, and he saw he stretching out her arms to him, crying aloud as they carried her away When the scene was over, he came to himself again, sitting in the sam place as before, opposite the investigating lawyer, and crying out t them:"},
{"text":"\"What do you want with her? Why do you torment her? She's done nothing nothing! ...\""},
{"text":"The lawyers tried to soothe him. About ten minutes passed like this. A last Mihail Makarovitch, who had been absent, came hurriedly into th room, and said in a loud and excited voice to the prosecutor:"},
{"text":"\"She's been removed, she's downstairs. Will you allow me to say on word to this unhappy man, gentlemen? In your presence, gentlemen, i your presence.\""},
{"text":"\"By all means, Mihail Makarovitch,\" answered the investigating lawyer \"In the present case we have nothing against it.\""},
{"text":"\"Listen, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, my dear fellow,\" began the polic captain, and there was a look of warm, almost fatherly, feeling for th luckless prisoner on his excited face. \"I took your Agrafen Alexandrovna downstairs myself, and confided her to the care of th landlord's daughters, and that old fellow Maximov is with her all th time. And I soothed her, do you hear? I soothed and calmed her.  impressed on her that you have to clear yourself, so she mustn't hinde you, must not depress you, or you may lose your head and say the wron thing in your evidence. In fact, I talked to her and she understood She's a sensible girl, my boy, a good-hearted girl, she would hav kissed my old hands, begging help for you. She sent me herself, to tel you not to worry about her. And I must go, my dear fellow, I must g and tell her that you are calm and comforted about her. And so you mus be calm, do you understand? I was unfair to her; she is a Christia soul, gentlemen, yes, I tell you, she's a gentle soul, and not to blam for anything. So what am I to tell her, Dmitri Fyodorovitch? Will yo sit quiet or not?\""},
{"text":"The good-natured police captain said a great deal that was irregular but Grushenka's suffering, a fellow creature's suffering, touched hi good-natured heart, and tears stood in his eyes. Mitya jumped up an rushed towards him."},
{"text":"\"Forgive me, gentlemen, oh, allow me, allow me!\" he cried. \"You've th heart of an angel, an angel, Mihail Makarovitch, I thank you for her.  will, I will be calm, cheerful, in fact. Tell her, in the kindness o your heart, that I am cheerful, quite cheerful, that I shall b laughing in a minute, knowing that she has a guardian angel like you.  shall have done with all this directly, and as soon as I'm free, I'l be with her, she'll see, let her wait. Gentlemen,\" he said, turning t the two lawyers, \"now I'll open my whole soul to you; I'll pour ou everything. We'll finish this off directly, finish it off gayly. W shall laugh at it in the end, shan't we? But, gentlemen, that woman i the queen of my heart. Oh, let me tell you that. That one thing I'l tell you now. ... I see I'm with honorable men. She is my light, sh is my holy one, and if only you knew! Did you hear her cry, `I'll go t death with you'? And what have I, a penniless beggar, done for her? Wh such love for me? How can a clumsy, ugly brute like me, with my ugl face, deserve such love, that she is ready to go to exile with me? An how she fell down at your feet for my sake, just now! ... and ye she's proud and has done nothing! How can I help adoring her, how can  help crying out and rushing to her as I did just now? Gentlemen forgive me! But now, now I am comforted.\""},
{"text":"And he sank back in his chair and, covering his face with his hands burst into tears. But they were happy tears. He recovered himsel instantly. The old police captain seemed much pleased, and the lawyer also. They felt that the examination was passing into a new phase. Whe the police captain went out, Mitya was positively gay."},
{"text":"\"Now, gentlemen, I am at your disposal, entirely at your disposal. An if it were not for all these trivial details, we should understand on another in a minute. I'm at those details again. I'm at your disposal gentlemen, but I declare that we must have mutual confidence, you in m and I in you, or there'll be no end to it. I speak in your interests To business, gentlemen, to business, and don't rummage in my soul don't tease me with trifles, but only ask me about facts and wha matters, and I will satisfy you at once. And damn the details!\""},
{"text":"So spoke Mitya. The interrogation began again."},
{"text":" IV"},
{"text":"The Second Ordeal"},
{"text":"\"You don't know how you encourage us, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, by you readiness to answer,\" said Nikolay Parfenovitch, with an animated air and obvious satisfaction beaming in his very prominent, shortsighted light gray eyes, from which he had removed his spectacles a momen before. \"And you have made a very just remark about the mutua confidence, without which it is sometimes positively impossible to ge on in cases of such importance, if the suspected party really hopes an desires to defend himself and is in a position to do so. We, on ou side, will do everything in our power, and you can see for yourself ho we are conducting the case. You approve, Ippolit Kirillovitch?\" H turned to the prosecutor."},
{"text":"\"Oh, undoubtedly,\" replied the prosecutor. His tone was somewhat cold compared with Nikolay Parfenovitch's impulsiveness."},
{"text":"I will note once for all that Nikolay Parfenovitch, who had but latel arrived among us, had from the first felt marked respect for Ippoli Kirillovitch, our prosecutor, and had become almost his bosom friend He was almost the only person who put implicit faith in Ippoli Kirillovitch's extraordinary talents as a psychologist and orator an in the justice of his grievance. He had heard of him in Petersburg. O the other hand, young Nikolay Parfenovitch was the only person in th whole world whom our \"unappreciated\" prosecutor genuinely liked. O their way to Mokroe they had time to come to an understanding about th present case. And now as they sat at the table, the sharp-witted junio caught and interpreted every indication on his senior colleague' face--half a word, a glance, or a wink."},
{"text":"\"Gentlemen, only let me tell my own story and don't interrupt me wit trivial questions and I'll tell you everything in a moment,\" said Mity excitedly."},
{"text":"\"Excellent! Thank you. But before we proceed to listen to you communication, will you allow me to inquire as to another little fac of great interest to us? I mean the ten roubles you borrowed yesterda at about five o'clock on the security of your pistols, from you friend, Pyotr Ilyitch Perhotin.\""},
{"text":"\"I pledged them, gentlemen. I pledged them for ten roubles. What more That's all about it. As soon as I got back to town I pledged them.\""},
{"text":"\"You got back to town? Then you had been out of town?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, I went a journey of forty versts into the country. Didn't yo know?\""},
{"text":"The prosecutor and Nikolay Parfenovitch exchanged glances."},
{"text":"\"Well, how would it be if you began your story with a systemati description of all you did yesterday, from the morning onwards? Allo us, for instance, to inquire why you were absent from the town, an just when you left and when you came back--all those facts.\""},
{"text":"\"You should have asked me like that from the beginning,\" cried Mitya laughing aloud, \"and, if you like, we won't begin from yesterday, bu from the morning of the day before; then you'll understand how, why and where I went. I went the day before yesterday, gentlemen, to  merchant of the town, called Samsonov, to borrow three thousand rouble from him on safe security. It was a pressing matter, gentlemen, it wa a sudden necessity.\""},
{"text":"\"Allow me to interrupt you,\" the prosecutor put in politely. \"Why wer you in such pressing need for just that sum, three thousand?\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, gentlemen, you needn't go into details, how, when and why, and wh just so much money, and not so much, and all that rigmarole. Why, it'l run to three volumes, and then you'll want an epilogue!\""},
{"text":"Mitya said all this with the good-natured but impatient familiarity o a man who is anxious to tell the whole truth and is full of the bes intentions."},
{"text":"\"Gentlemen!\"--he corrected himself hurriedly--\"don't be vexed with m for my restiveness, I beg you again. Believe me once more, I feel th greatest respect for you and understand the true position of affairs Don't think I'm drunk. I'm quite sober now. And, besides, being drun would be no hindrance. It's with me, you know, like the saying: `Whe he is sober, he is a fool; when he is drunk, he is a wise man.' Ha ha But I see, gentlemen, it's not the proper thing to make jokes to you till we've had our explanation, I mean. And I've my own dignity to kee up, too. I quite understand the difference for the moment. I am, afte all, in the position of a criminal, and so, far from being on equa terms with you. And it's your business to watch me. I can't expect yo to pat me on the head for what I did to Grigory, for one can't brea old men's heads with impunity. I suppose you'll put me away for him fo six months, or a year perhaps, in a house of correction. I don't kno what the punishment is--but it will be without loss of the rights o my rank, without loss of my rank, won't it? So you see, gentlemen,  understand the distinction between us. ... But you must see that yo could puzzle God Himself with such questions. `How did you step? Wher did you step? When did you step? And on what did you step?' I shall ge mixed up, if you go on like this, and you will put it all down agains me. And what will that lead to? To nothing! And even if it's nonsens I'm talking now, let me finish, and you, gentlemen, being men of hono and refinement, will forgive me! I'll finish by asking you, gentlemen to drop that conventional method of questioning. I mean, beginning fro some miserable trifle, how I got up, what I had for breakfast, how  spat, and where I spat, and so distracting the attention of th criminal, suddenly stun him with an overwhelming question, `Whom di you murder? Whom did you rob?' Ha ha! That's your regulation method that's where all your cunning comes in. You can put peasants off thei guard like that, but not me. I know the tricks. I've been in th service, too. Ha ha ha! You're not angry, gentlemen? You forgive m impertinence?\" he cried, looking at them with a good-nature that wa almost surprising. \"It's only Mitya Karamazov, you know, so you ca overlook it. It would be inexcusable in a sensible man; but you ca forgive it in Mitya. Ha ha!\""},
{"text":"Nikolay Parfenovitch listened, and laughed too. Though the prosecuto did not laugh, he kept his eyes fixed keenly on Mitya, as thoug anxious not to miss the least syllable, the slightest movement, th smallest twitch of any feature of his face."},
{"text":"\"That's how we have treated you from the beginning,\" said Nikola Parfenovitch, still laughing. \"We haven't tried to put you out b asking how you got up in the morning and what you had for breakfast. W began, indeed, with questions of the greatest importance.\""},
{"text":"\"I understand. I saw it and appreciated it, and I appreciate still mor your present kindness to me, an unprecedented kindness, worthy of you noble hearts. We three here are gentlemen, and let everything be on th footing of mutual confidence between educated, well-bred people, wh have the common bond of noble birth and honor. In any case, allow me t look upon you as my best friends at this moment of my life, at thi moment when my honor is assailed. That's no offense to you, gentlemen is it?\""},
{"text":"\"On the contrary. You've expressed all that so well, Dmitr Fyodorovitch,\" Nikolay Parfenovitch answered with dignifie approbation."},
{"text":"\"And enough of those trivial questions, gentlemen, all those trick questions!\" cried Mitya enthusiastically. \"Or there's simply no knowin where we shall get to! Is there?\""},
{"text":"\"I will follow your sensible advice entirely,\" the prosecuto interposed, addressing Mitya. \"I don't withdraw my question, however It is now vitally important for us to know exactly why you needed tha sum, I mean precisely three thousand.\""},
{"text":"\"Why I needed it? ... Oh, for one thing and another. ... Well, i was to pay a debt.\""},
{"text":"\"A debt to whom?\""},
{"text":"\"That I absolutely refuse to answer, gentlemen. Not because I couldn't or because I shouldn't dare, or because it would be damaging, for it' all a paltry matter and absolutely trifling, but--I won't, becaus it's a matter of principle: that's my private life, and I won't allo any intrusion into my private life. That's my principle. Your questio has no bearing on the case, and whatever has nothing to do with th case is my private affair. I wanted to pay a debt. I wanted to pay  debt of honor but to whom I won't say.\""},
{"text":"\"Allow me to make a note of that,\" said the prosecutor."},
{"text":"\"By all means. Write down that I won't say, that I won't. Write that  should think it dishonorable to say. Ech! you can write it; you'v nothing else to do with your time.\""},
{"text":"\"Allow me to caution you, sir, and to remind you once more, if you ar unaware of it,\" the prosecutor began, with a peculiar and ster impressiveness, \"that you have a perfect right not to answer th questions put to you now, and we on our side have no right to extort a answer from you, if you decline to give it for one reason or another That is entirely a matter for your personal decision. But it is ou duty, on the other hand, in such cases as the present, to explain an set before you the degree of injury you will be doing yourself b refusing to give this or that piece of evidence. After which I will be you to continue.\""},
{"text":"\"Gentlemen, I'm not angry ... I ...\" Mitya muttered in a rathe disconcerted tone. \"Well, gentlemen, you see, that Samsonov to whom  went then ...\""},
{"text":"We will, of course, not reproduce his account of what is known to th reader already. Mitya was impatiently anxious not to omit the slightes detail. At the same time he was in a hurry to get it over. But as h gave his evidence it was written down, and therefore they ha continually to pull him up. Mitya disliked this, but submitted; go angry, though still good-humoredly. He did, it is true, exclaim, fro time to time, \"Gentlemen, that's enough to make an angel out o patience!\" Or, \"Gentlemen, it's no good your irritating me.\""},
{"text":"But even though he exclaimed he still preserved for a time his geniall expansive mood. So he told them how Samsonov had made a fool of him tw days before. (He had completely realized by now that he had bee fooled.) The sale of his watch for six roubles to obtain money for th journey was something new to the lawyers. They were at once greatl interested, and even, to Mitya's intense indignation, thought i necessary to write the fact down as a secondary confirmation of th circumstance that he had hardly a farthing in his pocket at the time Little by little Mitya began to grow surly. Then, after describing hi journey to see Lyagavy, the night spent in the stifling hut, and so on he came to his return to the town. Here he began, without bein particularly urged, to give a minute account of the agonies of jealous he endured on Grushenka's account."},
{"text":"He was heard with silent attention. They inquired particularly into th circumstance of his having a place of ambush in Marya Kondratyevna' house at the back of Fyodor Pavlovitch's garden to keep watch o Grushenka, and of Smerdyakov's bringing him information. They lai particular stress on this, and noted it down. Of his jealousy he spok warmly and at length, and though inwardly ashamed at exposing his mos intimate feelings to \"public ignominy,\" so to speak, he evidentl overcame his shame in order to tell the truth. The frigid severity with which the investigating lawyer, and still more the prosecutor stared intently at him as he told his story, disconcerted him at las considerably."},
{"text":"\"That boy, Nikolay Parfenovitch, to whom I was talking nonsense abou women only a few days ago, and that sickly prosecutor are not worth m telling this to,\" he reflected mournfully. \"It's ignominious. `B patient, humble, hold thy peace.' \" He wound up his reflections wit that line. But he pulled himself together to go on again. When he cam to telling of his visit to Madame Hohlakov, he regained his spirits an even wished to tell a little anecdote of that lady which had nothing t do with the case. But the investigating lawyer stopped him, and civill suggested that he should pass on to \"more essential matters.\" At last when he described his despair and told them how, when he left Madam Hohlakov's, he thought that he'd \"get three thousand if he had t murder someone to do it,\" they stopped him again and noted down that h had \"meant to murder someone.\" Mitya let them write it without protest At last he reached the point in his story when he learned tha Grushenka had deceived him and had returned from Samsonov's as soon a he left her there, though she had said that she would stay there til midnight."},
{"text":"\"If I didn't kill Fenya then, gentlemen, it was only because I hadn' time,\" broke from him suddenly at that point in his story. That, too was carefully written down. Mitya waited gloomily, and was beginning t tell how he ran into his father's garden when the investigating lawye suddenly stopped him, and opening the big portfolio that lay on th sofa beside him he brought out the brass pestle."},
{"text":"\"Do you recognize this object?\" he asked, showing it to Mitya."},
{"text":"\"Oh, yes,\" he laughed gloomily. \"Of course I recognize it. Let me hav a look at it. ... Damn it, never mind!\""},
{"text":"\"You have forgotten to mention it,\" observed the investigating lawyer."},
{"text":"\"Hang it all, I shouldn't have concealed it from you. Do you suppose  could have managed without it? It simply escaped my memory.\""},
{"text":"\"Be so good as to tell us precisely how you came to arm yourself wit it.\""},
{"text":"\"Certainly I will be so good, gentlemen.\""},
{"text":"And Mitya described how he took the pestle and ran."},
{"text":"\"But what object had you in view in arming yourself with such  weapon?\""},
{"text":"\"What object? No object. I just picked it up and ran off.\""},
{"text":"\"What for, if you had no object?\""},
{"text":"Mitya's wrath flared up. He looked intently at \"the boy\" and smile gloomily and malignantly. He was feeling more and more ashamed a having told \"such people\" the story of his jealousy so sincerely an spontaneously."},
{"text":"\"Bother the pestle!\" broke from him suddenly."},
{"text":"\"But still--\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, to keep off dogs. ... Oh, because it was dark. ... In cas anything turned up.\""},
{"text":"\"But have you ever on previous occasions taken a weapon with you whe you went out, since you're afraid of the dark?\""},
{"text":"\"Ugh! damn it all, gentlemen! There's positively no talking to you!\"cried Mitya, exasperated beyond endurance, and turning to th secretary, crimson with anger, he said quickly, with a note of fury i his voice:"},
{"text":"\"Write down at once ... at once ... `that I snatched up the pestl to go and kill my father ... Fyodor Pavlovitch ... by hitting hi on the head with it!' Well, now are you satisfied, gentlemen? Are you minds relieved?\" he said, glaring defiantly at the lawyers."},
{"text":"\"We quite understand that you made that statement just now throug exasperation with us and the questions we put to you, which yo consider trivial, though they are, in fact, essential,\" the prosecuto remarked dryly in reply."},
{"text":"\"Well, upon my word, gentlemen! Yes, I took the pestle. ... What doe one pick things up for at such moments? I don't know what for.  snatched it up and ran--that's all. For to me, gentlemen, passons, o I declare I won't tell you any more.\""},
{"text":"He sat with his elbows on the table and his head in his hand. He sa sideways to them and gazed at the wall, struggling against a feeling o nausea. He had, in fact, an awful inclination to get up and declar that he wouldn't say another word, \"not if you hang me for it.\""},
{"text":"\"You see, gentlemen,\" he said at last, with difficulty controllin himself, \"you see. I listen to you and am haunted by a dream. .. It's a dream I have sometimes, you know. ... I often dream it--it' always the same ... that someone is hunting me, someone I'm awfull afraid of ... that he's hunting me in the dark, in the night .. tracking me, and I hide somewhere from him, behind a door or cupboard hide in a degrading way, and the worst of it is, he always knows wher I am, but he pretends not to know where I am on purpose, to prolong m agony, to enjoy my terror. ... That's just what you're doing now It's just like that!\""},
{"text":"\"Is that the sort of thing you dream about?\" inquired the prosecutor."},
{"text":"\"Yes, it is. Don't you want to write it down?\" said Mitya, with  distorted smile."},
{"text":"\"No; no need to write it down. But still you do have curious dreams.\""},
{"text":"\"It's not a question of dreams now, gentlemen--this is realism, thi is real life! I'm a wolf and you're the hunters. Well, hunt him down!\""},
{"text":"\"You are wrong to make such comparisons ...\" began Nikola Parfenovitch, with extraordinary softness."},
{"text":"\"No, I'm not wrong, not at all!\" Mitya flared up again, though hi outburst of wrath had obviously relieved his heart. He grew mor good-humored at every word. \"You may not trust a criminal or a man o trial tortured by your questions, but an honorable man, the honorabl impulses of the heart (I say that boldly!)--no! That you must believ you have no right indeed ... but--"},
{"text":"  Be silent, heart   Be patient, humble, hold thy peace."},
{"text":"Well, shall I go on?\" he broke off gloomily."},
{"text":"\"If you'll be so kind,\" answered Nikolay Parfenovitch."},
{"text":" V"},
{"text":"The Third Ordeal"},
{"text":"Though Mitya spoke sullenly, it was evident that he was trying mor than ever not to forget or miss a single detail of his story. He tol them how he had leapt over the fence into his father's garden; how h had gone up to the window; told them all that had passed under th window. Clearly, precisely, distinctly, he described the feelings tha troubled him during those moments in the garden when he longed s terribly to know whether Grushenka was with his father or not. But strange to say, both the lawyers listened now with a sort of awfu reserve, looked coldly at him, asked few questions. Mitya could gathe nothing from their faces."},
{"text":"\"They're angry and offended,\" he thought. \"Well, bother them!\""},
{"text":"When he described how he made up his mind at last to make the \"signal\"to his father that Grushenka had come, so that he should open th window, the lawyers paid no attention to the word \"signal,\" as thoug they entirely failed to grasp the meaning of the word in thi connection: so much so, that Mitya noticed it. Coming at last to th moment when, seeing his father peering out of the window, his hatre flared up and he pulled the pestle out of his pocket, he suddenly, a though of design, stopped short. He sat gazing at the wall and wa aware that their eyes were fixed upon him."},
{"text":"\"Well?\" said the investigating lawyer. \"You pulled out the weapon and ... and what happened then?\""},
{"text":"\"Then? Why, then I murdered him ... hit him on the head and cracke his skull. ... I suppose that's your story. That's it!\""},
{"text":"His eyes suddenly flashed. All his smothered wrath suddenly flamed u with extraordinary violence in his soul."},
{"text":"\"Our story?\" repeated Nikolay Parfenovitch. \"Well--and yours?\""},
{"text":"Mitya dropped his eyes and was a long time silent."},
{"text":"\"My story, gentlemen? Well, it was like this,\" he began softly \"Whether it was someone's tears, or my mother prayed to God, or a goo angel kissed me at that instant, I don't know. But the devil wa conquered. I rushed from the window and ran to the fence. My father wa alarmed and, for the first time, he saw me then, cried out, and spran back from the window. I remember that very well. I ran across th garden to the fence ... and there Grigory caught me, when I wa sitting on the fence.\""},
{"text":"At that point he raised his eyes at last and looked at his listeners They seemed to be staring at him with perfectly unruffled attention.  sort of paroxysm of indignation seized on Mitya's soul."},
{"text":"\"Why, you're laughing at me at this moment, gentlemen!\" he broke of suddenly."},
{"text":"\"What makes you think that?\" observed Nikolay Parfenovitch."},
{"text":"\"You don't believe one word--that's why! I understand, of course, tha I have come to the vital point. The old man's lying there now with hi skull broken, while I--after dramatically describing how I wanted t kill him, and how I snatched up the pestle--I suddenly run away fro the window. A romance! Poetry! As though one could believe a fellow o his word. Ha ha! You are scoffers, gentlemen!\""},
{"text":"And he swung round on his chair so that it creaked."},
{"text":"\"And did you notice,\" asked the prosecutor suddenly, as though no observing Mitya's excitement, \"did you notice when you ran away fro the window, whether the door into the garden was open?\""},
{"text":"\"No, it was not open.\""},
{"text":"\"It was not?\""},
{"text":"\"It was shut. And who could open it? Bah! the door. Wait a bit!\" h seemed suddenly to bethink himself, and almost with a start:"},
{"text":"\"Why, did you find the door open?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, it was open.\""},
{"text":"\"Why, who could have opened it if you did not open it yourselves?\"cried Mitya, greatly astonished."},
{"text":"\"The door stood open, and your father's murderer undoubtedly went in a that door, and, having accomplished the crime, went out again by th same door,\" the prosecutor pronounced deliberately, as though chiselin out each word separately. \"That is perfectly clear. The murder wa committed in the room and not through the window; that is absolutel certain from the examination that has been made, from the position o the body and everything. There can be no doubt of that circumstance.\""},
{"text":"Mitya was absolutely dumbfounded."},
{"text":"\"But that's utterly impossible!\" he cried, completely at a loss. \"I ... I didn't go in. ... I tell you positively, definitely, the doo was shut the whole time I was in the garden, and when I ran out of th garden. I only stood at the window and saw him through the window That's all, that's all. ... I remember to the last minute. And if  didn't remember, it would be just the same. I know it, for no one kne the signals except Smerdyakov, and me, and the dead man. And h wouldn't have opened the door to anyone in the world without th signals.\""},
{"text":"\"Signals? What signals?\" asked the prosecutor, with greedy, almos hysterical, curiosity. He instantly lost all trace of his reserve an dignity. He asked the question with a sort of cringing timidity. H scented an important fact of which he had known nothing, and wa already filled with dread that Mitya might be unwilling to disclose it."},
{"text":"\"So you didn't know!\" Mitya winked at him with a malicious and mockin smile. \"What if I won't tell you? From whom could you find out? No on knew about the signals except my father, Smerdyakov, and me: that wa all. Heaven knew, too, but it won't tell you. But it's an interestin fact. There's no knowing what you might build on it. Ha ha! Tak comfort, gentlemen, I'll reveal it. You've some foolish idea in you hearts. You don't know the man you have to deal with! You have to d with a prisoner who gives evidence against himself, to his own damage Yes, for I'm a man of honor and you--are not.\""},
{"text":"The prosecutor swallowed this without a murmur. He was trembling wit impatience to hear the new fact. Minutely and diffusely Mitya told the everything about the signals invented by Fyodor Pavlovitch fo Smerdyakov. He told them exactly what every tap on the window meant tapped the signals on the table, and when Nikolay Parfenovitch sai that he supposed he, Mitya, had tapped the signal \"Grushenka has come,\"when he tapped to his father, he answered precisely that he had tappe that signal, that \"Grushenka had come.\""},
{"text":"\"So now you can build up your tower,\" Mitya broke off, and again turne away from them contemptuously."},
{"text":"\"So no one knew of the signals but your dead father, you, and the vale Smerdyakov? And no one else?\" Nikolay Parfenovitch inquired once more."},
{"text":"\"Yes. The valet Smerdyakov, and Heaven. Write down about Heaven. Tha may be of use. Besides, you will need God yourselves.\""},
{"text":"And they had already, of course, begun writing it down. But while the wrote, the prosecutor said suddenly, as though pitching on a new idea:"},
{"text":"\"But if Smerdyakov also knew of these signals and you absolutely den all responsibility for the death of your father, was it not he perhaps, who knocked the signal agreed upon, induced your father t open to him, and then ... committed the crime?\""},
{"text":"Mitya turned upon him a look of profound irony and intense hatred. Hi silent stare lasted so long that it made the prosecutor blink."},
{"text":"\"You've caught the fox again,\" commented Mitya at last; \"you've got th beast by the tail. Ha ha! I see through you, Mr. Prosecutor. Yo thought, of course, that I should jump at that, catch at you prompting, and shout with all my might, `Aie! it's Smerdyakov; he's th murderer.' Confess that's what you thought. Confess, and I'll go on.\""},
{"text":"But the prosecutor did not confess. He held his tongue and waited."},
{"text":"\"You're mistaken. I'm not going to shout `It's Smerdyakov,' \" sai Mitya."},
{"text":"\"And you don't even suspect him?\""},
{"text":"\"Why, do you suspect him?\""},
{"text":"\"He is suspected, too.\""},
{"text":"Mitya fixed his eyes on the floor."},
{"text":"\"Joking apart,\" he brought out gloomily. \"Listen. From the ver beginning, almost from the moment when I ran out to you from behind th curtain, I've had the thought of Smerdyakov in my mind. I've bee sitting here, shouting that I'm innocent and thinking all the tim `Smerdyakov!' I can't get Smerdyakov out of my head. In fact, I, too thought of Smerdyakov just now; but only for a second. Almost at once  thought, `No, it's not Smerdyakov.' It's not his doing, gentlemen.\""},
{"text":"\"In that case is there anybody else you suspect?\" Nikolay Parfenovitc inquired cautiously."},
{"text":"\"I don't know anyone it could be, whether it's the hand of Heaven o Satan, but ... not Smerdyakov,\" Mitya jerked out with decision."},
{"text":"\"But what makes you affirm so confidently and emphatically that it' not he?\""},
{"text":"\"From my conviction--my impression. Because Smerdyakov is a man of th most abject character and a coward. He's not a coward, he's the epitom of all the cowardice in the world walking on two legs. He has the hear of a chicken. When he talked to me, he was always trembling for fear  should kill him, though I never raised my hand against him. He fell a my feet and blubbered; he has kissed these very boots, literally beseeching me `not to frighten him.' Do you hear? `Not to frighte him.' What a thing to say! Why, I offered him money. He's a pulin chicken--sickly, epileptic, weak-minded--a child of eight coul thrash him. He has no character worth talking about. It's no Smerdyakov, gentlemen. He doesn't care for money; he wouldn't take m presents. Besides, what motive had he for murdering the old man? Why he's very likely his son, you know--his natural son. Do you kno that?\""},
{"text":"\"We have heard that legend. But you are your father's son, too, yo know; yet you yourself told everyone you meant to murder him.\""},
{"text":"\"That's a thrust! And a nasty, mean one, too! I'm not afraid! Oh gentlemen, isn't it too base of you to say that to my face? It's base because I told you that myself. I not only wanted to murder him, but  might have done it. And, what's more, I went out of my way to tell yo of my own accord that I nearly murdered him. But, you see, I didn' murder him; you see, my guardian angel saved me--that's what you'v not taken into account. And that's why it's so base of you. For  didn't kill him, I didn't kill him! Do you hear, I did not kill him.\""},
{"text":"He was almost choking. He had not been so moved before during the whol interrogation."},
{"text":"\"And what has he told you, gentlemen--Smerdyakov, I mean?\" he adde suddenly, after a pause. \"May I ask that question?\""},
{"text":"\"You may ask any question,\" the prosecutor replied with frigi severity, \"any question relating to the facts of the case, and we are I repeat, bound to answer every inquiry you make. We found the servan Smerdyakov, concerning whom you inquire, lying unconscious in his bed in an epileptic fit of extreme severity, that had recurred, possibly ten times. The doctor who was with us told us, after seeing him, tha he may possibly not outlive the night.\""},
{"text":"\"Well, if that's so, the devil must have killed him,\" broke suddenl from Mitya, as though until that moment he had been asking himself \"Was it Smerdyakov or not?\""},
{"text":"\"We will come back to this later,\" Nikolay Parfenovitch decided. \"Now wouldn't you like to continue your statement?\""},
{"text":"Mitya asked for a rest. His request was courteously granted. Afte resting, he went on with his story. But he was evidently depressed. H was exhausted, mortified and morally shaken. To make things worse th prosecutor exasperated him, as though intentionally, by vexatiou interruptions about \"trifling points.\" Scarcely had Mitya describe how, sitting on the wall, he had struck Grigory on the head with th pestle, while the old man had hold of his left leg, and how he had the jumped down to look at him, when the prosecutor stopped him to ask hi to describe exactly how he was sitting on the wall. Mitya wa surprised."},
{"text":"\"Oh, I was sitting like this, astride, one leg on one side of the wal and one on the other.\""},
{"text":"\"And the pestle?\""},
{"text":"\"The pestle was in my hand.\""},
{"text":"\"Not in your pocket? Do you remember that precisely? Was it a violen blow you gave him?\""},
{"text":"\"It must have been a violent one. But why do you ask?\""},
{"text":"\"Would you mind sitting on the chair just as you sat on the wall the and showing us just how you moved your arm, and in what direction?\""},
{"text":"\"You're making fun of me, aren't you?\" asked Mitya, looking haughtil at the speaker; but the latter did not flinch."},
{"text":"Mitya turned abruptly, sat astride on his chair, and swung his arm."},
{"text":"\"This was how I struck him! That's how I knocked him down! What more d you want?\""},
{"text":"\"Thank you. May I trouble you now to explain why you jumped down, wit what object, and what you had in view?\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, hang it! ... I jumped down to look at the man I'd hurt ...  don't know what for!\""},
{"text":"\"Though you were so excited and were running away?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, though I was excited and running away.\""},
{"text":"\"You wanted to help him?\""},
{"text":"\"Help! ... Yes, perhaps I did want to help him. ... I don' remember.\""},
{"text":"\"You don't remember? Then you didn't quite know what you were doing?\""},
{"text":"\"Not at all. I remember everything--every detail. I jumped down t look at him, and wiped his face with my handkerchief.\""},
{"text":"\"We have seen your handkerchief. Did you hope to restore him t consciousness?\""},
{"text":"\"I don't know whether I hoped it. I simply wanted to make sure whethe he was alive or not.\""},
{"text":"\"Ah! You wanted to be sure? Well, what then?\""},
{"text":"\"I'm not a doctor. I couldn't decide. I ran away thinking I'd kille him. And now he's recovered.\""},
{"text":"\"Excellent,\" commented the prosecutor. \"Thank you. That's all I wanted Kindly proceed.\""},
{"text":"Alas! it never entered Mitya's head to tell them, though he remembere it, that he had jumped back from pity, and standing over the prostrat figure had even uttered some words of regret: \"You've come to grief old man--there's no help for it. Well, there you must lie.\""},
{"text":"The prosecutor could only draw one conclusion: that the man had jumpe back \"at such a moment and in such excitement simply with the object o ascertaining whether the only witness of his crime were dead; that h must therefore have been a man of great strength, coolness, decisio and foresight even at such a moment,\" ... and so on. The prosecuto was satisfied: \"I've provoked the nervous fellow by `trifles' and h has said more than he meant to.\""},
{"text":"With painful effort Mitya went on. But this time he was pulled u immediately by Nikolay Parfenovitch."},
{"text":"\"How came you to run to the servant, Fedosya Markovna, with your hand so covered with blood, and, as it appears, your face, too?\""},
{"text":"\"Why, I didn't notice the blood at all at the time,\" answered Mitya."},
{"text":"\"That's quite likely. It does happen sometimes.\" The prosecuto exchanged glances with Nikolay Parfenovitch."},
{"text":"\"I simply didn't notice. You're quite right there, prosecutor,\" Mity assented suddenly."},
{"text":"Next came the account of Mitya's sudden determination to \"step aside\"and make way for their happiness. But he could not make up his mind t open his heart to them as before, and tell them about \"the queen of hi soul.\" He disliked speaking of her before these chilly persons \"wh were fastening on him like bugs.\" And so in response to thei reiterated questions he answered briefly and abruptly:"},
{"text":"\"Well, I made up my mind to kill myself. What had I left to live for That question stared me in the face. Her first rightful lover had com back, the man who wronged her but who'd hurried back to offer his love after five years, and atone for the wrong with marriage. ... So  knew it was all over for me. ... And behind me disgrace, and tha blood--Grigory's. ... What had I to live for? So I went to redee the pistols I had pledged, to load them and put a bullet in my brai tomorrow.\""},
{"text":"\"And a grand feast the night before?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, a grand feast the night before. Damn it all, gentlemen! Do mak haste and finish it. I meant to shoot myself not far from here, beyon the village, and I'd planned to do it at five o'clock in the morning And I had a note in my pocket already. I wrote it at Perhotin's when  loaded my pistols. Here's the letter. Read it! It's not for you I tel it,\" he added contemptuously. He took it from his waistcoat pocket an flung it on the table. The lawyers read it with curiosity, and, as i usual, added it to the papers connected with the case."},
{"text":"\"And you didn't even think of washing your hands at Perhotin's? Yo were not afraid then of arousing suspicion?\""},
{"text":"\"What suspicion? Suspicion or not, I should have galloped here just th same, and shot myself at five o'clock, and you wouldn't have been i time to do anything. If it hadn't been for what's happened to m father, you would have known nothing about it, and wouldn't have com here. Oh, it's the devil's doing. It was the devil murdered father, i was through the devil that you found it out so soon. How did you manag to get here so quick? It's marvelous, a dream!\""},
{"text":"\"Mr. Perhotin informed us that when you came to him, you held in you hands ... your bloodstained hands ... your money ... a lot o money ... a bundle of hundred-rouble notes, and that his servant-bo saw it too.\""},
{"text":"\"That's true, gentlemen. I remember it was so.\""},
{"text":"\"Now, there's one little point presents itself. Can you inform us,\"Nikolay Parfenovitch began, with extreme gentleness, \"where did you ge so much money all of a sudden, when it appears from the facts, from th reckoning of time, that you had not been home?\""},
{"text":"The prosecutor's brows contracted at the question being asked s plainly, but he did not interrupt Nikolay Parfenovitch."},
{"text":"\"No, I didn't go home,\" answered Mitya, apparently perfectly composed but looking at the floor."},
{"text":"\"Allow me then to repeat my question,\" Nikolay Parfenovitch went on a though creeping up to the subject. \"Where were you able to procure suc a sum all at once, when by your own confession, at five o'clock th same day you--\""},
{"text":"\"I was in want of ten roubles and pledged my pistols with Perhotin, an then went to Madame Hohlakov to borrow three thousand which sh wouldn't give me, and so on, and all the rest of it,\" Mitya interrupte sharply. \"Yes, gentlemen, I was in want of it, and suddenly thousand turned up, eh? Do you know, gentlemen, you're both afraid now `what i he won't tell us where he got it?' That's just how it is. I'm not goin to tell you, gentlemen. You've guessed right. You'll never know,\" sai Mitya, chipping out each word with extraordinary determination. Th lawyers were silent for a moment."},
{"text":"\"You must understand, Mr. Karamazov, that it is of vital importance fo us to know,\" said Nikolay Parfenovitch, softly and suavely."},
{"text":"\"I understand; but still I won't tell you.\""},
{"text":"The prosecutor, too, intervened, and again reminded the prisoner tha he was at liberty to refuse to answer questions, if he thought it t his interest, and so on. But in view of the damage he might do himsel by his silence, especially in a case of such importance as--"},
{"text":"\"And so on, gentlemen, and so on. Enough! I've heard that rigmarol before,\" Mitya interrupted again. \"I can see for myself how importan it is, and that this is the vital point, and still I won't say.\""},
{"text":"\"What is it to us? It's not our business, but yours. You are doin yourself harm,\" observed Nikolay Parfenovitch nervously."},
{"text":"\"You see, gentlemen, joking apart\"--Mitya lifted his eyes and looke firmly at them both--\"I had an inkling from the first that we shoul come to loggerheads at this point. But at first when I began to give m evidence, it was all still far away and misty; it was all floating, an I was so simple that I began with the supposition of mutual confidenc existing between us. Now I can see for myself that such confidence i out of the question, for in any case we were bound to come to thi cursed stumbling-block. And now we've come to it! It's impossible an there's an end of it! But I don't blame you. You can't believe it al simply on my word. I understand that, of course.\""},
{"text":"He relapsed into gloomy silence."},
{"text":"\"Couldn't you, without abandoning your resolution to be silent abou the chief point, could you not, at the same time, give us some sligh hint as to the nature of the motives which are strong enough to induc you to refuse to answer, at a crisis so full of danger to you?\""},
{"text":"Mitya smiled mournfully, almost dreamily."},
{"text":"\"I'm much more good-natured than you think, gentlemen. I'll tell yo the reason why and give you that hint, though you don't deserve it.  won't speak of that, gentlemen, because it would be a stain on m honor. The answer to the question where I got the money would expose m to far greater disgrace than the murder and robbing of my father, if  had murdered and robbed him. That's why I can't tell you. I can't fo fear of disgrace. What, gentlemen, are you going to write that down?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, we'll write it down,\" lisped Nikolay Parfenovitch."},
{"text":"\"You ought not to write that down about `disgrace.' I only told yo that in the goodness of my heart. I needn't have told you. I made you  present of it, so to speak, and you pounce upon it at once. Oh, well write--write what you like,\" he concluded, with scornful disgust. \"I' not afraid of you and I can still hold up my head before you.\""},
{"text":"\"And can't you tell us the nature of that disgrace?\" Nikola Parfenovitch hazarded."},
{"text":"The prosecutor frowned darkly."},
{"text":"\"No, no, c'est fini, don't trouble yourselves. It's not worth whil soiling one's hands. I have soiled myself enough through you as it is You're not worth it--no one is ... Enough, gentlemen. I'm not goin on.\""},
{"text":"This was said too peremptorily. Nikolay Parfenovitch did not insis further, but from Ippolit Kirillovitch's eyes he saw that he had no given up hope."},
{"text":"\"Can you not, at least, tell us what sum you had in your hands when yo went into Mr. Perhotin's--how many roubles exactly?\""},
{"text":"\"I can't tell you that.\""},
{"text":"\"You spoke to Mr. Perhotin, I believe, of having received thre thousand from Madame Hohlakov.\""},
{"text":"\"Perhaps I did. Enough, gentlemen. I won't say how much I had.\""},
{"text":"\"Will you be so good then as to tell us how you came here and what yo have done since you arrived?\""},
{"text":"\"Oh! you might ask the people here about that. But I'll tell you if yo like.\""},
{"text":"He proceeded to do so, but we won't repeat his story. He told it dryl and curtly. Of the raptures of his love he said nothing, but told the that he abandoned his determination to shoot himself, owing to \"ne factors in the case.\" He told the story without going into motives o details. And this time the lawyers did not worry him much. It wa obvious that there was no essential point of interest to them here."},
{"text":"\"We shall verify all that. We will come back to it during th examination of the witnesses, which will, of course, take place in you presence,\" said Nikolay Parfenovitch in conclusion. \"And now allow m to request you to lay on the table everything in your possession especially all the money you still have about you.\""},
{"text":"\"My money, gentlemen? Certainly. I understand that that is necessary I'm surprised, indeed, that you haven't inquired about it before. It' true I couldn't get away anywhere. I'm sitting here where I can b seen. But here's my money--count it--take it. That's all, I think.\""},
{"text":"He turned it all out of his pockets; even the small change--two piece of twenty copecks--he pulled out of his waistcoat pocket. They counte the money, which amounted to eight hundred and thirty-six roubles, an forty copecks."},
{"text":"\"And is that all?\" asked the investigating lawyer."},
{"text":"\"Yes.\""},
{"text":"\"You stated just now in your evidence that you spent three hundre roubles at Plotnikovs'. You gave Perhotin ten, your driver twenty, her you lost two hundred, then. ...\""},
{"text":"Nikolay Parfenovitch reckoned it all up. Mitya helped him readily. The recollected every farthing and included it in the reckoning. Nikola Parfenovitch hurriedly added up the total."},
{"text":"\"With this eight hundred you must have had about fifteen hundred a first?\""},
{"text":"\"I suppose so,\" snapped Mitya."},
{"text":"\"How is it they all assert there was much more?\""},
{"text":"\"Let them assert it.\""},
{"text":"\"But you asserted it yourself.\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, I did, too.\""},
{"text":"\"We will compare all this with the evidence of other persons not ye examined. Don't be anxious about your money. It will be properly take care of and be at your disposal at the conclusion of ... what i beginning ... if it appears, or, so to speak, is proved that you hav undisputed right to it. Well, and now. ...\""},
{"text":"Nikolay Parfenovitch suddenly got up, and informed Mitya firmly that i was his duty and obligation to conduct a minute and thorough search \"o your clothes and everything else. ...\""},
{"text":"\"By all means, gentlemen. I'll turn out all my pockets, if you like.\""},
{"text":"And he did, in fact, begin turning out his pockets."},
{"text":"\"It will be necessary to take off your clothes, too.\""},
{"text":"\"What! Undress? Ugh! Damn it! Won't you search me as I am! Can't you?\""},
{"text":"\"It's utterly impossible, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. You must take off you clothes.\""},
{"text":"\"As you like,\" Mitya submitted gloomily; \"only, please, not here, bu behind the curtains. Who will search them?\""},
{"text":"\"Behind the curtains, of course.\""},
{"text":"Nikolay Parfenovitch bent his head in assent. His small face wore a expression of peculiar solemnity."},
{"text":" VI"},
{"text":"The Prosecutor Catches Mitya"},
{"text":"Something utterly unexpected and amazing to Mitya followed. He coul never, even a minute before, have conceived that anyone could behav like that to him, Mitya Karamazov. What was worst of all, there wa something humiliating in it, and on their side something \"superciliou and scornful.\" It was nothing to take off his coat, but he was asked t undress further, or rather not asked but \"commanded,\" he quit understood that. From pride and contempt he submitted without a word Several peasants accompanied the lawyers and remained on the same sid of the curtain. \"To be ready if force is required,\" thought Mitya, \"an perhaps for some other reason, too.\""},
{"text":"\"Well, must I take off my shirt, too?\" he asked sharply, but Nikola Parfenovitch did not answer. He was busily engaged with the prosecuto in examining the coat, the trousers, the waistcoat and the cap; and i was evident that they were both much interested in the scrutiny. \"The make no bones about it,\" thought Mitya, \"they don't keep up the mos elementary politeness.\""},
{"text":"\"I ask you for the second time--need I take off my shirt or not?\" h said, still more sharply and irritably."},
{"text":"\"Don't trouble yourself. We will tell you what to do,\" Nikola Parfenovitch said, and his voice was positively peremptory, or so i seemed to Mitya."},
{"text":"Meantime a consultation was going on in undertones between the lawyers There turned out to be on the coat, especially on the left side at th back, a huge patch of blood, dry, and still stiff. There wer bloodstains on the trousers, too. Nikolay Parfenovitch, moreover, i the presence of the peasant witnesses, passed his fingers along th collar, the cuffs, and all the seams of the coat and trousers obviously looking for something--money, of course. He didn't even hid from Mitya his suspicion that he was capable of sewing money up in hi clothes."},
{"text":"\"He treats me not as an officer but as a thief,\" Mitya muttered t himself. They communicated their ideas to one another with amazin frankness. The secretary, for instance, who was also behind th curtain, fussing about and listening, called Nikolay Parfenovitch' attention to the cap, which they were also fingering."},
{"text":"\"You remember Gridyenko, the copying-clerk,\" observed the secretary \"Last summer he received the wages of the whole office, and pretende to have lost the money when he was drunk. And where was it found? Why in just such pipings in his cap. The hundred-rouble notes were screwe up in little rolls and sewed in the piping.\""},
{"text":"Both the lawyers remembered Gridyenko's case perfectly, and so lai aside Mitya's cap, and decided that all his clothes must be mor thoroughly examined later."},
{"text":"\"Excuse me,\" cried Nikolay Parfenovitch, suddenly, noticing that th right cuff of Mitya's shirt was turned in, and covered with blood \"excuse me, what's that, blood?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes,\" Mitya jerked out."},
{"text":"\"That is, what blood? ... and why is the cuff turned in?\""},
{"text":"Mitya told him how he had got the sleeve stained with blood lookin after Grigory, and had turned it inside when he was washing his hand at Perhotin's."},
{"text":"\"You must take off your shirt, too. That's very important as materia evidence.\""},
{"text":"Mitya flushed red and flew into a rage."},
{"text":"\"What, am I to stay naked?\" he shouted."},
{"text":"\"Don't disturb yourself. We will arrange something. And meanwhile tak off your socks.\""},
{"text":"\"You're not joking? Is that really necessary?\" Mitya's eyes flashed."},
{"text":"\"We are in no mood for joking,\" answered Nikolay Parfenovitch sternly."},
{"text":"\"Well, if I must--\" muttered Mitya, and sitting down on the bed, h took off his socks. He felt unbearably awkward. All were clothed, whil he was naked, and strange to say, when he was undressed he felt someho guilty in their presence, and was almost ready to believe himself tha he was inferior to them, and that now they had a perfect right t despise him."},
{"text":"\"When all are undressed, one is somehow not ashamed, but when one's th only one undressed and everybody is looking, it's degrading,\" he kep repeating to himself, again and again. \"It's like a dream, I'v sometimes dreamed of being in such degrading positions.\" It was  misery to him to take off his socks. They were very dirty, and so wer his underclothes, and now everyone could see it. And what was worse, h disliked his feet. All his life he had thought both his big toe hideous. He particularly loathed the coarse, flat, crooked nail on th right one, and now they would all see it. Feeling intolerably ashame made him, at once and intentionally, rougher. He pulled off his shirt himself."},
{"text":"\"Would you like to look anywhere else if you're not ashamed to?\""},
{"text":"\"No, there's no need to, at present.\""},
{"text":"\"Well, am I to stay naked like this?\" he added savagely."},
{"text":"\"Yes, that can't be helped for the time. ... Kindly sit down here fo a while. You can wrap yourself in a quilt from the bed, and I .. I'll see to all this.\""},
{"text":"All the things were shown to the witnesses. The report of the searc was drawn up, and at last Nikolay Parfenovitch went out, and th clothes were carried out after him. Ippolit Kirillovitch went out, too Mitya was left alone with the peasants, who stood in silence, neve taking their eyes off him. Mitya wrapped himself up in the quilt. H felt cold. His bare feet stuck out, and he couldn't pull the quilt ove so as to cover them. Nikolay Parfenovitch seemed to be gone a lon time, \"an insufferable time.\" \"He thinks of me as a puppy,\" though Mitya, gnashing his teeth. \"That rotten prosecutor has gone, too contemptuous no doubt, it disgusts him to see me naked!\""},
{"text":"Mitya imagined, however, that his clothes would be examined an returned to him. But what was his indignation when Nikolay Parfenovitc came back with quite different clothes, brought in behind him by  peasant."},
{"text":"\"Here are clothes for you,\" he observed airily, seeming well satisfie with the success of his mission. \"Mr. Kalganov has kindly provide these for this unusual emergency, as well as a clean shirt. Luckily h had them all in his trunk. You can keep your own socks an underclothes.\""},
{"text":"Mitya flew into a passion."},
{"text":"\"I won't have other people's clothes!\" he shouted menacingly, \"give m my own!\""},
{"text":"\"It's impossible!\""},
{"text":"\"Give me my own. Damn Kalganov and his clothes, too!\""},
{"text":"It was a long time before they could persuade him. But they succeede somehow in quieting him down. They impressed upon him that his clothes being stained with blood, must be \"included with the other materia evidence,\" and that they \"had not even the right to let him have the now ... taking into consideration the possible outcome of the case.\"Mitya at last understood this. He subsided into gloomy silence an hurriedly dressed himself. He merely observed, as he put them on, tha the clothes were much better than his old ones, and that he dislike \"gaining by the change.\" The coat was, besides, \"ridiculously tight. A I to be dressed up like a fool ... for your amusement?\""},
{"text":"They urged upon him again that he was exaggerating, that Kalganov wa only a little taller, so that only the trousers might be a little to long. But the coat turned out to be really tight in the shoulders."},
{"text":"\"Damn it all! I can hardly button it,\" Mitya grumbled. \"Be so good a to tell Mr. Kalganov from me that I didn't ask for his clothes, an it's not my doing that they've dressed me up like a clown.\""},
{"text":"\"He understands that, and is sorry ... I mean, not sorry to lend yo his clothes, but sorry about all this business,\" mumbled Nikola Parfenovitch."},
{"text":"\"Confound his sorrow! Well, where now? Am I to go on sitting here?\""},
{"text":"He was asked to go back to the \"other room.\" Mitya went in, scowlin with anger, and trying to avoid looking at anyone. Dressed in anothe man's clothes he felt himself disgraced, even in the eyes of th peasants, and of Trifon Borissovitch, whose face appeared, for som reason, in the doorway, and vanished immediately. \"He's come to look a me dressed up,\" thought Mitya. He sat down on the same chair as before He had an absurd nightmarish feeling, as though he were out of hi mind."},
{"text":"\"Well, what now? Are you going to flog me? That's all that's left fo you,\" he said, clenching his teeth and addressing the prosecutor. H would not turn to Nikolay Parfenovitch, as though he disdained to spea to him."},
{"text":"\"He looked too closely at my socks, and turned them inside out o purpose to show everyone how dirty they were--the scoundrel!\""},
{"text":"\"Well, now we must proceed to the examination of witnesses,\" observe Nikolay Parfenovitch, as though in reply to Mitya's question."},
{"text":"\"Yes,\" said the prosecutor thoughtfully, as though reflecting o something."},
{"text":"\"We've done what we could in your interest, Dmitri Fyodorovitch,\"Nikolay Parfenovitch went on, \"but having received from you such a uncompromising refusal to explain to us the source from which yo obtained the money found upon you, we are, at the present moment--\""},
{"text":"\"What is the stone in your ring?\" Mitya interrupted suddenly, as thoug awakening from a reverie. He pointed to one of the three large ring adorning Nikolay Parfenovitch's right hand."},
{"text":"\"Ring?\" repeated Nikolay Parfenovitch with surprise."},
{"text":"\"Yes, that one ... on your middle finger, with the little veins i it, what stone is that?\" Mitya persisted, like a peevish child."},
{"text":"\"That's a smoky topaz,\" said Nikolay Parfenovitch, smiling. \"Would yo like to look at it? I'll take it off ...\""},
{"text":"\"No, don't take it off,\" cried Mitya furiously, suddenly waking up, an angry with himself. \"Don't take it off ... there's no need. .. Damn it! ... Gentlemen, you've sullied my heart! Can you suppose tha I would conceal it from you, if I had really killed my father, that  would shuffle, lie, and hide myself? No, that's not like Dmitr Karamazov, that he couldn't do, and if I were guilty, I swear  shouldn't have waited for your coming, or for the sunrise as I meant a first, but should have killed myself before this, without waiting fo the dawn! I know that about myself now. I couldn't have learnt so muc in twenty years as I've found out in this accursed night! ... An should I have been like this on this night, and at this moment, sittin with you, could I have talked like this, could I have moved like this could I have looked at you and at the world like this, if I had reall been the murderer of my father, when the very thought of havin accidentally killed Grigory gave me no peace all night--not fro fear--oh, not simply from fear of your punishment! The disgrace of it And you expect me to be open with such scoffers as you, who see nothin and believe in nothing, blind moles and scoffers, and to tell yo another nasty thing I've done, another disgrace, even if that woul save me from your accusation! No, better Siberia! The man who opene the door to my father and went in at that door, he killed him, h robbed him. Who was he? I'm racking my brains and can't think who. Bu I can tell you it was not Dmitri Karamazov, and that's all I can tel you, and that's enough, enough, leave me alone. ... Exile me, punis me, but don't bother me any more. I'll say no more. Call you witnesses!\""},
{"text":"Mitya uttered his sudden monologue as though he were determined to b absolutely silent for the future. The prosecutor watched him the whol time and only when he had ceased speaking, observed, as though it wer the most ordinary thing, with the most frigid and composed air:"},
{"text":"\"Oh, about the open door of which you spoke just now, we may as wel inform you, by the way, now, of a very interesting piece of evidence o the greatest importance both to you and to us, that has been given u by Grigory, the old man you wounded. On his recovery, he clearly an emphatically stated, in reply to our questions, that when, on comin out to the steps, and hearing a noise in the garden, he made up hi mind to go into it through the little gate which stood open, before h noticed you running, as you have told us already, in the dark from th open window where you saw your father, he, Grigory, glanced to th left, and, while noticing the open window, observed at the same time much nearer to him, the door, standing wide open--that door which yo have stated to have been shut the whole time you were in the garden.  will not conceal from you that Grigory himself confidently affirms an bears witness that you must have run from that door, though, of course he did not see you do so with his own eyes, since he only noticed yo first some distance away in the garden, running towards the fence.\""},
{"text":"Mitya had leapt up from his chair halfway through this speech."},
{"text":"\"Nonsense!\" he yelled, in a sudden frenzy, \"it's a barefaced lie. H couldn't have seen the door open because it was shut. He's lying!\""},
{"text":"\"I consider it my duty to repeat that he is firm in his statement. H does not waver. He adheres to it. We've cross-examined him severa times.\""},
{"text":"\"Precisely. I have cross-examined him several times,\" Nikola Parfenovitch confirmed warmly."},
{"text":"\"It's false, false! It's either an attempt to slander me, or th hallucination of a madman,\" Mitya still shouted. \"He's simply raving from loss of blood, from the wound. He must have fancied it when h came to. ... He's raving.\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, but he noticed the open door, not when he came to after hi injuries, but before that, as soon as he went into the garden from th lodge.\""},
{"text":"\"But it's false, it's false! It can't be so! He's slandering me fro spite. ... He couldn't have seen it ... I didn't come from th door,\" gasped Mitya."},
{"text":"The prosecutor turned to Nikolay Parfenovitch and said to hi impressively:"},
{"text":"\"Confront him with it.\""},
{"text":"\"Do you recognize this object?\""},
{"text":"Nikolay Parfenovitch laid upon the table a large and thick officia envelope, on which three seals still remained intact. The envelope wa empty, and slit open at one end. Mitya stared at it with open eyes."},
{"text":"\"It ... it must be that envelope of my father's, the envelope tha contained the three thousand roubles ... and if there's inscribed o it, allow me, `For my little chicken' ... yes--three thousand!\" h shouted, \"do you see, three thousand, do you see?\""},
{"text":"\"Of course, we see. But we didn't find the money in it. It was empty and lying on the floor by the bed, behind the screen.\""},
{"text":"For some seconds Mitya stood as though thunderstruck."},
{"text":"\"Gentlemen, it's Smerdyakov!\" he shouted suddenly, at the top of hi voice. \"It's he who's murdered him! He's robbed him! No one else kne where the old man hid the envelope. It's Smerdyakov, that's clear now!\""},
{"text":"\"But you, too, knew of the envelope and that it was under the pillow.\""},
{"text":"\"I never knew it. I've never seen it. This is the first time I'v looked at it. I'd only heard of it from Smerdyakov. ... He was th only one who knew where the old man kept it hidden, I didn't know ...\" Mitya was completely breathless."},
{"text":"\"But you told us yourself that the envelope was under your decease father's pillow. You especially stated that it was under the pillow, s you must have known it.\""},
{"text":"\"We've got it written down,\" confirmed Nikolay Parfenovitch."},
{"text":"\"Nonsense! It's absurd! I'd no idea it was under the pillow. An perhaps it wasn't under the pillow at all. ... It was just a chanc guess that it was under the pillow. What does Smerdyakov say? Have yo asked him where it was? What does Smerdyakov say? that's the chie point. ... And I went out of my way to tell lies against myself. ... I told you without thinking that it was under the pillow, and no you--Oh, you know how one says the wrong thing, without meaning it. N one knew but Smerdyakov, only Smerdyakov, and no one else. ... H didn't even tell me where it was! But it's his doing, his doing there's no doubt about it, he murdered him, that's as clear as dayligh now,\" Mitya exclaimed more and more frantically, repeating himsel incoherently, and growing more and more exasperated and excited. \"Yo must understand that, and arrest him at once. ... He must have kille him while I was running away and while Grigory was unconscious, that' clear now. ... He gave the signal and father opened to him ... fo no one but he knew the signal, and without the signal father woul never have opened the door. ...\""},
{"text":"\"But you're again forgetting the circumstance,\" the prosecuto observed, still speaking with the same restraint, though with a note o triumph, \"that there was no need to give the signal if the door alread stood open when you were there, while you were in the garden. ...\""},
{"text":"\"The door, the door,\" muttered Mitya, and he stared speechless at th prosecutor. He sank back helpless in his chair. All were silent."},
{"text":"\"Yes, the door! ... It's a nightmare! God is against me!\" h exclaimed, staring before him in complete stupefaction."},
{"text":"\"Come, you see,\" the prosecutor went on with dignity, \"and you ca judge for yourself, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. On the one hand we have th evidence of the open door from which you ran out, a fact whic overwhelms you and us. On the other side your incomprehensible persistent, and, so to speak, obdurate silence with regard to th source from which you obtained the money which was so suddenly seen i your hands, when only three hours earlier, on your own showing, yo pledged your pistols for the sake of ten roubles! In view of all thes facts, judge for yourself. What are we to believe, and what can w depend upon? And don't accuse us of being `frigid, cynical, scoffin people,' who are incapable of believing in the generous impulses o your heart. ... Try to enter into our position ...\""},
{"text":"Mitya was indescribably agitated. He turned pale."},
{"text":"\"Very well!\" he exclaimed suddenly. \"I will tell you my secret. I'l tell you where I got the money! ... I'll reveal my shame, that I ma not have to blame myself or you hereafter.\""},
{"text":"\"And believe me, Dmitri Fyodorovitch,\" put in Nikolay Parfenovitch, i a voice of almost pathetic delight, \"that every sincere and complet confession on your part at this moment may, later on, have an immens influence in your favor, and may, indeed, moreover--\""},
{"text":"But the prosecutor gave him a slight shove under the table, and h checked himself in time. Mitya, it is true, had not heard him."},
{"text":" VII"},
{"text":"Mitya's Great Secret. Received with Hisses"},
{"text":"\"Gentlemen,\" he began, still in the same agitation, \"I want to make  full confession: that money was my own.\" The lawyers' faces lengthened That was not at all what they expected."},
{"text":"\"How do you mean?\" faltered Nikolay Parfenovitch, \"when at five o'cloc on the same day, from your own confession--\""},
{"text":"\"Damn five o'clock on the same day and my own confession! That' nothing to do with it now! That money was my own, my own, that is stolen by me ... not mine, I mean, but stolen by me, and it wa fifteen hundred roubles, and I had it on me all the time, all the time ...\""},
{"text":"\"But where did you get it?\""},
{"text":"\"I took it off my neck, gentlemen, off this very neck ... it wa here, round my neck, sewn up in a rag, and I'd had it round my neck  long time, it's a month since I put it round my neck ... to my sham and disgrace!\""},
{"text":"\"And from whom did you ... appropriate it?\""},
{"text":"\"You mean, `steal it'? Speak out plainly now. Yes, I consider that  practically stole it, but, if you prefer, I `appropriated it.'  consider I stole it. And last night I stole it finally.\""},
{"text":"\"Last night? But you said that it's a month since you ... obtaine it? ...\""},
{"text":"\"Yes. But not from my father. Not from my father, don't be uneasy.  didn't steal it from my father, but from her. Let me tell you withou interrupting. It's hard to do, you know. You see, a month ago, I wa sent for by Katerina Ivanovna, formerly my betrothed. Do you know her?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, of course.\""},
{"text":"\"I know you know her. She's a noble creature, noblest of the noble. Bu she has hated me ever so long, oh, ever so long ... and hated me wit good reason, good reason!\""},
{"text":"\"Katerina Ivanovna!\" Nikolay Parfenovitch exclaimed with wonder. Th prosecutor, too, stared."},
{"text":"\"Oh, don't take her name in vain! I'm a scoundrel to bring her into it Yes, I've seen that she hated me ... a long while. ... From th very first, even that evening at my lodging ... but enough, enough You're unworthy even to know of that. No need of that at all. ...  need only tell you that she sent for me a month ago, gave me thre thousand roubles to send off to her sister and another relation i Moscow (as though she couldn't have sent it off herself!) and I .. it was just at that fatal moment in my life when I ... well, in fact when I'd just come to love another, her, she's sitting down below now Grushenka. I carried her off here to Mokroe then, and wasted here i two days half that damned three thousand, but the other half I kept o me. Well, I've kept that other half, that fifteen hundred, like  locket round my neck, but yesterday I undid it, and spent it. What' left of it, eight hundred roubles, is in your hands now, Nikola Parfenovitch. That's the change out of the fifteen hundred I ha yesterday.\""},
{"text":"\"Excuse me. How's that? Why, when you were here a month ago you spen three thousand, not fifteen hundred, everybody knows that.\""},
{"text":"\"Who knows it? Who counted the money? Did I let anyone count it?\""},
{"text":"\"Why, you told everyone yourself that you'd spent exactly thre thousand.\""},
{"text":"\"It's true, I did. I told the whole town so, and the whole town sai so. And here, at Mokroe, too, everyone reckoned it was three thousand Yet I didn't spend three thousand, but fifteen hundred. And the othe fifteen hundred I sewed into a little bag. That's how it was gentlemen. That's where I got that money yesterday. ...\""},
{"text":"\"This is almost miraculous,\" murmured Nikolay Parfenovitch."},
{"text":"\"Allow me to inquire,\" observed the prosecutor at last, \"have yo informed anyone whatever of this circumstance before, I mean that yo had fifteen hundred left about you a month ago?\""},
{"text":"\"I told no one.\""},
{"text":"\"That's strange. Do you mean absolutely no one?\""},
{"text":"\"Absolutely no one. No one and nobody.\""},
{"text":"\"What was your reason for this reticence? What was your motive fo making such a secret of it? To be more precise: You have told us a last your secret, in your words, so `disgraceful,' though i reality--that is, of course, comparatively speaking--this action that is, the appropriation of three thousand roubles belonging t someone else, and, of course, only for a time is, in my view at least only an act of the greatest recklessness and not so disgraceful, whe one takes into consideration your character. ... Even admitting tha it was an action in the highest degree discreditable, still discreditable is not `disgraceful.' ... Many people have alread guessed, during this last month, about the three thousand of Katerin Ivanovna's, that you have spent, and I heard the legend myself, apar from your confession. ... Mihail Makarovitch, for instance, had hear it, too, so that indeed, it was scarcely a legend, but the gossip o the whole town. There are indications, too, if I am not mistaken, tha you confessed this yourself to someone, I mean that the money wa Katerina Ivanovna's, and so, it's extremely surprising to me tha hitherto, that is, up to the present moment, you have made such a extraordinary secret of the fifteen hundred you say you put by apparently connecting a feeling of positive horror with that secret. ... It's not easy to believe that it could cost you such distress t confess such a secret. ... You cried out, just now, that Siberi would be better than confessing it ...\""},
{"text":"The prosecutor ceased speaking. He was provoked. He did not conceal hi vexation, which was almost anger, and gave vent to all his accumulate spleen, disconnectedly and incoherently, without choosing words."},
{"text":"\"It's not the fifteen hundred that's the disgrace, but that I put i apart from the rest of the three thousand,\" said Mitya firmly."},
{"text":"\"Why?\" smiled the prosecutor irritably. \"What is there disgraceful, t your thinking, in your having set aside half of the three thousand yo had discreditably, if you prefer, `disgracefully,' appropriated? You taking the three thousand is more important than what you did with it And by the way, why did you do that--why did you set apart that half for what purpose, for what object did you do it? Can you explain tha to us?\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, gentlemen, the purpose is the whole point!\" cried Mitya. \"I put i aside because I was vile, that is, because I was calculating, and to b calculating in such a case is vile ... and that vileness has bee going on a whole month.\""},
{"text":"\"It's incomprehensible.\""},
{"text":"\"I wonder at you. But I'll make it clearer. Perhaps it really i incomprehensible. You see, attend to what I say. I appropriate thre thousand entrusted to my honor, I spend it on a spree, say I spend i all, and next morning I go to her and say, `Katya, I've done wrong I've squandered your three thousand,' well, is that right? No, it's no right--it's dishonest and cowardly, I'm a beast, with no mor self-control than a beast, that's so, isn't it? But still I'm not  thief? Not a downright thief, you'll admit! I squandered it, but  didn't steal it. Now a second, rather more favorable alternative follow me carefully, or I may get confused again--my head's goin round--and so, for the second alternative: I spend here only fiftee hundred out of the three thousand, that is, only half. Next day I g and take that half to her: `Katya, take this fifteen hundred from me I'm a low beast, and an untrustworthy scoundrel, for I've wasted hal the money, and I shall waste this, too, so keep me from temptation! Well, what of that alternative? I should be a beast and a scoundrel and whatever you like; but not a thief, not altogether a thief, or  should not have brought back what was left, but have kept that, too She would see at once that since I brought back half, I should pay bac what I'd spent, that I should never give up trying to, that I shoul work to get it and pay it back. So in that case I should be  scoundrel, but not a thief, you may say what you like, not a thief!\""},
{"text":"\"I admit that there is a certain distinction,\" said the prosecutor with a cold smile. \"But it's strange that you see such a vita difference.\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, I see a vital difference! Every man may be a scoundrel, an perhaps every man is a scoundrel, but not everyone can be a thief, i takes an arch-scoundrel to be that. Oh, of course, I don't know how t make these fine distinctions ... but a thief is lower than  scoundrel, that's my conviction. Listen, I carry the money about me  whole month, I may make up my mind to give it back tomorrow, and I'm  scoundrel no longer, but I cannot make up my mind, you see, though I' making up my mind every day, and every day spurring myself on to do it and yet for a whole month I can't bring myself to it, you see. Is tha right to your thinking, is that right?\""},
{"text":"\"Certainly, that's not right, that I can quite understand, and that  don't dispute,\" answered the prosecutor with reserve. \"And let us giv up all discussion of these subtleties and distinctions, and, if yo will be so kind, get back to the point. And the point is, that you hav still not told us, altogether we've asked you, why, in the first place you halved the money, squandering one half and hiding the other? Fo what purpose exactly did you hide it, what did you mean to do with tha fifteen hundred? I insist upon that question, Dmitri Fyodorovitch.\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, of course!\" cried Mitya, striking himself on the forehead \"forgive me, I'm worrying you, and am not explaining the chief point or you'd understand in a minute, for it's just the motive of it that' the disgrace! You see, it was all to do with the old man, my dea father. He was always pestering Agrafena Alexandrovna, and I wa jealous; I thought then that she was hesitating between me and him. S I kept thinking every day, suppose she were to make up her mind all o a sudden, suppose she were to leave off tormenting me, and wer suddenly to say to me, `I love you, not him; take me to the other en of the world.' And I'd only forty copecks; how could I take her away what could I do? Why, I'd be lost. You see, I didn't know her then,  didn't understand her, I thought she wanted money, and that sh wouldn't forgive my poverty. And so I fiendishly counted out the hal of that three thousand, sewed it up, calculating on it, sewed it u before I was drunk, and after I had sewn it up, I went off to get drun on the rest. Yes, that was base. Do you understand now?\""},
{"text":"Both the lawyers laughed aloud."},
{"text":"\"I should have called it sensible and moral on your part not to hav squandered it all,\" chuckled Nikolay Parfenovitch, \"for after all wha does it amount to?\""},
{"text":"\"Why, that I stole it, that's what it amounts to! Oh, God, you horrif me by not understanding! Every day that I had that fifteen hundred sew up round my neck, every day and every hour I said to myself, `You're  thief! you're a thief!' Yes, that's why I've been so savage all thi month, that's why I fought in the tavern, that's why I attacked m father, it was because I felt I was a thief. I couldn't make up m mind, I didn't dare even to tell Alyosha, my brother, about tha fifteen hundred: I felt I was such a scoundrel and such a pickpocket But, do you know, while I carried it I said to myself at the same tim every hour: `No, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, you may yet not be a thief.' Why Because I might go next day and pay back that fifteen hundred to Katya And only yesterday I made up my mind to tear my amulet off my neck, o my way from Fenya's to Perhotin. I hadn't been able till that moment t bring myself to it. And it was only when I tore it off that I became  downright thief, a thief and a dishonest man for the rest of my life Why? Because, with that I destroyed, too, my dream of going to Katy and saying, `I'm a scoundrel, but not a thief!' Do you understand now Do you understand?\""},
{"text":"\"What was it made you decide to do it yesterday?\" Nikolay Parfenovitc interrupted."},
{"text":"\"Why? It's absurd to ask. Because I had condemned myself to die at fiv o'clock this morning, here, at dawn. I thought it made no differenc whether I died a thief or a man of honor. But I see it's not so, i turns out that it does make a difference. Believe me, gentlemen, wha has tortured me most during this night has not been the thought tha I'd killed the old servant, and that I was in danger of Siberia jus when my love was being rewarded, and Heaven was open to me again. Oh that did torture me, but not in the same way: not so much as the damne consciousness that I had torn that damned money off my breast at las and spent it, and had become a downright thief! Oh, gentlemen, I tel you again, with a bleeding heart, I have learnt a great deal thi night. I have learnt that it's not only impossible to live a scoundrel but impossible to die a scoundrel. ... No, gentlemen, one must di honest. ...\""},
{"text":"Mitya was pale. His face had a haggard and exhausted look, in spite o his being intensely excited."},
{"text":"\"I am beginning to understand you, Dmitri Fyodorovitch,\" the prosecuto said slowly, in a soft and almost compassionate tone. \"But all this, i you'll excuse my saying so, is a matter of nerves, in my opinion .. your overwrought nerves, that's what it is. And why, for instance should you not have saved yourself such misery for almost a month, b going and returning that fifteen hundred to the lady who had entruste it to you? And why could you not have explained things to her, and i view of your position, which you describe as being so awful, why coul you not have had recourse to the plan which would so naturally hav occurred to one's mind, that is, after honorably confessing your error to her, why could you not have asked her to lend you the sum needed fo your expenses, which, with her generous heart, she would certainly no have refused you in your distress, especially if it had been with som guarantee, or even on the security you offered to the merchan Samsonov, and to Madame Hohlakov? I suppose you still regard tha security as of value?\""},
{"text":"Mitya suddenly crimsoned."},
{"text":"\"Surely you don't think me such an out and out scoundrel as that? Yo can't be speaking in earnest?\" he said, with indignation, looking th prosecutor straight in the face, and seeming unable to believe hi ears."},
{"text":"\"I assure you I'm in earnest. ... Why do you imagine I'm no serious?\" It was the prosecutor's turn to be surprised."},
{"text":"\"Oh, how base that would have been! Gentlemen, do you know, you ar torturing me! Let me tell you everything, so be it. I'll confess all m infernal wickedness, but to put you to shame, and you'll be surprise yourselves at the depth of ignominy to which a medley of human passion can sink. You must know that I already had that plan myself, that pla you spoke of, just now, prosecutor! Yes, gentlemen, I, too, have ha that thought in my mind all this current month, so that I was on th point of deciding to go to Katya--I was mean enough for that. But t go to her, to tell her of my treachery, and for that very treachery, t carry it out, for the expenses of that treachery, to beg for money fro her, Katya (to beg, do you hear, to beg), and go straight from her t run away with the other, the rival, who hated and insulted her--t think of it! You must be mad, prosecutor!\""},
{"text":"\"Mad I am not, but I did speak in haste, without thinking ... of tha feminine jealousy ... if there could be jealousy in this case, as yo assert ... yes, perhaps there is something of the kind,\" said th prosecutor, smiling."},
{"text":"\"But that would have been so infamous!\" Mitya brought his fist down o the table fiercely. \"That would have been filthy beyond everything Yes, do you know that she might have given me that money, yes, and sh would have given it, too; she'd have been certain to give it, to b revenged on me, she'd have given it to satisfy her vengeance, to sho her contempt for me, for hers is an infernal nature, too, and she's  woman of great wrath. I'd have taken the money, too, oh, I should hav taken it; I should have taken it, and then, for the rest of my life ... oh, God! Forgive me, gentlemen, I'm making such an outcry becaus I've had that thought in my mind so lately, only the day befor yesterday, that night when I was having all that bother with Lyagavy and afterwards yesterday, all day yesterday, I remember, till tha happened ...\""},
{"text":"\"Till what happened?\" put in Nikolay Parfenovitch inquisitively, bu Mitya did not hear it."},
{"text":"\"I have made you an awful confession,\" Mitya said gloomily i conclusion. \"You must appreciate it, and what's more, you must respec it, for if not, if that leaves your souls untouched, then you've simpl no respect for me, gentlemen, I tell you that, and I shall die of sham at having confessed it to men like you! Oh, I shall shoot myself! Yes I see, I see already that you don't believe me. What, you want to writ that down, too?\" he cried in dismay."},
{"text":"\"Yes, what you said just now,\" said Nikolay Parfenovitch, looking a him in surprise, \"that is, that up to the last hour you were stil contemplating going to Katerina Ivanovna to beg that sum from her. ... I assure you, that's a very important piece of evidence for us Dmitri Fyodorovitch, I mean for the whole case ... and particularl for you, particularly important for you.\""},
{"text":"\"Have mercy, gentlemen!\" Mitya flung up his hands. \"Don't write that anyway; have some shame. Here I've torn my heart asunder before you and you seize the opportunity and are fingering the wounds in bot halves. ... Oh, my God!\""},
{"text":"In despair he hid his face in his hands."},
{"text":"\"Don't worry yourself so, Dmitri Fyodorovitch,\" observed th prosecutor, \"everything that is written down will be read over to yo afterwards, and what you don't agree to we'll alter as you like. Bu now I'll ask you one little question for the second time. Has no one absolutely no one, heard from you of that money you sewed up? That,  must tell you, is almost impossible to believe.\""},
{"text":"\"No one, no one, I told you so before, or you've not understoo anything! Let me alone!\""},
{"text":"\"Very well, this matter is bound to be explained, and there's plenty o time for it, but meantime, consider; we have perhaps a dozen witnesse that you yourself spread it abroad, and even shouted almost everywher about the three thousand you'd spent here; three thousand, not fiftee hundred. And now, too, when you got hold of the money you ha yesterday, you gave many people to understand that you had brough three thousand with you.\""},
{"text":"\"You've got not dozens, but hundreds of witnesses, two hundre witnesses, two hundred have heard it, thousands have heard it!\" crie Mitya."},
{"text":"\"Well, you see, all bear witness to it. And the word all mean something.\""},
{"text":"\"It means nothing. I talked rot, and everyone began repeating it.\""},
{"text":"\"But what need had you to `talk rot,' as you call it?\""},
{"text":"\"The devil knows. From bravado perhaps ... at having wasted so muc money. ... To try and forget that money I had sewn up, perhaps .. yes, that was why ... damn it ... how often will you ask me tha question? Well, I told a fib, and that was the end of it, once I'd sai it, I didn't care to correct it. What does a man tell lies fo sometimes?\""},
{"text":"\"That's very difficult to decide, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, what makes a ma tell lies,\" observed the prosecutor impressively. \"Tell me, though, wa that `amulet,' as you call it, on your neck, a big thing?\""},
{"text":"\"No, not big.\""},
{"text":"\"How big, for instance?\""},
{"text":"\"If you fold a hundred-rouble note in half, that would be the size.\""},
{"text":"\"You'd better show us the remains of it. You must have them somewhere.\""},
{"text":"\"Damnation, what nonsense! I don't know where they are.\""},
{"text":"\"But excuse me: where and when did you take it off your neck? Accordin to your own evidence you didn't go home.\""},
{"text":"\"When I was going from Fenya's to Perhotin's, on the way I tore it of my neck and took out the money.\""},
{"text":"\"In the dark?\""},
{"text":"\"What should I want a light for? I did it with my fingers in on minute.\""},
{"text":"\"Without scissors, in the street?\""},
{"text":"\"In the marketplace I think it was. Why scissors? It was an old rag. I was torn in a minute.\""},
{"text":"\"Where did you put it afterwards?\""},
{"text":"\"I dropped it there.\""},
{"text":"\"Where was it, exactly?\""},
{"text":"\"In the marketplace, in the marketplace! The devil knows whereabouts What do you want to know for?\""},
{"text":"\"That's extremely important, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. It would be materia evidence in your favor. How is it you don't understand that? Who helpe you to sew it up a month ago?\""},
{"text":"\"No one helped me. I did it myself.\""},
{"text":"\"Can you sew?\""},
{"text":"\"A soldier has to know how to sew. No knowledge was needed to do that.\""},
{"text":"\"Where did you get the material, that is, the rag in which you sewe the money?\""},
{"text":"\"Are you laughing at me?\""},
{"text":"\"Not at all. And we are in no mood for laughing, Dmitri Fyodorovitch.\""},
{"text":"\"I don't know where I got the rag from--somewhere, I suppose.\""},
{"text":"\"I should have thought you couldn't have forgotten it?\""},
{"text":"\"Upon my word, I don't remember. I might have torn a bit off my linen.\""},
{"text":"\"That's very interesting. We might find in your lodgings tomorrow th shirt or whatever it is from which you tore the rag. What sort of ra was it, cloth or linen?\""},
{"text":"\"Goodness only knows what it was. Wait a bit. ... I believe I didn' tear it off anything. It was a bit of calico. ... I believe I sewe it up in a cap of my landlady's.\""},
{"text":"\"In your landlady's cap?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes. I took it from her.\""},
{"text":"\"How did you get it?\""},
{"text":"\"You see, I remember once taking a cap for a rag, perhaps to wipe m pen on. I took it without asking, because it was a worthless rag.  tore it up, and I took the notes and sewed them up in it. I believe i was in that very rag I sewed them. An old piece of calico, washed  thousand times.\""},
{"text":"\"And you remember that for certain now?\""},
{"text":"\"I don't know whether for certain. I think it was in the cap. But, han it, what does it matter?\""},
{"text":"\"In that case your landlady will remember that the thing was lost?\""},
{"text":"\"No, she won't, she didn't miss it. It was an old rag, I tell you, a old rag not worth a farthing.\""},
{"text":"\"And where did you get the needle and thread?\""},
{"text":"\"I'll stop now. I won't say any more. Enough of it!\" said Mitya, losin his temper at last."},
{"text":"\"It's strange that you should have so completely forgotten where yo threw the pieces in the marketplace.\""},
{"text":"\"Give orders for the marketplace to be swept tomorrow, and perhap you'll find it,\" said Mitya, sneering. \"Enough, gentlemen, enough!\" h decided, in an exhausted voice. \"I see you don't believe me! Not for  moment! It's my fault, not yours. I ought not to have been so ready Why, why did I degrade myself by confessing my secret to you? It's  joke to you. I see that from your eyes. You led me on to it prosecutor? Sing a hymn of triumph if you can. ... Damn you, yo torturers!\""},
{"text":"He bent his head, and hid his face in his hands. The lawyers wer silent. A minute later he raised his head and looked at them almos vacantly. His face now expressed complete, hopeless despair, and he sa mute and passive as though hardly conscious of what was happening. I the meantime they had to finish what they were about. They ha immediately to begin examining the witnesses. It was by now eigh o'clock in the morning. The lights had been extinguished long ago Mihail Makarovitch and Kalganov, who had been continually in and out o the room all the while the interrogation had been going on, had no both gone out again. The lawyers, too, looked very tired. It was  wretched morning, the whole sky was overcast, and the rain streame down in bucketfuls. Mitya gazed blankly out of the window."},
{"text":"\"May I look out of the window?\" he asked Nikolay Parfenovitch suddenly."},
{"text":"\"Oh, as much as you like,\" the latter replied."},
{"text":"Mitya got up and went to the window. ... The rain lashed against it little greenish panes. He could see the muddy road just below th house, and farther away, in the rain and mist, a row of poor, black dismal huts, looking even blacker and poorer in the rain. Mitya though of \"Phoebus the golden-haired,\" and how he had meant to shoot himsel at his first ray. \"Perhaps it would be even better on a morning lik this,\" he thought with a smile, and suddenly, flinging his han downwards, he turned to his \"torturers.\""},
{"text":"\"Gentlemen,\" he cried, \"I see that I am lost! But she? Tell me abou her, I beseech you. Surely she need not be ruined with me? She' innocent, you know, she was out of her mind when she cried last nigh `It's all my fault!' She's done nothing, nothing! I've been grievin over her all night as I sat with you. ... Can't you, won't you tel me what you are going to do with her now?\""},
{"text":"\"You can set your mind quite at rest on that score, Dmitr Fyodorovitch,\" the prosecutor answered at once, with evident alacrity \"We have, so far, no grounds for interfering with the lady in whom yo are so interested. I trust that it may be the same in the late development of the case. ... On the contrary, we'll do everythin that lies in our power in that matter. Set your mind completely a rest.\""},
{"text":"\"Gentlemen, I thank you. I knew that you were honest, straightforwar people in spite of everything. You've taken a load off my heart. .. Well, what are we to do now? I'm ready.\""},
{"text":"\"Well, we ought to make haste. We must pass to examining the witnesse without delay. That must be done in your presence and therefore--\""},
{"text":"\"Shouldn't we have some tea first?\" interposed Nikolay Parfenovitch, \" think we've deserved it!\""},
{"text":"They decided that if tea were ready downstairs (Mihail Makarovitch had no doubt, gone down to get some) they would have a glass and then \"g on and on,\" putting off their proper breakfast until a more favorabl opportunity. Tea really was ready below, and was soon brought up. Mity at first refused the glass that Nikolay Parfenovitch politely offere him, but afterwards he asked for it himself and drank it greedily. H looked surprisingly exhausted. It might have been supposed from hi Herculean strength that one night of carousing, even accompanied by th most violent emotions, could have had little effect on him. But he fel that he could hardly hold his head up, and from time to time all th objects about him seemed heaving and dancing before his eyes. \"A littl more and I shall begin raving,\" he said to himself."},
{"text":" VIII"},
{"text":"The Evidence of the Witnesses. The Babe"},
{"text":"The examination of the witnesses began. But we will not continue ou story in such detail as before. And so we will not dwell on how Nikola Parfenovitch impressed on every witness called that he must give hi evidence in accordance with truth and conscience, and that he woul afterwards have to repeat his evidence on oath, how every witness wa called upon to sign the protocol of his evidence, and so on. We wil only note that the point principally insisted upon in the examinatio was the question of the three thousand roubles, that is, was the su spent here, at Mokroe, by Mitya on the first occasion, a month before three thousand or fifteen hundred? And again had he spent thre thousand or fifteen hundred yesterday? Alas, all the evidence given b everyone turned out to be against Mitya. There was not one in hi favor, and some witnesses introduced new, almost crushing facts, i contradiction of his, Mitya's, story."},
{"text":"The first witness examined was Trifon Borissovitch. He was not in th least abashed as he stood before the lawyers. He had, on the contrary an air of stern and severe indignation with the accused, which gave hi an appearance of truthfulness and personal dignity. He spoke little and with reserve, waited to be questioned, answered precisely an deliberately. Firmly and unhesitatingly he bore witness that the su spent a month before could not have been less than three thousand, tha all the peasants about here would testify that they had heard the su of three thousand mentioned by Dmitri Fyodorovitch himself. \"What a lo of money he flung away on the gypsy girls alone! He wasted a thousand I daresay, on them alone.\""},
{"text":"\"I don't believe I gave them five hundred,\" was Mitya's gloomy commen on this. \"It's a pity I didn't count the money at the time, but I wa drunk. ...\""},
{"text":"Mitya was sitting sideways with his back to the curtains. He listene gloomily, with a melancholy and exhausted air, as though he would say:"},
{"text":"\"Oh, say what you like. It makes no difference now.\""},
{"text":"\"More than a thousand went on them, Dmitri Fyodorovitch,\" retorte Trifon Borissovitch firmly. \"You flung it about at random and the picked it up. They were a rascally, thievish lot, horse-stealers they've been driven away from here, or maybe they'd bear witnes themselves how much they got from you. I saw the sum in your hands myself--count it I didn't, you didn't let me, that's true enough--bu by the look of it I should say it was far more than fifteen hundred ... fifteen hundred, indeed! We've seen money too. We can judge o amounts. ...\""},
{"text":"As for the sum spent yesterday he asserted that Dmitri Fyodorovitch ha told him, as soon as he arrived, that he had brought three thousan with him."},
{"text":"\"Come now, is that so, Trifon Borissovitch?\" replied Mitya. \"Surely  didn't declare so positively that I'd brought three thousand?\""},
{"text":"\"You did say so, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. You said it before Andrey. Andre himself is still here. Send for him. And in the hall, when you wer treating the chorus, you shouted straight out that you would leave you sixth thousand here--that is with what you spent before, we mus understand. Stepan and Semyon heard it, and Pyotr Fomitch Kalganov too, was standing beside you at the time. Maybe he'd remember it. ...\""},
{"text":"The evidence as to the \"sixth\" thousand made an extraordinar impression on the two lawyers. They were delighted with this new mod of reckoning; three and three made six, three thousand then and thre now made six, that was clear."},
{"text":"They questioned all the peasants suggested by Trifon Borissovitch Stepan and Semyon, the driver Andrey, and Kalganov. The peasants an the driver unhesitatingly confirmed Trifon Borissovitch's evidence They noted down, with particular care, Andrey's account of th conversation he had had with Mitya on the road: \" `Where,' says he, `a I, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, going, to heaven or to hell, and shall I b forgiven in the next world or not?' \""},
{"text":"The psychological Ippolit Kirillovitch heard this with a subtle smile and ended by recommending that these remarks as to where Dmitr Fyodorovitch would go should be \"included in the case.\""},
{"text":"Kalganov, when called, came in reluctantly, frowning and ill-humored and he spoke to the lawyers as though he had never met them before i his life, though they were acquaintances whom he had been meeting ever day for a long time past. He began by saying that \"he knew nothin about it and didn't want to.\" But it appeared that he had heard of th \"sixth\" thousand, and he admitted that he had been standing close by a the moment. As far as he could see he \"didn't know\" how much mone Mitya had in his hands. He affirmed that the Poles had cheated a cards. In reply to reiterated questions he stated that, after the Pole had been turned out, Mitya's position with Agrafena Alexandrovna ha certainly improved, and that she had said that she loved him. He spok of Agrafena Alexandrovna with reserve and respect, as though she ha been a lady of the best society, and did not once allow himself to cal her Grushenka. In spite of the young man's obvious repugnance at givin evidence, Ippolit Kirillovitch examined him at great length, and onl from him learnt all the details of what made up Mitya's \"romance,\" s to say, on that night. Mitya did not once pull Kalganov up. At las they let the young man go, and he left the room with unconceale indignation."},
{"text":"The Poles, too, were examined. Though they had gone to bed in thei room, they had not slept all night, and on the arrival of the polic officers they hastily dressed and got ready, realizing that they woul certainly be sent for. They gave their evidence with dignity, thoug not without some uneasiness. The little Pole turned out to be a retire official of the twelfth class, who had served in Siberia as  veterinary surgeon. His name was Mussyalovitch. Pan Vrublevsky turne out to be an uncertificated dentist. Although Nikolay Parfenovitc asked them questions on entering the room they both addressed thei answers to Mihail Makarovitch, who was standing on one side, taking hi in their ignorance for the most important person and in command, an addressed him at every word as \"Pan Colonel.\" Only after severa reproofs from Mihail Makarovitch himself, they grasped that they had t address their answers to Nikolay Parfenovitch only. It turned out tha they could speak Russian quite correctly except for their accent i some words. Of his relations with Grushenka, past and present, Pa Mussyalovitch spoke proudly and warmly, so that Mitya was roused a once and declared that he would not allow the \"scoundrel\" to speak lik that in his presence! Pan Mussyalovitch at once called attention to th word \"scoundrel\" and begged that it should be put down in the protocol Mitya fumed with rage."},
{"text":"\"He's a scoundrel! A scoundrel! You can put that down. And put down too, that, in spite of the protocol I still declare that he's  scoundrel!\" he cried."},
{"text":"Though Nikolay Parfenovitch did insert this in the protocol, he showe the most praiseworthy tact and management. After sternly reprimandin Mitya, he cut short all further inquiry into the romantic aspect of th case, and hastened to pass to what was essential. One piece of evidenc given by the Poles roused special interest in the lawyers: that wa how, in that very room, Mitya had tried to buy off Pan Mussyalovitch and had offered him three thousand roubles to resign his claims, seve hundred roubles down, and the remaining two thousand three hundred \"t be paid next day in the town.\" He had sworn at the time that he had no the whole sum with him at Mokroe, but that his money was in the town Mitya observed hotly that he had not said that he would be sure to pa him the remainder next day in the town. But Pan Vrublevsky confirme the statement, and Mitya, after thinking for a moment admitted frowning, that it must have been as the Poles stated, that he had bee excited at the time, and might indeed have said so."},
{"text":"The prosecutor positively pounced on this piece of evidence. It seeme to establish for the prosecution (and they did, in fact, base thi deduction on it) that half, or a part of, the three thousand that ha come into Mitya's hands might really have been left somewhere hidden i the town, or even, perhaps, somewhere here, in Mokroe. This woul explain the circumstance, so baffling for the prosecution, that onl eight hundred roubles were to be found in Mitya's hands. Thi circumstance had been the one piece of evidence which, insignificant a it was, had hitherto told, to some extent, in Mitya's favor. Now thi one piece of evidence in his favor had broken down. In answer to th prosecutor's inquiry, where he would have got the remaining tw thousand three hundred roubles, since he himself had denied having mor than fifteen hundred, Mitya confidently replied that he had meant t offer the \"little chap,\" not money, but a formal deed of conveyance o his rights to the village of Tchermashnya, those rights which he ha already offered to Samsonov and Madame Hohlakov. The prosecuto positively smiled at the \"innocence of this subterfuge.\""},
{"text":"\"And you imagine he would have accepted such a deed as a substitute fo two thousand three hundred roubles in cash?\""},
{"text":"\"He certainly would have accepted it,\" Mitya declared warmly. \"Why look here, he might have grabbed not two thousand, but four or six, fo it. He would have put his lawyers, Poles and Jews, on to the job, an might have got, not three thousand, but the whole property out of th old man.\""},
{"text":"The evidence of Pan Mussyalovitch was, of course, entered in th protocol in the fullest detail. Then they let the Poles go. Th incident of the cheating at cards was hardly touched upon. Nikola Parfenovitch was too well pleased with them, as it was, and did no want to worry them with trifles, moreover, it was nothing but  foolish, drunken quarrel over cards. There had been drinking an disorder enough, that night. ... So the two hundred roubles remaine in the pockets of the Poles."},
{"text":"Then old Maximov was summoned. He came in timidly, approached wit little steps, looking very disheveled and depressed. He had, all thi time, taken refuge below with Grushenka, sitting dumbly beside her, an \"now and then he'd begin blubbering over her and wiping his eyes with  blue check handkerchief,\" as Mihail Makarovitch described afterwards So that she herself began trying to pacify and comfort him. The old ma at once confessed that he had done wrong, that he had borrowed \"te roubles in my poverty,\" from Dmitri Fyodorovitch, and that he was read to pay it back. To Nikolay Parfenovitch's direct question, had h noticed how much money Dmitri Fyodorovitch held in his hand, as he mus have been able to see the sum better than anyone when he took the not from him, Maximov, in the most positive manner, declared that there wa twenty thousand."},
{"text":"\"Have you ever seen so much as twenty thousand before, then?\" inquire Nikolay Parfenovitch, with a smile."},
{"text":"\"To be sure I have, not twenty, but seven, when my wife mortgaged m little property. She'd only let me look at it from a distance, boastin of it to me. It was a very thick bundle, all rainbow-colored notes. An Dmitri Fyodorovitch's were all rainbow-colored. ...\""},
{"text":"He was not kept long. At last it was Grushenka's turn. Nikola Parfenovitch was obviously apprehensive of the effect her appearanc might have on Mitya, and he muttered a few words of admonition to him but Mitya bowed his head in silence, giving him to understand \"that h would not make a scene.\" Mihail Makarovitch himself led Grushenka in She entered with a stern and gloomy face, that looked almost compose and sat down quietly on the chair offered her by Nikolay Parfenovitch She was very pale, she seemed to be cold, and wrapped herself closel in her magnificent black shawl. She was suffering from a sligh feverish chill--the first symptom of the long illness which followe that night. Her grave air, her direct earnest look and quiet manne made a very favorable impression on everyone. Nikolay Parfenovitch wa even a little bit \"fascinated.\" He admitted himself, when talking abou it afterwards, that only then had he seen \"how handsome the woman was,\"for, though he had seen her several times before, he had always looke upon her as something of a \"provincial hetaira.\" \"She has the manner of the best society,\" he said enthusiastically, gossiping about her i a circle of ladies. But this was received with positive indignation b the ladies, who immediately called him a \"naughty man,\" to his grea satisfaction."},
{"text":"As she entered the room, Grushenka only glanced for an instant a Mitya, who looked at her uneasily. But her face reassured him at once After the first inevitable inquiries and warnings, Nikolay Parfenovitc asked her, hesitating a little, but preserving the most courteou manner, on what terms she was with the retired lieutenant, Dmitr Fyodorovitch Karamazov. To this Grushenka firmly and quietly replied:"},
{"text":"\"He was an acquaintance. He came to see me as an acquaintance durin the last month.\" To further inquisitive questions she answered plainl and with complete frankness, that, though \"at times\" she had though him attractive, she had not loved him, but had won his heart as well a his old father's \"in my nasty spite,\" that she had seen that Mitya wa very jealous of Fyodor Pavlovitch and everyone else; but that had onl amused her. She had never meant to go to Fyodor Pavlovitch, she ha simply been laughing at him. \"I had no thoughts for either of them al this last month. I was expecting another man who had wronged me. But  think,\" she said in conclusion, \"that there's no need for you t inquire about that, nor for me to answer you, for that's my ow affair.\""},
{"text":"Nikolay Parfenovitch immediately acted upon this hint. He agai dismissed the \"romantic\" aspect of the case and passed to the seriou one, that is, to the question of most importance, concerning the thre thousand roubles. Grushenka confirmed the statement that three thousan roubles had certainly been spent on the first carousal at Mokroe, and though she had not counted the money herself, she had heard that it wa three thousand from Dmitri Fyodorovitch's own lips."},
{"text":"\"Did he tell you that alone, or before someone else, or did you onl hear him speak of it to others in your presence?\" the prosecuto inquired immediately."},
{"text":"To which Grushenka replied that she had heard him say so before othe people, and had heard him say so when they were alone."},
{"text":"\"Did he say it to you alone once, or several times?\" inquired th prosecutor, and learned that he had told Grushenka so several times."},
{"text":"Ippolit Kirillovitch was very well satisfied with this piece o evidence. Further examination elicited that Grushenka knew, too, wher that money had come from, and that Dmitri Fyodorovitch had got it fro Katerina Ivanovna."},
{"text":"\"And did you never, once, hear that the money spent a month ago was no three thousand, but less, and that Dmitri Fyodorovitch had saved hal that sum for his own use?\""},
{"text":"\"No, I never heard that,\" answered Grushenka."},
{"text":"It was explained further that Mitya had, on the contrary, often tol her that he hadn't a farthing."},
{"text":"\"He was always expecting to get some from his father,\" said Grushenk in conclusion."},
{"text":"\"Did he never say before you ... casually, or in a moment o irritation,\" Nikolay Parfenovitch put in suddenly, \"that he intended t make an attempt on his father's life?\""},
{"text":"\"Ach, he did say so,\" sighed Grushenka."},
{"text":"\"Once or several times?\""},
{"text":"\"He mentioned it several times, always in anger.\""},
{"text":"\"And did you believe he would do it?\""},
{"text":"\"No, I never believed it,\" she answered firmly. \"I had faith in hi noble heart.\""},
{"text":"\"Gentlemen, allow me,\" cried Mitya suddenly, \"allow me to say one wor to Agrafena Alexandrovna, in your presence.\""},
{"text":"\"You can speak,\" Nikolay Parfenovitch assented."},
{"text":"\"Agrafena Alexandrovna!\" Mitya got up from his chair, \"have faith i God and in me. I am not guilty of my father's murder!\""},
{"text":"Having uttered these words Mitya sat down again on his chair. Grushenk stood up and crossed herself devoutly before the icon. \"Thanks be t Thee, O Lord,\" she said, in a voice thrilled with emotion, and stil standing, she turned to Nikolay Parfenovitch and added:"},
{"text":"\"As he has spoken now, believe it! I know him. He'll say anything as  joke or from obstinacy, but he'll never deceive you against hi conscience. He's telling the whole truth, you may believe it.\""},
{"text":"\"Thanks, Agrafena Alexandrovna, you've given me fresh courage,\" Mity responded in a quivering voice."},
{"text":"As to the money spent the previous day, she declared that she did no know what sum it was, but had heard him tell several people that he ha three thousand with him. And to the question where he got the money she said that he had told her that he had \"stolen\" it from Katerin Ivanovna, and that she had replied to that that he hadn't stolen it and that he must pay the money back next day. On the prosecutor' asking her emphatically whether the money he said he had stolen fro Katerina Ivanovna was what he had spent yesterday, or what he ha squandered here a month ago, she declared that he meant the money spen a month ago, and that that was how she understood him."},
{"text":"Grushenka was at last released, and Nikolay Parfenovitch informed he impulsively that she might at once return to the town and that if h could be of any assistance to her, with horses for example, or if sh would care for an escort, he ... would be--"},
{"text":"\"I thank you sincerely,\" said Grushenka, bowing to him, \"I'm going wit this old gentleman, I am driving him back to town with me, an meanwhile, if you'll allow me, I'll wait below to hear what you decid about Dmitri Fyodorovitch.\""},
{"text":"She went out. Mitya was calm, and even looked more cheerful, but onl for a moment. He felt more and more oppressed by a strange physica weakness. His eyes were closing with fatigue. The examination of th witnesses was, at last, over. They proceeded to a final revision of th protocol. Mitya got up, moved from his chair to the corner by th curtain, lay down on a large chest covered with a rug, and instantl fell asleep."},
{"text":"He had a strange dream, utterly out of keeping with the place and th time."},
{"text":"He was driving somewhere in the steppes, where he had been statione long ago, and a peasant was driving him in a cart with a pair o horses, through snow and sleet. He was cold, it was early in November and the snow was falling in big wet flakes, melting as soon as i touched the earth. And the peasant drove him smartly, he had a fair long beard. He was not an old man, somewhere about fifty, and he had o a gray peasant's smock. Not far off was a village, he could see th black huts, and half the huts were burnt down, there were only th charred beams sticking up. And as they drove in, there were peasan women drawn up along the road, a lot of women, a whole row, all thi and wan, with their faces a sort of brownish color, especially one a the edge, a tall, bony woman, who looked forty, but might have bee only twenty, with a long thin face. And in her arms was a little bab crying. And her breasts seemed so dried up that there was not a drop o milk in them. And the child cried and cried, and held out its littl bare arms, with its little fists blue from cold."},
{"text":"\"Why are they crying? Why are they crying?\" Mitya asked, as they dashe gayly by."},
{"text":"\"It's the babe,\" answered the driver, \"the babe weeping.\""},
{"text":"And Mitya was struck by his saying, in his peasant way, \"the babe,\" an he liked the peasant's calling it a \"babe.\" There seemed more pity i it."},
{"text":"\"But why is it weeping?\" Mitya persisted stupidly, \"why are its littl arms bare? Why don't they wrap it up?\""},
{"text":"\"The babe's cold, its little clothes are frozen and don't warm it.\""},
{"text":"\"But why is it? Why?\" foolish Mitya still persisted."},
{"text":"\"Why, they're poor people, burnt out. They've no bread. They're beggin because they've been burnt out.\""},
{"text":"\"No, no,\" Mitya, as it were, still did not understand. \"Tell me why i is those poor mothers stand there? Why are people poor? Why is the bab poor? Why is the steppe barren? Why don't they hug each other and kiss Why don't they sing songs of joy? Why are they so dark from blac misery? Why don't they feed the babe?\""},
{"text":"And he felt that, though his questions were unreasonable and senseless yet he wanted to ask just that, and he had to ask it just in that way And he felt that a passion of pity, such as he had never known before was rising in his heart, that he wanted to cry, that he wanted to d something for them all, so that the babe should weep no more, so tha the dark-faced, dried-up mother should not weep, that no one shoul shed tears again from that moment, and he wanted to do it at once, a once, regardless of all obstacles, with all the recklessness of th Karamazovs."},
{"text":"\"And I'm coming with you. I won't leave you now for the rest of m life, I'm coming with you,\" he heard close beside him Grushenka' tender voice, thrilling with emotion. And his heart glowed, and h struggled forward towards the light, and he longed to live, to live, t go on and on, towards the new, beckoning light, and to hasten, hasten now, at once!"},
{"text":"\"What! Where?\" he exclaimed opening his eyes, and sitting up on th chest, as though he had revived from a swoon, smiling brightly. Nikola Parfenovitch was standing over him, suggesting that he should hear th protocol read aloud and sign it. Mitya guessed that he had been aslee an hour or more, but he did not hear Nikolay Parfenovitch. He wa suddenly struck by the fact that there was a pillow under his head which hadn't been there when he had leant back, exhausted, on th chest."},
{"text":"\"Who put that pillow under my head? Who was so kind?\" he cried, with  sort of ecstatic gratitude, and tears in his voice, as though som great kindness had been shown him."},
{"text":"He never found out who this kind man was; perhaps one of the peasan witnesses, or Nikolay Parfenovitch's little secretary, ha compassionately thought to put a pillow under his head; but his whol soul was quivering with tears. He went to the table and said that h would sign whatever they liked."},
{"text":"\"I've had a good dream, gentlemen,\" he said in a strange voice, with  new light, as of joy, in his face."},
{"text":" IX"},
{"text":"They Carry Mitya Away"},
{"text":"When the protocol had been signed, Nikolay Parfenovitch turned solemnl to the prisoner and read him the \"Committal,\" setting forth, that i such a year, on such a day, in such a place, the investigating lawye of such-and-such a district court, having examined so-and-so (to wit Mitya) accused of this and of that (all the charges were carefull written out) and having considered that the accused, not pleadin guilty to the charges made against him, had brought forward nothing i his defense, while the witnesses, so-and-so, and so-and-so, and th circumstances such-and-such testify against him, acting in accordanc with such-and-such articles of the Statute Book, and so on, has ruled that, in order to preclude so-and-so (Mitya) from all means of evadin pursuit and judgment he be detained in such-and-such a prison, which h hereby notifies to the accused and communicates a copy of this sam \"Committal\" to the deputy prosecutor, and so on, and so on."},
{"text":"In brief, Mitya was informed that he was, from that moment, a prisoner and that he would be driven at once to the town, and there shut up in  very unpleasant place. Mitya listened attentively, and only shrugge his shoulders."},
{"text":"\"Well, gentlemen, I don't blame you. I'm ready. ... I understand tha there's nothing else for you to do.\""},
{"text":"Nikolay Parfenovitch informed him gently that he would be escorted a once by the rural police officer, Mavriky Mavrikyevitch, who happene to be on the spot. ..."},
{"text":"\"Stay,\" Mitya interrupted, suddenly, and impelled by uncontrollabl feeling he pronounced, addressing all in the room:"},
{"text":"\"Gentlemen, we're all cruel, we're all monsters, we all make men weep and mothers, and babes at the breast, but of all, let it be settle here, now, of all I am the lowest reptile! I've sworn to amend, an every day I've done the same filthy things. I understand now that suc men as I need a blow, a blow of destiny to catch them as with a noose and bind them by a force from without. Never, never should I have rise of myself! But the thunderbolt has fallen. I accept the torture o accusation, and my public shame, I want to suffer and by suffering  shall be purified. Perhaps I shall be purified, gentlemen? But listen for the last time, I am not guilty of my father's blood. I accept m punishment, not because I killed him, but because I meant to kill him and perhaps I really might have killed him. Still I mean to fight i out with you. I warn you of that. I'll fight it out with you to th end, and then God will decide. Goodbye, gentlemen, don't be vexed wit me for having shouted at you during the examination. Oh, I was stil such a fool then. ... In another minute I shall be a prisoner, bu now, for the last time, as a free man, Dmitri Karamazov offers you hi hand. Saying goodbye to you, I say it to all men.\""},
{"text":"His voice quivered and he stretched out his hand, but Nikola Parfenovitch, who happened to stand nearest to him, with a sudden almost nervous movement, hid his hands behind his back. Mitya instantl noticed this, and started. He let his outstretched hand fall at once."},
{"text":"\"The preliminary inquiry is not yet over,\" Nikolay Parfenovitc faltered, somewhat embarrassed. \"We will continue it in the town, an I, for my part, of course, am ready to wish you all success ... i your defense. ... As a matter of fact, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, I'v always been disposed to regard you as, so to speak, more unfortunat than guilty. All of us here, if I may make bold to speak for all, w are all ready to recognize that you are, at bottom, a young man o honor, but, alas, one who has been carried away by certain passions t a somewhat excessive degree. ...\""},
{"text":"Nikolay Parfenovitch's little figure was positively majestic by th time he had finished speaking. It struck Mitya that in another minut this \"boy\" would take his arm, lead him to another corner, and rene their conversation about \"girls.\" But many quite irrelevant an inappropriate thoughts sometimes occur even to a prisoner when he i being led out to execution."},
{"text":"\"Gentlemen, you are good, you are humane, may I see her to sa `goodbye' for the last time?\" asked Mitya."},
{"text":"\"Certainly, but considering ... in fact, now it's impossible excep in the presence of--\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, well, if it must be so, it must!\""},
{"text":"Grushenka was brought in, but the farewell was brief, and of few words and did not at all satisfy Nikolay Parfenovitch. Grushenka made a dee bow to Mitya."},
{"text":"\"I have told you I am yours, and I will be yours. I will follow yo forever, wherever they may send you. Farewell; you are guiltless though you've been your own undoing.\""},
{"text":"Her lips quivered, tears flowed from her eyes."},
{"text":"\"Forgive me, Grusha, for my love, for ruining you, too, with my love.\""},
{"text":"Mitya would have said something more, but he broke off and went out. H was at once surrounded by men who kept a constant watch on him. At th bottom of the steps to which he had driven up with such a dash the da before with Andrey's three horses, two carts stood in readiness Mavriky Mavrikyevitch, a sturdy, thickset man with a wrinkled face, wa annoyed about something, some sudden irregularity. He was shoutin angrily. He asked Mitya to get into the cart with somewhat excessiv surliness."},
{"text":"\"When I stood him drinks in the tavern, the man had quite a differen face,\" thought Mitya, as he got in. At the gates there was a crowd o people, peasants, women and drivers. Trifon Borissovitch came down th steps too. All stared at Mitya."},
{"text":"\"Forgive me at parting, good people!\" Mitya shouted suddenly from th cart."},
{"text":"\"Forgive us too!\" he heard two or three voices."},
{"text":"\"Goodbye to you, too, Trifon Borissovitch!\""},
{"text":"But Trifon Borissovitch did not even turn round. He was, perhaps, to busy. He, too, was shouting and fussing about something. It appeare that everything was not yet ready in the second cart, in which tw constables were to accompany Mavriky Mavrikyevitch. The peasant who ha been ordered to drive the second cart was pulling on his smock, stoutl maintaining that it was not his turn to go, but Akim's. But Akim wa not to be seen. They ran to look for him. The peasant persisted an besought them to wait."},
{"text":"\"You see what our peasants are, Mavriky Mavrikyevitch. They've n shame!\" exclaimed Trifon Borissovitch. \"Akim gave you twenty-fiv copecks the day before yesterday. You've drunk it all and now you cr out. I'm simply surprised at your good-nature, with our low peasants Mavriky Mavrikyevitch, that's all I can say.\""},
{"text":"\"But what do we want a second cart for?\" Mitya put in. \"Let's star with the one, Mavriky Mavrikyevitch. I won't be unruly, I won't ru away from you, old fellow. What do we want an escort for?\""},
{"text":"\"I'll trouble you, sir, to learn how to speak to me if you've neve been taught. I'm not `old fellow' to you, and you can keep your advic for another time!\" Mavriky Mavrikyevitch snapped out savagely, a though glad to vent his wrath."},
{"text":"Mitya was reduced to silence. He flushed all over. A moment later h felt suddenly very cold. The rain had ceased, but the dull sky wa still overcast with clouds, and a keen wind was blowing straight in hi face."},
{"text":"\"I've taken a chill,\" thought Mitya, twitching his shoulders."},
{"text":"At last Mavriky Mavrikyevitch, too, got into the cart, sat dow heavily, and, as though without noticing it, squeezed Mitya into th corner. It is true that he was out of humor and greatly disliked th task that had been laid upon him."},
{"text":"\"Goodbye, Trifon Borissovitch!\" Mitya shouted again, and felt himself that he had not called out this time from good-nature, bu involuntarily, from resentment."},
{"text":"But Trifon Borissovitch stood proudly, with both hands behind his back and staring straight at Mitya with a stern and angry face, he made n reply."},
{"text":"\"Goodbye, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, goodbye!\" he heard all at once the voic of Kalganov, who had suddenly darted out. Running up to the cart h held out his hand to Mitya. He had no cap on."},
{"text":"Mitya had time to seize and press his hand."},
{"text":"\"Goodbye, dear fellow! I shan't forget your generosity,\" he crie warmly."},
{"text":"But the cart moved and their hands parted. The bell began ringing an Mitya was driven off."},
{"text":"Kalganov ran back, sat down in a corner, bent his head, hid his face i his hands, and burst out crying. For a long while he sat like that crying as though he were a little boy instead of a young man of twenty Oh, he believed almost without doubt in Mitya's guilt."},
{"text":"\"What are these people? What can men be after this?\" he exclaime incoherently, in bitter despondency, almost despair. At that moment h had no desire to live."},
{"text":"\"Is it worth it? Is it worth it?\" exclaimed the boy in his grief."},
{"text": It was the beginning of November. There had been a hard frost, eleve degrees Raumur, without snow, but a little dry snow had fallen on th frozen ground during the night, and a keen dry wind was lifting an blowing it along the dreary streets of our town, especially about th marketplace. It was a dull morning, but the snow had ceased."},
{"text":"Not far from the marketplace, close to Plotnikov's shop, there stood  small house, very clean both without and within. It belonged to Madam Krassotkin, the widow of a former provincial secretary, who had bee dead for fourteen years. His widow, still a nice-looking woman o thirty-two, was living in her neat little house on her private means She lived in respectable seclusion; she was of a soft but fairl cheerful disposition. She was about eighteen at the time of he husband's death; she had been married only a year and had just born him a son. From the day of his death she had devoted herself heart an soul to the bringing up of her precious treasure, her boy Kolya. Thoug she had loved him passionately those fourteen years, he had caused he far more suffering than happiness. She had been trembling and faintin with terror almost every day, afraid he would fall ill, would catc cold, do something naughty, climb on a chair and fall off it, and so o and so on. When Kolya began going to school, the mother devoted hersel to studying all the sciences with him so as to help him, and go throug his lessons with him. She hastened to make the acquaintance of th teachers and their wives, even made up to Kolya's schoolfellows, an fawned upon them in the hope of thus saving Kolya from being teased laughed at, or beaten by them. She went so far that the boys actuall began to mock at him on her account and taunt him with being  \"mother's darling.\""},
{"text":"But the boy could take his own part. He was a resolute boy \"tremendously strong,\" as was rumored in his class, and soon proved t be the fact; he was agile, strong-willed, and of an audacious an enterprising temper. He was good at lessons, and there was a rumor i the school that he could beat the teacher, Dardanelov, at arithmeti and universal history. Though he looked down upon everyone, he was  good comrade and not supercilious. He accepted his schoolfellows respect as his due, but was friendly with them. Above all, he kne where to draw the line. He could restrain himself on occasion, and i his relations with the teachers he never overstepped that last mysti limit beyond which a prank becomes an unpardonable breach o discipline. But he was as fond of mischief on every possible occasio as the smallest boy in the school, and not so much for the sake o mischief as for creating a sensation, inventing something, somethin effective and conspicuous. He was extremely vain. He knew how to mak even his mother give way to him; he was almost despotic in his contro of her. She gave way to him, oh, she had given way to him for years The one thought unendurable to her was that her boy had no great lov for her. She was always fancying that Kolya was \"unfeeling\" to her, an at times, dissolving into hysterical tears, she used to reproach hi with his coldness. The boy disliked this, and the more demonstration of feeling were demanded of him the more he seemed intentionally t avoid them. Yet it was not intentional on his part but instinctive--i was his character. His mother was mistaken; he was very fond of her. H only disliked \"sheepish sentimentality,\" as he expressed it in hi schoolboy language."},
{"text":"There was a bookcase in the house containing a few books that had bee his father's. Kolya was fond of reading, and had read several of the by himself. His mother did not mind that and only wondered sometimes a seeing the boy stand for hours by the bookcase poring over a boo instead of going to play. And in that way Kolya read some thing unsuitable for his age."},
{"text":"Though the boy, as a rule, knew where to draw the line in his mischief he had of late begun to play pranks that caused his mother seriou alarm. It is true there was nothing vicious in what he did, but a wil mad recklessness."},
{"text":"It happened that July, during the summer holidays, that the mother an son went to another district, forty-five miles away, to spend a wee with a distant relation, whose husband was an official at the railwa station (the very station, the nearest one to our town, from which  month later Ivan Fyodorovitch Karamazov set off for Moscow). Ther Kolya began by carefully investigating every detail connected with th railways, knowing that he could impress his schoolfellows when he go home with his newly acquired knowledge. But there happened to be som other boys in the place with whom he soon made friends. Some of the were living at the station, others in the neighborhood; there were si or seven of them, all between twelve and fifteen, and two of them cam from our town. The boys played together, and on the fourth or fifth da of Kolya's stay at the station, a mad bet was made by the foolish boys Kolya, who was almost the youngest of the party and rather looked dow upon by the others in consequence, was moved by vanity or by reckles bravado to bet them two roubles that he would lie down between th rails at night when the eleven o'clock train was due, and would li there without moving while the train rolled over him at full speed. I is true they made a preliminary investigation, from which it appeare that it was possible to lie so flat between the rails that the trai could pass over without touching, but to lie there was no joke! Koly maintained stoutly that he would. At first they laughed at him, calle him a little liar, a braggart, but that only egged him on. What pique him most was that these boys of fifteen turned up their noses at hi too superciliously, and were at first disposed to treat him as \"a smal boy,\" not fit to associate with them, and that was an unendurabl insult."},
{"text":"And so it was resolved to go in the evening, half a mile from th station, so that the train might have time to get up full speed afte leaving the station. The boys assembled. It was a pitch-dark nigh without a moon. At the time fixed, Kolya lay down between the rails The five others who had taken the bet waited among the bushes below th embankment, their hearts beating with suspense, which was followed b alarm and remorse. At last they heard in the distance the rumble of th train leaving the station. Two red lights gleamed out of the darkness the monster roared as it approached."},
{"text":"\"Run, run away from the rails,\" the boys cried to Kolya from th bushes, breathless with terror. But it was too late: the train darte up and flew past. The boys rushed to Kolya. He lay without moving. The began pulling at him, lifting him up. He suddenly got up and walke away without a word. Then he explained that he had lain there as thoug he were insensible to frighten them, but the fact was that he reall had lost consciousness, as he confessed long after to his mother. I this way his reputation as \"a desperate character,\" was establishe forever. He returned home to the station as white as a sheet. Next da he had a slight attack of nervous fever, but he was in high spirits an well pleased with himself. The incident did not become known at once but when they came back to the town it penetrated to the school an even reached the ears of the masters. But then Kolya's mother hastene to entreat the masters on her boy's behalf, and in the end Dardanelov a respected and influential teacher, exerted himself in his favor, an the affair was ignored."},
{"text":"Dardanelov was a middle-aged bachelor, who had been passionately i love with Madame Krassotkin for many years past, and had once already about a year previously, ventured, trembling with fear and the delicac of his sentiments, to offer her most respectfully his hand in marriage But she refused him resolutely, feeling that to accept him would be a act of treachery to her son, though Dardanelov had, to judge fro certain mysterious symptoms, reason for believing that he was not a object of aversion to the charming but too chaste and tenderhearte widow. Kolya's mad prank seemed to have broken the ice, and Dardanelo was rewarded for his intercession by a suggestion of hope. Th suggestion, it is true, was a faint one, but then Dardanelov was such  paragon of purity and delicacy that it was enough for the time being t make him perfectly happy. He was fond of the boy, though he would hav felt it beneath him to try and win him over, and was severe and stric with him in class. Kolya, too, kept him at a respectful distance. H learned his lessons perfectly; he was second in his class, was reserve with Dardanelov, and the whole class firmly believed that Kolya was s good at universal history that he could \"beat\" even Dardanelov. Koly did indeed ask him the question, \"Who founded Troy?\" to whic Dardanelov had made a very vague reply, referring to the movements an migrations of races, to the remoteness of the period, to the mythica legends. But the question, \"Who had founded Troy?\" that is, wha individuals, he could not answer, and even for some reason regarded th question as idle and frivolous. But the boys remained convinced tha Dardanelov did not know who founded Troy. Kolya had read of th founders of Troy in Smaragdov, whose history was among the books in hi father's bookcase. In the end all the boys became interested in th question, who it was that had founded Troy, but Krassotkin would no tell his secret, and his reputation for knowledge remained unshaken."},
{"text":"After the incident on the railway a certain change came over Kolya' attitude to his mother. When Anna Fyodorovna (Madame Krassotkin) hear of her son's exploit, she almost went out of her mind with horror. Sh had such terrible attacks of hysterics, lasting with intervals fo several days, that Kolya, seriously alarmed at last, promised on hi honor that such pranks should never be repeated. He swore on his knee before the holy image, and swore by the memory of his father, at Madam Krassotkin's instance, and the \"manly\" Kolya burst into tears like  boy of six. And all that day the mother and son were constantly rushin into each other's arms sobbing. Next day Kolya woke up as \"unfeeling\"as before, but he had become more silent, more modest, sterner, an more thoughtful."},
{"text":"Six weeks later, it is true, he got into another scrape, which eve brought his name to the ears of our Justice of the Peace, but it was  scrape of quite another kind, amusing, foolish, and he did not, as i turned out, take the leading part in it, but was only implicated in it But of this later. His mother still fretted and trembled, but the mor uneasy she became, the greater were the hopes of Dardanelov. It must b noted that Kolya understood and divined what was in Dardanelov's hear and, of course, despised him profoundly for his \"feelings\"; he had i the past been so tactless as to show this contempt before his mother hinting vaguely that he knew what Dardanelov was after. But from th time of the railway incident his behavior in this respect also wa changed; he did not allow himself the remotest allusion to the subjec and began to speak more respectfully of Dardanelov before his mother which the sensitive woman at once appreciated with boundless gratitude But at the slightest mention of Dardanelov by a visitor in Kolya' presence, she would flush as pink as a rose. At such moments Koly would either stare out of the window scowling, or would investigate th state of his boots, or would shout angrily for \"Perezvon,\" the big shaggy, mangy dog, which he had picked up a month before, brought home and kept for some reason secretly indoors, not showing him to any o his schoolfellows. He bullied him frightfully, teaching him all sort of tricks, so that the poor dog howled for him whenever he was absen at school, and when he came in, whined with delight, rushed about as i he were crazy, begged, lay down on the ground pretending to be dead and so on; in fact, showed all the tricks he had taught him, not at th word of command, but simply from the zeal of his excited and gratefu heart."},
{"text":"I have forgotten, by the way, to mention that Kolya Krassotkin was th boy stabbed with a penknife by the boy already known to the reader a the son of Captain Snegiryov. Ilusha had been defending his father whe the schoolboys jeered at him, shouting the nickname \"wisp of tow.\""},
{"text":" II"},
{"text":"Children"},
{"text":"And so on that frosty, snowy, and windy day in November, Koly Krassotkin was sitting at home. It was Sunday and there was no school It had just struck eleven, and he particularly wanted to go out \"o very urgent business,\" but he was left alone in charge of the house for it so happened that all its elder inmates were absent owing to  sudden and singular event. Madame Krassotkin had let two little rooms separated from the rest of the house by a passage, to a doctor's wif with her two small children. This lady was the same age as Ann Fyodorovna, and a great friend of hers. Her husband, the doctor, ha taken his departure twelve months before, going first to Orenburg an then to Tashkend, and for the last six months she had not heard a wor from him. Had it not been for her friendship with Madame Krassotkin which was some consolation to the forsaken lady, she would certainl have completely dissolved away in tears. And now, to add to he misfortunes, Katerina, her only servant, was suddenly moved the evenin before to announce, to her mistress's amazement, that she proposed t bring a child into the world before morning. It seemed almos miraculous to everyone that no one had noticed the probability of i before. The astounded doctor's wife decided to move Katerina whil there was still time to an establishment in the town kept by a midwif for such emergencies. As she set great store by her servant, sh promptly carried out this plan and remained there looking after her. B the morning all Madame Krassotkin's friendly sympathy and energy wer called upon to render assistance and appeal to someone for help in th case."},
{"text":"So both the ladies were absent from home, the Krassotkins' servant Agafya, had gone out to the market, and Kolya was thus left for a tim to protect and look after \"the kids,\" that is, the son and daughter o the doctor's wife, who were left alone. Kolya was not afraid of takin care of the house, besides he had Perezvon, who had been told to li flat, without moving, under the bench in the hall. Every time Kolya walking to and fro through the rooms, came into the hall, the dog shoo his head and gave two loud and insinuating taps on the floor with hi tail, but alas! the whistle did not sound to release him. Kolya looke sternly at the luckless dog, who relapsed again into obedient rigidity The one thing that troubled Kolya was \"the kids.\" He looked, of course with the utmost scorn on Katerina's unexpected adventure, but he wa very fond of the bereaved \"kiddies,\" and had already taken them  picture-book. Nastya, the elder, a girl of eight, could read, an Kostya, the boy, aged seven, was very fond of being read to by her Krassotkin could, of course, have provided more diverting entertainmen for them. He could have made them stand side by side and playe soldiers with them, or sent them hiding all over the house. He had don so more than once before and was not above doing it, so much so that  report once spread at school that Krassotkin played horses with th little lodgers at home, prancing with his head on one side like  trace-horse. But Krassotkin haughtily parried this thrust, pointing ou that to play horses with boys of one's own age, boys of thirteen, woul certainly be disgraceful \"at this date,\" but that he did it for th sake of \"the kids\" because he liked them, and no one had a right t call him to account for his feelings. The two \"kids\" adored him."},
{"text":"But on this occasion he was in no mood for games. He had very importan business of his own before him, something almost mysterious. Meanwhil time was passing and Agafya, with whom he could have left the children would not come back from market. He had several times already crosse the passage, opened the door of the lodgers' room and looked anxiousl at \"the kids\" who were sitting over the book, as he had bidden them Every time he opened the door they grinned at him, hoping he would com in and would do something delightful and amusing. But Kolya wa bothered and did not go in."},
{"text":"At last it struck eleven and he made up his mind, once for all, that i that \"damned\" Agafya did not come back within ten minutes he should g out without waiting for her, making \"the kids\" promise, of course, t be brave when he was away, not to be naughty, not to cry from fright With this idea he put on his wadded winter overcoat with its catski fur collar, slung his satchel round his shoulder, and, regardless o his mother's constantly reiterated entreaties that he would always pu on goloshes in such cold weather, he looked at them contemptuously a he crossed the hall and went out with only his boots on. Perezvon seeing him in his outdoor clothes, began tapping nervously, ye vigorously, on the floor with his tail. Twitching all over, he eve uttered a plaintive whine. But Kolya, seeing his dog's passionat excitement, decided that it was a breach of discipline, kept him fo another minute under the bench, and only when he had opened the doo into the passage, whistled for him. The dog leapt up like a ma creature and rushed bounding before him rapturously."},
{"text":"Kolya opened the door to peep at \"the kids.\" They were both sitting a before at the table, not reading but warmly disputing about something The children often argued together about various exciting problems o life, and Nastya, being the elder, always got the best of it. If Kosty did not agree with her, he almost always appealed to Kolya Krassotkin and his verdict was regarded as infallible by both of them. This tim the \"kids' \" discussion rather interested Krassotkin, and he stoo still in the passage to listen. The children saw he was listening an that made them dispute with even greater energy."},
{"text":"\"I shall never, never believe,\" Nastya prattled, \"that the old wome find babies among the cabbages in the kitchen-garden. It's winter no and there are no cabbages, and so the old woman couldn't have take Katerina a daughter.\""},
{"text":"Kolya whistled to himself."},
{"text":"\"Or perhaps they do bring babies from somewhere, but only to those wh are married.\""},
{"text":"Kostya stared at Nastya and listened, pondering profoundly."},
{"text":"\"Nastya, how silly you are!\" he said at last, firmly and calmly. \"Ho can Katerina have a baby when she isn't married?\""},
{"text":"Nastya was exasperated."},
{"text":"\"You know nothing about it,\" she snapped irritably. \"Perhaps she has  husband, only he is in prison, so now she's got a baby.\""},
{"text":"\"But is her husband in prison?\" the matter-of-fact Kostya inquire gravely."},
{"text":"\"Or, I tell you what,\" Nastya interrupted impulsively, completel rejecting and forgetting her first hypothesis. \"She hasn't a husband you are right there, but she wants to be married, and so she's bee thinking of getting married, and thinking and thinking of it till no she's got it, that is, not a husband but a baby.\""},
{"text":"\"Well, perhaps so,\" Kostya agreed, entirely vanquished. \"But you didn' say so before. So how could I tell?\""},
{"text":"\"Come, kiddies,\" said Kolya, stepping into the room. \"You're terribl people, I see.\""},
{"text":"\"And Perezvon with you!\" grinned Kostya, and began snapping his finger and calling Perezvon."},
{"text":"\"I am in a difficulty, kids,\" Krassotkin began solemnly, \"and you mus help me. Agafya must have broken her leg, since she has not turned u till now, that's certain. I must go out. Will you let me go?\""},
{"text":"The children looked anxiously at one another. Their smiling face showed signs of uneasiness, but they did not yet fully grasp what wa expected of them."},
{"text":"\"You won't be naughty while I am gone? You won't climb on the cupboar and break your legs? You won't be frightened alone and cry?\""},
{"text":"A look of profound despondency came into the children's faces."},
{"text":"\"And I could show you something as a reward, a little copper canno which can be fired with real gunpowder.\""},
{"text":"The children's faces instantly brightened. \"Show us the cannon,\" sai Kostya, beaming all over."},
{"text":"Krassotkin put his hand in his satchel, and pulling out a little bronz cannon stood it on the table."},
{"text":"\"Ah, you are bound to ask that! Look, it's on wheels.\" He rolled th toy on along the table. \"And it can be fired off, too. It can be loade with shot and fired off.\""},
{"text":"\"And it could kill anyone?\""},
{"text":"\"It can kill anyone; you've only got to aim at anybody,\" and Krassotki explained where the powder had to be put, where the shot should b rolled in, showing a tiny hole like a touch-hole, and told them that i kicked when it was fired."},
{"text":"The children listened with intense interest. What particularly struc their imagination was that the cannon kicked."},
{"text":"\"And have you got any powder?\" Nastya inquired."},
{"text":"\"Yes.\""},
{"text":"\"Show us the powder, too,\" she drawled with a smile of entreaty."},
{"text":"Krassotkin dived again into his satchel and pulled out a small flas containing a little real gunpowder. He had some shot, too, in a scre of paper. He even uncorked the flask and shook a little powder into th palm of his hand."},
{"text":"\"One has to be careful there's no fire about, or it would blow up an kill us all,\" Krassotkin warned them sensationally."},
{"text":"The children gazed at the powder with an awestricken alarm that onl intensified their enjoyment. But Kostya liked the shot better."},
{"text":"\"And does the shot burn?\" he inquired."},
{"text":"\"No, it doesn't.\""},
{"text":"\"Give me a little shot,\" he asked in an imploring voice."},
{"text":"\"I'll give you a little shot; here, take it, but don't show it to you mother till I come back, or she'll be sure to think it's gunpowder, an will die of fright and give you a thrashing.\""},
{"text":"\"Mother never does whip us,\" Nastya observed at once."},
{"text":"\"I know, I only said it to finish the sentence. And don't you eve deceive your mother except just this once, until I come back. And so kiddies, can I go out? You won't be frightened and cry when I'm gone?\""},
{"text":"\"We sha--all cry,\" drawled Kostya, on the verge of tears already."},
{"text":"\"We shall cry, we shall be sure to cry,\" Nastya chimed in with timi haste."},
{"text":"\"Oh, children, children, how fraught with peril are your years! There' no help for it, chickens, I shall have to stay with you I don't kno how long. And time is passing, time is passing, oogh!\""},
{"text":"\"Tell Perezvon to pretend to be dead!\" Kostya begged."},
{"text":"\"There's no help for it, we must have recourse to Perezvon. Ici Perezvon.\" And Kolya began giving orders to the dog, who performed al his tricks."},
{"text":"He was a rough-haired dog, of medium size, with a coat of a sort o lilac-gray color. He was blind in his right eye, and his left ear wa torn. He whined and jumped, stood and walked on his hind legs, lay o his back with his paws in the air, rigid as though he were dead. Whil this last performance was going on, the door opened and Agafya, Madam Krassotkin's servant, a stout woman of forty, marked with smallpox appeared in the doorway. She had come back from market and had a ba full of provisions in her hand. Holding up the bag of provisions in he left hand she stood still to watch the dog. Though Kolya had been s anxious for her return, he did not cut short the performance, and afte keeping Perezvon dead for the usual time, at last he whistled to him The dog jumped up and began bounding about in his joy at having don his duty."},
{"text":"\"Only think, a dog!\" Agafya observed sententiously."},
{"text":"\"Why are you late, female?\" asked Krassotkin sternly."},
{"text":"\"Female, indeed! Go on with you, you brat.\""},
{"text":"\"Brat?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, a brat. What is it to you if I'm late; if I'm late, you may b sure I have good reason,\" muttered Agafya, busying herself about th stove, without a trace of anger or displeasure in her voice. She seeme quite pleased, in fact, to enjoy a skirmish with her merry youn master."},
{"text":"\"Listen, you frivolous young woman,\" Krassotkin began, getting up fro the sofa, \"can you swear by all you hold sacred in the world an something else besides, that you will watch vigilantly over the kids i my absence? I am going out.\""},
{"text":"\"And what am I going to swear for?\" laughed Agafya. \"I shall look afte them without that.\""},
{"text":"\"No, you must swear on your eternal salvation. Else I shan't go.\""},
{"text":"\"Well, don't then. What does it matter to me? It's cold out; stay a home.\""},
{"text":"\"Kids,\" Kolya turned to the children, \"this woman will stay with yo till I come back or till your mother comes, for she ought to have bee back long ago. She will give you some lunch, too. You'll give the something, Agafya, won't you?\""},
{"text":"\"That I can do.\""},
{"text":"\"Goodbye, chickens, I go with my heart at rest. And you, granny,\" h added gravely, in an undertone, as he passed Agafya, \"I hope you'l spare their tender years and not tell them any of your old woman' nonsense about Katerina. Ici, Perezvon!\""},
{"text":"\"Get along with you!\" retorted Agafya, really angry this time \"Ridiculous boy! You want a whipping for saying such things, that' what you want!\""},
{"text":" III"},
{"text":"The Schoolboy"},
{"text":"But Kolya did not hear her. At last he could go out. As he went out a the gate he looked round him, shrugged up his shoulders, and saying \"I is freezing,\" went straight along the street and turned off to th right towards the marketplace. When he reached the last house but on before the marketplace he stopped at the gate, pulled a whistle out o his pocket, and whistled with all his might as though giving a signal He had not to wait more than a minute before a rosy-cheeked boy o about eleven, wearing a warm, neat and even stylish coat, darted out t meet him. This was Smurov, a boy in the preparatory class (two classe below Kolya Krassotkin), son of a well-to-do official. Apparently h was forbidden by his parents to associate with Krassotkin, who was wel known to be a desperately naughty boy, so Smurov was obviously slippin out on the sly. He was--if the reader has not forgotten--one of th group of boys who two months before had thrown stones at Ilusha. He wa the one who told Alyosha Karamazov about Ilusha."},
{"text":"\"I've been waiting for you for the last hour, Krassotkin,\" said Smuro stolidly, and the boys strode towards the marketplace."},
{"text":"\"I am late,\" answered Krassotkin. \"I was detained by circumstances. Yo won't be thrashed for coming with me?\""},
{"text":"\"Come, I say, I'm never thrashed! And you've got Perezvon with you?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes.\""},
{"text":"\"You're taking him, too?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes.\""},
{"text":"\"Ah! if it were only Zhutchka!\""},
{"text":"\"That's impossible. Zhutchka's nonexistent. Zhutchka is lost in th mists of obscurity.\""},
{"text":"\"Ah! couldn't we do this?\" Smurov suddenly stood still. \"You see Ilush says that Zhutchka was a shaggy, grayish, smoky-looking dog lik Perezvon. Couldn't you tell him this is Zhutchka, and he might believ you?\""},
{"text":"\"Boy, shun a lie, that's one thing; even with a good object--that' another. Above all, I hope you've not told them anything about m coming.\""},
{"text":"\"Heaven forbid! I know what I am about. But you won't comfort him wit Perezvon,\" said Smurov, with a sigh. \"You know his father, the captain `the wisp of tow,' told us that he was going to bring him a rea mastiff pup, with a black nose, today. He thinks that would comfor Ilusha; but I doubt it.\""},
{"text":"\"And how is Ilusha?\""},
{"text":"\"Ah, he is bad, very bad! I believe he's in consumption: he is quit conscious, but his breathing! His breathing's gone wrong. The other da he asked to have his boots on to be led round the room. He tried t walk, but he couldn't stand. `Ah, I told you before, father,' he said `that those boots were no good. I could never walk properly in them. He fancied it was his boots that made him stagger, but it was simpl weakness, really. He won't live another week. Herzenstube is lookin after him. Now they are rich again--they've got heaps of money.\""},
{"text":"\"They are rogues.\""},
{"text":"\"Who are rogues?\""},
{"text":"\"Doctors and the whole crew of quacks collectively, and also, o course, individually. I don't believe in medicine. It's a useles institution. I mean to go into all that. But what's that sentimentalit you've got up there? The whole class seems to be there every day.\""},
{"text":"\"Not the whole class: it's only ten of our fellows who go to see hi every day. There's nothing in that.\""},
{"text":"\"What I don't understand in all this is the part that Alexey Karamazo is taking in it. His brother's going to be tried tomorrow or next da for such a crime, and yet he has so much time to spend o sentimentality with boys.\""},
{"text":"\"There's no sentimentality about it. You are going yourself now to mak it up with Ilusha.\""},
{"text":"\"Make it up with him? What an absurd expression! But I allow no one t analyze my actions.\""},
{"text":"\"And how pleased Ilusha will be to see you! He has no idea that you ar coming. Why was it, why was it you wouldn't come all this time?\" Smuro cried with sudden warmth."},
{"text":"\"My dear boy, that's my business, not yours. I am going of mysel because I choose to, but you've all been hauled there by Alexe Karamazov--there's a difference, you know. And how do you know? I ma not be going to make it up at all. It's a stupid expression.\""},
{"text":"\"It's not Karamazov at all; it's not his doing. Our fellows began goin there of themselves. Of course, they went with Karamazov at first. An there's been nothing of that sort--no silliness. First one went, an then another. His father was awfully pleased to see us. You know h will simply go out of his mind if Ilusha dies. He sees that Ilusha' dying. And he seems so glad we've made it up with Ilusha. Ilusha aske after you, that was all. He just asks and says no more. His father wil go out of his mind or hang himself. He behaved like a madman before You know he is a very decent man. We made a mistake then. It's all th fault of that murderer who beat him then.\""},
{"text":"\"Karamazov's a riddle to me all the same. I might have made hi acquaintance long ago, but I like to have a proper pride in some cases Besides, I have a theory about him which I must work out and verify.\""},
{"text":"Kolya subsided into dignified silence. Smurov, too, was silent. Smurov of course, worshiped Krassotkin and never dreamed of putting himself o a level with him. Now he was tremendously interested at Kolya's sayin that he was \"going of himself\" to see Ilusha. He felt that there mus be some mystery in Kolya's suddenly taking it into his head to go t him that day. They crossed the marketplace, in which at that hour wer many loaded wagons from the country and a great number of live fowls The market women were selling rolls, cottons and threads, etc., i their booths. These Sunday markets were naively called \"fairs\" in th town, and there were many such fairs in the year."},
{"text":"Perezvon ran about in the wildest spirits, sniffing about first on side, then the other. When he met other dogs they zealously smelt eac other over according to the rules of canine etiquette."},
{"text":"\"I like to watch such realistic scenes, Smurov,\" said Kolya suddenly \"Have you noticed how dogs sniff at one another when they meet? I seems to be a law of their nature.\""},
{"text":"\"Yes; it's a funny habit.\""},
{"text":"\"No, it's not funny; you are wrong there. There's nothing funny i nature, however funny it may seem to man with his prejudices. If dog could reason and criticize us they'd be sure to find just as much tha would be funny to them, if not far more, in the social relations o men, their masters--far more, indeed. I repeat that, because I a convinced that there is far more foolishness among us. That's Rakitin' idea--a remarkable idea. I am a Socialist, Smurov.\""},
{"text":"\"And what is a Socialist?\" asked Smurov."},
{"text":"\"That's when all are equal and all have property in common, there ar no marriages, and everyone has any religion and laws he likes best, an all the rest of it. You are not old enough to understand that yet. It' cold, though.\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, twelve degrees of frost. Father looked at the thermometer jus now.\""},
{"text":"\"Have you noticed, Smurov, that in the middle of winter we don't fee so cold even when there are fifteen or eighteen degrees of frost as w do now, in the beginning of winter, when there is a sudden frost o twelve degrees, especially when there is not much snow. It's becaus people are not used to it. Everything is habit with men, everythin even in their social and political relations. Habit is the grea motive-power. What a funny-looking peasant!\""},
{"text":"Kolya pointed to a tall peasant, with a good-natured countenance in  long sheepskin coat, who was standing by his wagon, clapping togethe his hands, in their shapeless leather gloves, to warm them. His lon fair beard was all white with frost."},
{"text":"\"That peasant's beard's frozen,\" Kolya cried in a loud provocativ voice as he passed him."},
{"text":"\"Lots of people's beards are frozen,\" the peasant replied, calmly an sententiously."},
{"text":"\"Don't provoke him,\" observed Smurov."},
{"text":"\"It's all right; he won't be cross; he's a nice fellow. Goodbye Matvey.\""},
{"text":"\"Goodbye.\""},
{"text":"\"Is your name Matvey?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes. Didn't you know?\""},
{"text":"\"No, I didn't. It was a guess.\""},
{"text":"\"You don't say so! You are a schoolboy, I suppose?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes.\""},
{"text":"\"You get whipped, I expect?\""},
{"text":"\"Nothing to speak of--sometimes.\""},
{"text":"\"Does it hurt?\""},
{"text":"\"Well, yes, it does.\""},
{"text":"\"Ech, what a life!\" The peasant heaved a sigh from the bottom of hi heart."},
{"text":"\"Goodbye, Matvey.\""},
{"text":"\"Goodbye. You are a nice chap, that you are.\""},
{"text":"The boys went on."},
{"text":"\"That was a nice peasant,\" Kolya observed to Smurov. \"I like talking t the peasants, and am always glad to do them justice.\""},
{"text":"\"Why did you tell a lie, pretending we are thrashed?\" asked Smurov."},
{"text":"\"I had to say that to please him.\""},
{"text":"\"How do you mean?\""},
{"text":"\"You know, Smurov, I don't like being asked the same thing twice.  like people to understand at the first word. Some things can't b explained. According to a peasant's notions, schoolboys are whipped and must be whipped. What would a schoolboy be if he were not whipped And if I were to tell him we are not, he'd be disappointed. But yo don't understand that. One has to know how to talk to the peasants.\""},
{"text":"\"Only don't tease them, please, or you'll get into another scrape a you did about that goose.\""},
{"text":"\"So you're afraid?\""},
{"text":"\"Don't laugh, Kolya. Of course I'm afraid. My father would be awfull cross. I am strictly forbidden to go out with you.\""},
{"text":"\"Don't be uneasy, nothing will happen this time. Hallo, Natasha!\" h shouted to a market woman in one of the booths."},
{"text":"\"Call me Natasha! What next! My name is Marya,\" the middle-aged marke woman shouted at him."},
{"text":"\"I am so glad it's Marya. Goodbye!\""},
{"text":"\"Ah, you young rascal! A brat like you to carry on so!\""},
{"text":"\"I'm in a hurry. I can't stay now. You shall tell me next Sunday.\"Kolya waved his hand at her, as though she had attacked him and not h her."},
{"text":"\"I've nothing to tell you next Sunday. You set upon me, you impuden young monkey. I didn't say anything,\" bawled Marya. \"You want  whipping, that's what you want, you saucy jackanapes!\""},
{"text":"There was a roar of laughter among the other market women round her Suddenly a man in a violent rage darted out from the arcade of shop close by. He was a young man, not a native of the town, with dark curly hair and a long, pale face, marked with smallpox. He wore a lon blue coat and a peaked cap, and looked like a merchant's clerk. He wa in a state of stupid excitement and brandished his fist at Kolya."},
{"text":"\"I know you!\" he cried angrily, \"I know you!\""},
{"text":"Kolya stared at him. He could not recall when he could have had a ro with the man. But he had been in so many rows in the street that h could hardly remember them all."},
{"text":"\"Do you?\" he asked sarcastically."},
{"text":"\"I know you! I know you!\" the man repeated idiotically."},
{"text":"\"So much the better for you. Well, it's time I was going. Goodbye!\""},
{"text":"\"You are at your saucy pranks again?\" cried the man. \"You are at you saucy pranks again? I know, you are at it again!\""},
{"text":"\"It's not your business, brother, if I am at my saucy pranks again,\"said Kolya, standing still and scanning him."},
{"text":"\"Not my business?\""},
{"text":"\"No; it's not your business.\""},
{"text":"\"Whose then? Whose then? Whose then?\""},
{"text":"\"It's Trifon Nikititch's business, not yours.\""},
{"text":"\"What Trifon Nikititch?\" asked the youth, staring with loutis amazement at Kolya, but still as angry as ever."},
{"text":"Kolya scanned him gravely."},
{"text":"\"Have you been to the Church of the Ascension?\" he suddenly asked him with stern emphasis."},
{"text":"\"What Church of Ascension? What for? No, I haven't,\" said the youn man, somewhat taken aback."},
{"text":"\"Do you know Sabaneyev?\" Kolya went on even more emphatically and eve more severely."},
{"text":"\"What Sabaneyev? No, I don't know him.\""},
{"text":"\"Well then you can go to the devil,\" said Kolya, cutting short th conversation; and turning sharply to the right he strode quickly on hi way as though he disdained further conversation with a dolt who did no even know Sabaneyev."},
{"text":"\"Stop, heigh! What Sabaneyev?\" the young man recovered from hi momentary stupefaction and was as excited as before. \"What did he say?\"He turned to the market women with a silly stare."},
{"text":"The women laughed."},
{"text":"\"You can never tell what he's after,\" said one of them."},
{"text":"\"What Sabaneyev is it he's talking about?\" the young man repeated still furious and brandishing his right arm."},
{"text":"\"It must be a Sabaneyev who worked for the Kuzmitchovs, that's who i must be,\" one of the women suggested."},
{"text":"The young man stared at her wildly."},
{"text":"\"For the Kuzmitchovs?\" repeated another woman. \"But his name wasn' Trifon. His name's Kuzma, not Trifon; but the boy said Trifo Nikititch, so it can't be the same.\""},
{"text":"\"His name is not Trifon and not Sabaneyev, it's Tchizhov,\" put i suddenly a third woman, who had hitherto been silent, listenin gravely. \"Alexey Ivanitch is his name. Tchizhov, Alexey Ivanitch.\""},
{"text":"\"Not a doubt about it, it's Tchizhov,\" a fourth woman emphaticall confirmed the statement."},
{"text":"The bewildered youth gazed from one to another."},
{"text":"\"But what did he ask for, what did he ask for, good people?\" he crie almost in desperation. \" `Do you know Sabaneyev?' says he. And who th devil's to know who is Sabaneyev?\""},
{"text":"\"You're a senseless fellow. I tell you it's not Sabaneyev, bu Tchizhov, Alexey Ivanitch Tchizhov, that's who it is!\" one of the wome shouted at him impressively."},
{"text":"\"What Tchizhov? Who is he? Tell me, if you know.\""},
{"text":"\"That tall, sniveling fellow who used to sit in the market in th summer.\""},
{"text":"\"And what's your Tchizhov to do with me, good people, eh?\""},
{"text":"\"How can I tell what he's to do with you?\" put in another. \"You ough to know yourself what you want with him, if you make such a clamo about him. He spoke to you, he did not speak to us, you stupid. Don' you really know him?\""},
{"text":"\"Know whom?\""},
{"text":"\"Tchizhov.\""},
{"text":"\"The devil take Tchizhov and you with him. I'll give him a hiding, tha I will. He was laughing at me!\""},
{"text":"\"Will give Tchizhov a hiding! More likely he will give you one. You ar a fool, that's what you are!\""},
{"text":"\"Not Tchizhov, not Tchizhov, you spiteful, mischievous woman. I'll giv the boy a hiding. Catch him, catch him, he was laughing at me!\""},
{"text":"The woman guffawed. But Kolya was by now a long way off, marching alon with a triumphant air. Smurov walked beside him, looking round at th shouting group far behind. He too was in high spirits, though he wa still afraid of getting into some scrape in Kolya's company."},
{"text":"\"What Sabaneyev did you mean?\" he asked Kolya, foreseeing what hi answer would be."},
{"text":"\"How do I know? Now there'll be a hubbub among them all day. I like t stir up fools in every class of society. There's another blockhead that peasant there. You know, they say `there's no one stupider than  stupid Frenchman,' but a stupid Russian shows it in his face just a much. Can't you see it all over his face that he is a fool, tha peasant, eh?\""},
{"text":"\"Let him alone, Kolya. Let's go on.\""},
{"text":"\"Nothing could stop me, now I am once off. Hey, good morning, peasant!\""},
{"text":"A sturdy-looking peasant, with a round, simple face and grizzled beard who was walking by, raised his head and looked at the boy. He seeme not quite sober."},
{"text":"\"Good morning, if you are not laughing at me,\" he said deliberately i reply."},
{"text":"\"And if I am?\" laughed Kolya."},
{"text":"\"Well, a joke's a joke. Laugh away. I don't mind. There's no harm in  joke.\""},
{"text":"\"I beg your pardon, brother, it was a joke.\""},
{"text":"\"Well, God forgive you!\""},
{"text":"\"Do you forgive me, too?\""},
{"text":"\"I quite forgive you. Go along.\""},
{"text":"\"I say, you seem a clever peasant.\""},
{"text":"\"Cleverer than you,\" the peasant answered unexpectedly, with the sam gravity."},
{"text":"\"I doubt it,\" said Kolya, somewhat taken aback."},
{"text":"\"It's true, though.\""},
{"text":"\"Perhaps it is.\""},
{"text":"\"It is, brother.\""},
{"text":"\"Goodbye, peasant!\""},
{"text":"\"Goodbye!\""},
{"text":"\"There are all sorts of peasants,\" Kolya observed to Smurov after  brief silence. \"How could I tell I had hit on a clever one? I am alway ready to recognize intelligence in the peasantry.\""},
{"text":"In the distance the cathedral clock struck half-past eleven. The boy made haste and they walked as far as Captain Snegiryov's lodging,  considerable distance, quickly and almost in silence. Twenty paces fro the house Kolya stopped and told Smurov to go on ahead and as Karamazov to come out to him."},
{"text":"\"One must sniff round a bit first,\" he observed to Smurov."},
{"text":"\"Why ask him to come out?\" Smurov protested. \"You go in; they will b awfully glad to see you. What's the sense of making friends in th frost out here?\""},
{"text":"\"I know why I want to see him out here in the frost,\" Kolya cut hi short in the despotic tone he was fond of adopting with \"small boys,\"and Smurov ran to do his bidding."},
{"text":" IV"},
{"text":"The Lost Dog"},
{"text":"Kolya leaned against the fence with an air of dignity, waiting fo Alyosha to appear. Yes, he had long wanted to meet him. He had heard  great deal about him from the boys, but hitherto he had alway maintained an appearance of disdainful indifference when he wa mentioned, and he had even \"criticized\" what he heard about Alyosha But secretly he had a great longing to make his acquaintance; there wa something sympathetic and attractive in all he was told about Alyosha So the present moment was important: to begin with, he had to sho himself at his best, to show his independence, \"Or he'll think of me a thirteen and take me for a boy, like the rest of them. And what ar these boys to him? I shall ask him when I get to know him. It's a pit I am so short, though. Tuzikov is younger than I am, yet he is half  head taller. But I have a clever face. I am not good-looking. I kno I'm hideous, but I've a clever face. I mustn't talk too freely; if  fall into his arms all at once, he may think--Tfoo! how horrible if h should think--!\""},
{"text":"Such were the thoughts that excited Kolya while he was doing his utmos to assume the most independent air. What distressed him most was hi being so short; he did not mind so much his \"hideous\" face, as being s short. On the wall in a corner at home he had the year before made  pencil-mark to show his height, and every two months since he anxiousl measured himself against it to see how much he had gained. But alas! h grew very slowly, and this sometimes reduced him almost to despair. Hi face was in reality by no means \"hideous\"; on the contrary, it wa rather attractive, with a fair, pale skin, freckled. His small, livel gray eyes had a fearless look, and often glowed with feeling. He ha rather high cheekbones; small, very red, but not very thick, lips; hi nose was small and unmistakably turned up. \"I've a regular pug nose,  regular pug nose,\" Kolya used to mutter to himself when he looked i the looking-glass, and he always left it with indignation. \"But perhap I haven't got a clever face?\" he sometimes thought, doubtful even o that. But it must not be supposed that his mind was preoccupied wit his face and his height. On the contrary, however bitter the moment before the looking-glass were to him, he quickly forgot them, an forgot them for a long time, \"abandoning himself entirely to ideas an to real life,\" as he formulated it to himself."},
{"text":"Alyosha came out quickly and hastened up to Kolya. Before he reache him, Kolya could see that he looked delighted. \"Can he be so glad t see me?\" Kolya wondered, feeling pleased. We may note here, in passing that Alyosha's appearance had undergone a complete change since we sa him last. He had abandoned his cassock and was wearing now a well-cu coat, a soft, round hat, and his hair had been cropped short. All thi was very becoming to him, and he looked quite handsome. His charmin face always had a good-humored expression; but there was a gentlenes and serenity in his good-humor. To Kolya's surprise, Alyosha came ou to him just as he was, without an overcoat. He had evidently come i haste. He held out his hand to Kolya at once."},
{"text":"\"Here you are at last! How anxious we've been to see you!\""},
{"text":"\"There were reasons which you shall know directly. Anyway, I am glad t make your acquaintance. I've long been hoping for an opportunity, an have heard a great deal about you,\" Kolya muttered, a littl breathless."},
{"text":"\"We should have met anyway. I've heard a great deal about you, too; bu you've been a long time coming here.\""},
{"text":"\"Tell me, how are things going?\""},
{"text":"\"Ilusha is very ill. He is certainly dying.\""},
{"text":"\"How awful! You must admit that medicine is a fraud, Karamazov,\" crie Kolya warmly."},
{"text":"\"Ilusha has mentioned you often, very often, even in his sleep, i delirium, you know. One can see that you used to be very, very dear t him ... before the incident ... with the knife. ... Then there' another reason. ... Tell me, is that your dog?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, Perezvon.\""},
{"text":"\"Not Zhutchka?\" Alyosha looked at Kolya with eyes full of pity. \"Is sh lost forever?\""},
{"text":"\"I know you would all like it to be Zhutchka. I've heard all about it.\"Kolya smiled mysteriously. \"Listen, Karamazov, I'll tell you all abou it. That's what I came for; that's what I asked you to come out her for, to explain the whole episode to you before we go in,\" he bega with animation. \"You see, Karamazov, Ilusha came into the preparator class last spring. Well, you know what our preparatory class is--a lo of small boys. They began teasing Ilusha at once. I am two classe higher up, and, of course, I only look on at them from a distance.  saw the boy was weak and small, but he wouldn't give in to them; h fought with them. I saw he was proud, and his eyes were full of fire.  like children like that. And they teased him all the more. The worst o it was he was horribly dressed at the time, his breeches were too smal for him, and there were holes in his boots. They worried him about it they jeered at him. That I can't stand. I stood up for him at once, an gave it to them hot. I beat them, but they adore me, do you know Karamazov?\" Kolya boasted impulsively; \"but I am always fond o children. I've two chickens in my hands at home now--that's wha detained me today. So they left off beating Ilusha and I took him unde my protection. I saw the boy was proud. I tell you that, the boy wa proud; but in the end he became slavishly devoted to me: he did m slightest bidding, obeyed me as though I were God, tried to copy me. I the intervals between the classes he used to run to me at once, and I' go about with him. On Sundays, too. They always laugh when an older bo makes friends with a younger one like that; but that's a prejudice. I it's my fancy, that's enough. I am teaching him, developing him. Wh shouldn't I develop him if I like him? Here you, Karamazov, have take up with all these nestlings. I see you want to influence the younge generation--to develop them, to be of use to them, and I assure yo this trait in your character, which I knew by hearsay, attracted m more than anything. Let us get to the point, though. I noticed tha there was a sort of softness and sentimentality coming over the boy and you know I have a positive hatred of this sheepish sentimentality and I have had it from a baby. There were contradictions in him, too he was proud, but he was slavishly devoted to me, and yet all at onc his eyes would flash and he'd refuse to agree with me; he'd argue, fl into a rage. I used sometimes to propound certain ideas; I could se that it was not so much that he disagreed with the ideas, but that h was simply rebelling against me, because I was cool in responding t his endearments. And so, in order to train him properly, the tendere he was, the colder I became. I did it on purpose: that was my idea. M object was to form his character, to lick him into shape, to make a ma of him ... and besides ... no doubt, you understand me at a word Suddenly I noticed for three days in succession he was downcast an dejected, not because of my coldness, but for something else, somethin more important. I wondered what the tragedy was. I have pumped him an found out that he had somehow got to know Smerdyakov, who was footma to your late father--it was before his death, of course--and h taught the little fool a silly trick--that is, a brutal, nasty trick He told him to take a piece of bread, to stick a pin in it, and thro it to one of those hungry dogs who snap up anything without biting it and then to watch and see what would happen. So they prepared a piec of bread like that and threw it to Zhutchka, that shaggy dog there' been such a fuss about. The people of the house it belonged to neve fed it at all, though it barked all day. (Do you like that stupi barking, Karamazov? I can't stand it.) So it rushed at the bread swallowed it, and began to squeal; it turned round and round and ra away, squealing as it ran out of sight. That was Ilusha's own accoun of it. He confessed it to me, and cried bitterly. He hugged me, shakin all over. He kept on repeating `He ran away squealing': the sight o that haunted him. He was tormented by remorse, I could see that. I too it seriously. I determined to give him a lesson for other things a well. So I must confess I wasn't quite straightforward, and pretende to be more indignant perhaps than I was. `You've done a nasty thing,'  said, `you are a scoundrel. I won't tell of it, of course, but I shal have nothing more to do with you for a time. I'll think it over and le you know through Smurov'--that's the boy who's just come with me; he' always ready to do anything for me--`whether I will have anything t do with you in the future or whether I give you up for good as  scoundrel.' He was tremendously upset. I must own I felt I'd gone to far as I spoke, but there was no help for it. I did what I thought bes at the time. A day or two after, I sent Smurov to tell him that I woul not speak to him again. That's what we call it when two schoolfellow refuse to have anything more to do with one another. Secretly I onl meant to send him to Coventry for a few days and then, if I saw sign of repentance, to hold out my hand to him again. That was my intention But what do you think happened? He heard Smurov's message, his eye flashed. `Tell Krassotkin from me,' he cried, `that I will throw brea with pins to all the dogs--all--all of them!' `So he's going in for  little temper. We must smoke it out of him.' And I began to treat hi with contempt; whenever I met him I turned away or smile sarcastically. And just then that affair with his father happened. Yo remember? You must realize that he was fearfully worked up by what ha happened already. The boys, seeing I'd given him up, set on him an taunted him, shouting, `Wisp of tow, wisp of tow!' And he had soo regular skirmishes with them, which I am very sorry for. They seem t have given him one very bad beating. One day he flew at them all a they were coming out of school. I stood a few yards off, looking on And, I swear, I don't remember that I laughed; it was quite the othe way, I felt awfully sorry for him, in another minute I would have ru up to take his part. But he suddenly met my eyes. I don't know what h fancied; but he pulled out a penknife, rushed at me, and struck at m thigh, here in my right leg. I didn't move. I don't mind owning I a plucky sometimes, Karamazov. I simply looked at him contemptuously, a though to say, `This is how you repay all my kindness! Do it again, i you like, I'm at your service.' But he didn't stab me again; he brok down, he was frightened at what he had done, he threw away the knife burst out crying, and ran away. I did not sneak on him, of course, an I made them all keep quiet, so it shouldn't come to the ears of th masters. I didn't even tell my mother till it had healed up. And th wound was a mere scratch. And then I heard that the same day he'd bee throwing stones and had bitten your finger--but you understand no what a state he was in! Well, it can't be helped: it was stupid of m not to come and forgive him--that is, to make it up with him--when h was taken ill. I am sorry for it now. But I had a special reason. S now I've told you all about it ... but I'm afraid it was stupid o me.\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, what a pity,\" exclaimed Alyosha, with feeling, \"that I didn't kno before what terms you were on with him, or I'd have come to you lon ago to beg you to go to him with me. Would you believe it, when he wa feverish he talked about you in delirium. I didn't know how much yo were to him! And you've really not succeeded in finding that dog? Hi father and the boys have been hunting all over the town for it. Woul you believe it, since he's been ill, I've three times heard him repea with tears, `It's because I killed Zhutchka, father, that I am ill now God is punishing me for it.' He can't get that idea out of his head And if the dog were found and proved to be alive, one might almos fancy the joy would cure him. We have all rested our hopes on you.\""},
{"text":"\"Tell me, what made you hope that I should be the one to find him?\"Kolya asked, with great curiosity. \"Why did you reckon on me rathe than anyone else?\""},
{"text":"\"There was a report that you were looking for the dog, and that yo would bring it when you'd found it. Smurov said something of the sort We've all been trying to persuade Ilusha that the dog is alive, tha it's been seen. The boys brought him a live hare; he just looked at it with a faint smile, and asked them to set it free in the fields. And s we did. His father has just this moment come back, bringing him  mastiff pup, hoping to comfort him with that; but I think it only make it worse.\""},
{"text":"\"Tell me, Karamazov, what sort of man is the father? I know him, bu what do you make of him--a mountebank, a buffoon?\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, no; there are people of deep feeling who have been someho crushed. Buffoonery in them is a form of resentful irony against thos to whom they daren't speak the truth, from having been for year humiliated and intimidated by them. Believe me, Krassotkin, that sor of buffoonery is sometimes tragic in the extreme. His whole life now i centered in Ilusha, and if Ilusha dies, he will either go mad wit grief or kill himself. I feel almost certain of that when I look at hi now.\""},
{"text":"\"I understand you, Karamazov. I see you understand human nature,\" Koly added, with feeling."},
{"text":"\"And as soon as I saw you with a dog, I thought it was Zhutchka yo were bringing.\""},
{"text":"\"Wait a bit, Karamazov, perhaps we shall find it yet; but this i Perezvon. I'll let him go in now and perhaps it will amuse Ilusha mor than the mastiff pup. Wait a bit, Karamazov, you will know something i a minute. But, I say, I am keeping you here!\" Kolya cried suddenly \"You've no overcoat on in this bitter cold. You see what an egoist  am. Oh, we are all egoists, Karamazov!\""},
{"text":"\"Don't trouble; it is cold, but I don't often catch cold. Let us go in though, and, by the way, what is your name? I know you are calle Kolya, but what else?\""},
{"text":"\"Nikolay--Nikolay Ivanovitch Krassotkin, or, as they say in officia documents, `Krassotkin son.' \" Kolya laughed for some reason, but adde suddenly, \"Of course I hate my name Nikolay.\""},
{"text":"\"Why so?\""},
{"text":"\"It's so trivial, so ordinary.\""},
{"text":"\"You are thirteen?\" asked Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"No, fourteen--that is, I shall be fourteen very soon, in a fortnight I'll confess one weakness of mine, Karamazov, just to you, since it' our first meeting, so that you may understand my character at once.  hate being asked my age, more than that ... and in fact ... there' a libelous story going about me, that last week I played robbers wit the preparatory boys. It's a fact that I did play with them, but it's  perfect libel to say I did it for my own amusement. I have reasons fo believing that you've heard the story; but I wasn't playing for my ow amusement, it was for the sake of the children, because they couldn' think of anything to do by themselves. But they've always got som silly tale. This is an awful town for gossip, I can tell you.\""},
{"text":"\"But what if you had been playing for your own amusement, what's th harm?\""},
{"text":"\"Come, I say, for my own amusement! You don't play horses, do you?\""},
{"text":"\"But you must look at it like this,\" said Alyosha, smiling. \"Grownu people go to the theater and there the adventures of all sorts o heroes are represented--sometimes there are robbers and battles too--and isn't that just the same thing, in a different form, o course? And young people's games of soldiers or robbers in thei playtime are also art in its first stage. You know, they spring fro the growing artistic instincts of the young. And sometimes these game are much better than performances in the theater, the only differenc is that people go there to look at the actors, while in these games th young people are the actors themselves. But that's only natural.\""},
{"text":"\"You think so? Is that your idea?\" Kolya looked at him intently. \"Oh you know, that's rather an interesting view. When I go home, I'll thin it over. I'll admit I thought I might learn something from you. I'v come to learn of you, Karamazov,\" Kolya concluded, in a voice full o spontaneous feeling."},
{"text":"\"And I of you,\" said Alyosha, smiling and pressing his hand."},
{"text":"Kolya was much pleased with Alyosha. What struck him most was that h treated him exactly like an equal and that he talked to him just as i he were \"quite grown up.\""},
{"text":"\"I'll show you something directly, Karamazov; it's a theatrica performance, too,\" he said, laughing nervously. \"That's why I've come.\""},
{"text":"\"Let us go first to the people of the house, on the left. All the boy leave their coats in there, because the room is small and hot.\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, I'm only coming in for a minute. I'll keep on my overcoat Perezvon will stay here in the passage and be dead. Ici, Perezvon, li down and be dead! You see how he's dead. I'll go in first and explore then I'll whistle to him when I think fit, and you'll see, he'll das in like mad. Only Smurov must not forget to open the door at th moment. I'll arrange it all and you'll see something.\""},
{"text":" V"},
{"text":"By Ilusha's Bedside"},
{"text":"The room inhabited by the family of the retired captain Snegiryov i already familiar to the reader. It was close and crowded at that momen with a number of visitors. Several boys were sitting with Ilusha, an though all of them, like Smurov, were prepared to deny that it wa Alyosha who had brought them and reconciled them with Ilusha, it wa really the fact. All the art he had used had been to take them, one b one, to Ilusha, without \"sheepish sentimentality,\" appearing to do s casually and without design. It was a great consolation to Ilusha i his suffering. He was greatly touched by seeing the almost tende affection and sympathy shown him by these boys, who had been hi enemies. Krassotkin was the only one missing and his absence was  heavy load on Ilusha's heart. Perhaps the bitterest of all his bitte memories was his stabbing Krassotkin, who had been his one friend an protector. Clever little Smurov, who was the first to make it up wit Ilusha, thought it was so. But when Smurov hinted to Krassotkin tha Alyosha wanted to come and see him about something, the latter cut hi short, bidding Smurov tell \"Karamazov\" at once that he knew best wha to do, that he wanted no one's advice, and that, if he went to se Ilusha, he would choose his own time for he had \"his own reasons.\""},
{"text":"That was a fortnight before this Sunday. That was why Alyosha had no been to see him, as he had meant to. But though he waited, he sen Smurov to him twice again. Both times Krassotkin met him with a curt impatient refusal, sending Alyosha a message not to bother him an more, that if he came himself, he, Krassotkin, would not go to Ilush at all. Up to the very last day, Smurov did not know that Kolya mean to go to Ilusha that morning, and only the evening before, as he parte from Smurov, Kolya abruptly told him to wait at home for him nex morning, for he would go with him to the Snegiryovs', but warned him o no account to say he was coming, as he wanted to drop in casually Smurov obeyed. Smurov's fancy that Kolya would bring back the lost do was based on the words Kolya had dropped that \"they must be asses no to find the dog, if it was alive.\" When Smurov, waiting for a opportunity, timidly hinted at his guess about the dog, Krassotkin fle into a violent rage. \"I'm not such an ass as to go hunting about th town for other people's dogs when I've got a dog of my own! And how ca you imagine a dog could be alive after swallowing a pin? Sheepis sentimentality, that's what it is!\""},
{"text":"For the last fortnight Ilusha had not left his little bed under th icons in the corner. He had not been to school since the day he me Alyosha and bit his finger. He was taken ill the same day, though for  month afterwards he was sometimes able to get up and walk about th room and passage. But latterly he had become so weak that he could no move without help from his father. His father was terribly concerne about him. He even gave up drinking and was almost crazy with terro that his boy would die. And often, especially after leading him roun the room on his arm and putting him back to bed, he would run to a dar corner in the passage and, leaning his head against the wall, he woul break into paroxysms of violent weeping, stifling his sobs that the might not be heard by Ilusha."},
{"text":"Returning to the room, he would usually begin doing something to amus and comfort his precious boy; he would tell him stories, funn anecdotes, or would mimic comic people he had happened to meet, eve imitate the howls and cries of animals. But Ilusha could not bear t see his father fooling and playing the buffoon. Though the boy trie not to show how he disliked it, he saw with an aching heart that hi father was an object of contempt, and he was continually haunted by th memory of the \"wisp of tow\" and that \"terrible day.\""},
{"text":"Nina, Ilusha's gentle, crippled sister, did not like her father' buffoonery either (Varvara had been gone for some time past t Petersburg to study at the university). But the half-imbecile mothe was greatly diverted and laughed heartily when her husband bega capering about or performing something. It was the only way she coul be amused; all the rest of the time she was grumbling and complainin that now everyone had forgotten her, that no one treated her wit respect, that she was slighted, and so on. But during the last few day she had completely changed. She began looking constantly at Ilusha' bed in the corner and seemed lost in thought. She was more silent quieter, and, if she cried, she cried quietly so as not to be heard The captain noticed the change in her with mournful perplexity. Th boys' visits at first only angered her, but later on their merry shout and stories began to divert her, and at last she liked them so muc that, if the boys had given up coming, she would have felt drear without them. When the children told some story or played a game, sh laughed and clapped her hands. She called some of them to her an kissed them. She was particularly fond of Smurov."},
{"text":"As for the captain, the presence in his room of the children, who cam to cheer up Ilusha, filled his heart from the first with ecstatic joy He even hoped that Ilusha would now get over his depression, and tha that would hasten his recovery. In spite of his alarm about Ilusha, h had not, till lately, felt one minute's doubt of his boy's ultimat recovery."},
{"text":"He met his little visitors with homage, waited upon them hand and foot he was ready to be their horse and even began letting them ride on hi back, but Ilusha did not like the game and it was given up. He bega buying little things for them, gingerbread and nuts, gave them tea an cut them sandwiches. It must be noted that all this time he had plent of money. He had taken the two hundred roubles from Katerina Ivanovn just as Alyosha had predicted he would. And afterwards Katerin Ivanovna, learning more about their circumstances and Ilusha's illness visited them herself, made the acquaintance of the family, an succeeded in fascinating the half-imbecile mother. Since then she ha been lavish in helping them, and the captain, terror-stricken at th thought that his boy might be dying, forgot his pride and humbl accepted her assistance."},
{"text":"All this time Doctor Herzenstube, who was called in by Katerin Ivanovna, came punctually every other day, but little was gained by hi visits and he dosed the invalid mercilessly. But on that Sunday mornin a new doctor was expected, who had come from Moscow, where he had  great reputation. Katerina Ivanovna had sent for him from Moscow a great expense, not expressly for Ilusha, but for another object o which more will be said in its place hereafter. But, as he had come she had asked him to see Ilusha as well, and the captain had been tol to expect him. He hadn't the slightest idea that Kolya Krassotkin wa coming, though he had long wished for a visit from the boy for who Ilusha was fretting."},
{"text":"At the moment when Krassotkin opened the door and came into the room the captain and all the boys were round Ilusha's bed, looking at a tin mastiff pup, which had only been born the day before, though th captain had bespoken it a week ago to comfort and amuse Ilusha, who wa still fretting over the lost and probably dead Zhutchka. Ilusha, wh had heard three days before that he was to be presented with a puppy not an ordinary puppy, but a pedigree mastiff (a very important point of course), tried from delicacy of feeling to pretend that he wa pleased. But his father and the boys could not help seeing that th puppy only served to recall to his little heart the thought of th unhappy dog he had killed. The puppy lay beside him feebly moving an he, smiling sadly, stroked it with his thin, pale, wasted hand. Clearl he liked the puppy, but ... it wasn't Zhutchka; if he could have ha Zhutchka and the puppy, too, then he would have been completely happy."},
{"text":"\"Krassotkin!\" cried one of the boys suddenly. He was the first to se him come in."},
{"text":"Krassotkin's entrance made a general sensation; the boys moved away an stood on each side of the bed, so that he could get a full view o Ilusha. The captain ran eagerly to meet Kolya."},
{"text":"\"Please come in ... you are welcome!\" he said hurriedly. \"Ilusha Mr. Krassotkin has come to see you!\""},
{"text":"But Krassotkin, shaking hands with him hurriedly, instantly showed hi complete knowledge of the manners of good society. He turned first t the captain's wife sitting in her armchair, who was very ill-humored a the moment, and was grumbling that the boys stood between her an Ilusha's bed and did not let her see the new puppy. With the greates courtesy he made her a bow, scraping his foot, and turning to Nina, h made her, as the only other lady present, a similar bow. This polit behavior made an extremely favorable impression on the deranged lady."},
{"text":"\"There, you can see at once he is a young man that has been wel brought up,\" she commented aloud, throwing up her hands; \"but as fo our other visitors they come in one on the top of another.\""},
{"text":"\"How do you mean, mamma, one on the top of another, how is that?\"muttered the captain affectionately, though a little anxious on he account."},
{"text":"\"That's how they ride in. They get on each other's shoulders in th passage and prance in like that on a respectable family. Strange sor of visitors!\""},
{"text":"\"But who's come in like that, mamma?\""},
{"text":"\"Why, that boy came in riding on that one's back and this one on tha one's.\""},
{"text":"Kolya was already by Ilusha's bedside. The sick boy turned visibl paler. He raised himself in the bed and looked intently at Kolya. Koly had not seen his little friend for two months, and he was overwhelme at the sight of him. He had never imagined that he would see such  wasted, yellow face, such enormous, feverishly glowing eyes and suc thin little hands. He saw, with grieved surprise, Ilusha's rapid, har breathing and dry lips. He stepped close to him, held out his hand, an almost overwhelmed, he said:"},
{"text":"\"Well, old man ... how are you?\" But his voice failed him, h couldn't achieve an appearance of ease; his face suddenly twitched an the corners of his mouth quivered. Ilusha smiled a pitiful littl smile, still unable to utter a word. Something moved Kolya to raise hi hand and pass it over Ilusha's hair."},
{"text":"\"Never mind!\" he murmured softly to him to cheer him up, or perhaps no knowing why he said it. For a minute they were silent again."},
{"text":"\"Hallo, so you've got a new puppy?\" Kolya said suddenly, in a mos callous voice."},
{"text":"\"Ye--es,\" answered Ilusha in a long whisper, gasping for breath."},
{"text":"\"A black nose, that means he'll be fierce, a good house-dog,\" Koly observed gravely and stolidly, as if the only thing he cared about wa the puppy and its black nose. But in reality he still had to do hi utmost to control his feelings not to burst out crying like a child and do what he would he could not control it. \"When it grows up, you'l have to keep it on the chain, I'm sure.\""},
{"text":"\"He'll be a huge dog!\" cried one of the boys."},
{"text":"\"Of course he will,\" \"a mastiff,\" \"large,\" \"like this,\" \"as big as  calf,\" shouted several voices."},
{"text":"\"As big as a calf, as a real calf,\" chimed in the captain. \"I got on like that on purpose, one of the fiercest breed, and his parents ar huge and very fierce, they stand as high as this from the floor. .. Sit down here, on Ilusha's bed, or here on the bench. You are welcome we've been hoping to see you a long time. ... You were so kind as t come with Alexey Fyodorovitch?\""},
{"text":"Krassotkin sat on the edge of the bed, at Ilusha's feet. Though he ha perhaps prepared a free-and-easy opening for the conversation on hi way, now he completely lost the thread of it."},
{"text":"\"No ... I came with Perezvon. I've got a dog now, called Perezvon.  Slavonic name. He's out there ... if I whistle, he'll run in. I'v brought a dog, too,\" he said, addressing Ilusha all at once. \"Do yo remember Zhutchka, old man?\" he suddenly fired the question at him."},
{"text":"Ilusha's little face quivered. He looked with an agonized expression a Kolya. Alyosha, standing at the door, frowned and signed to Kolya no to speak of Zhutchka, but he did not or would not notice."},
{"text":"\"Where ... is Zhutchka?\" Ilusha asked in a broken voice."},
{"text":"\"Oh, well, my boy, your Zhutchka's lost and done for!\""},
{"text":"Ilusha did not speak, but he fixed an intent gaze once more on Kolya Alyosha, catching Kolya's eye, signed to him vigorously again, but h turned away his eyes pretending not to have noticed."},
{"text":"\"It must have run away and died somewhere. It must have died after  meal like that,\" Kolya pronounced pitilessly, though he seemed a littl breathless. \"But I've got a dog, Perezvon ... A Slavonic name. .. I've brought him to show you.\""},
{"text":"\"I don't want him!\" said Ilusha suddenly."},
{"text":"\"No, no, you really must see him ... it will amuse you. I brought hi on purpose. ... He's the same sort of shaggy dog. ... You allow m to call in my dog, madam?\" He suddenly addressed Madame Snegiryov, wit inexplicable excitement in his manner."},
{"text":"\"I don't want him, I don't want him!\" cried Ilusha, with a mournfu break in his voice. There was a reproachful light in his eyes."},
{"text":"\"You'd better,\" the captain started up from the chest by the wall o which he had just sat down, \"you'd better ... another time,\" h muttered, but Kolya could not be restrained. He hurriedly shouted t Smurov, \"Open the door,\" and as soon as it was open, he blew hi whistle. Perezvon dashed headlong into the room."},
{"text":"\"Jump, Perezvon, beg! Beg!\" shouted Kolya, jumping up, and the do stood erect on its hind-legs by Ilusha's bedside. What followed was  surprise to everyone: Ilusha started, lurched violently forward, ben over Perezvon and gazed at him, faint with suspense."},
{"text":"\"It's ... Zhutchka!\" he cried suddenly, in a voice breaking with jo and suffering."},
{"text":"\"And who did you think it was?\" Krassotkin shouted with all his might in a ringing, happy voice, and bending down he seized the dog an lifted him up to Ilusha."},
{"text":"\"Look, old man, you see, blind of one eye and the left ear is torn just the marks you described to me. It was by that I found him. I foun him directly. He did not belong to anyone!\" he explained, turnin quickly to the captain, to his wife, to Alyosha and then again t Ilusha. \"He used to live in the Fedotovs' backyard. Though he made hi home there, they did not feed him. He was a stray dog that had run awa from the village ... I found him. ... You see, old man, he couldn' have swallowed what you gave him. If he had, he must have died, he mus have! So he must have spat it out, since he is alive. You did not se him do it. But the pin pricked his tongue, that is why he squealed. H ran away squealing and you thought he'd swallowed it. He might wel squeal, because the skin of dogs' mouths is so tender ... tendere than in men, much tenderer!\" Kolya cried impetuously, his face glowin and radiant with delight. Ilusha could not speak. White as a sheet, h gazed open-mouthed at Kolya, with his great eyes almost starting out o his head. And if Krassotkin, who had no suspicion of it, had known wha a disastrous and fatal effect such a moment might have on the sic child's health, nothing would have induced him to play such a trick o him. But Alyosha was perhaps the only person in the room who realize it. As for the captain he behaved like a small child."},
{"text":"\"Zhutchka! It's Zhutchka!\" he cried in a blissful voice, \"Ilusha, thi is Zhutchka, your Zhutchka! Mamma, this is Zhutchka!\" He was almos weeping."},
{"text":"\"And I never guessed!\" cried Smurov regretfully. \"Bravo, Krassotkin!  said he'd find the dog and here he's found him.\""},
{"text":"\"Here he's found him!\" another boy repeated gleefully."},
{"text":"\"Krassotkin's a brick!\" cried a third voice."},
{"text":"\"He's a brick, he's a brick!\" cried the other boys, and they bega clapping."},
{"text":"\"Wait, wait,\" Krassotkin did his utmost to shout above them all. \"I'l tell you how it happened, that's the whole point. I found him, I too him home and hid him at once. I kept him locked up at home and did no show him to anyone till today. Only Smurov has known for the las fortnight, but I assured him this dog was called Perezvon and he di not guess. And meanwhile I taught the dog all sorts of tricks. Yo should only see all the things he can do! I trained him so as to brin you a well-trained dog, in good condition, old man, so as to be able t say to you, `See, old man, what a fine dog your Zhutchka is now! Haven't you a bit of meat? He'll show you a trick that will make yo die with laughing. A piece of meat, haven't you got any?\""},
{"text":"The captain ran across the passage to the landlady, where their cookin was done. Not to lose precious time, Kolya, in desperate haste, shoute to Perezvon, \"Dead!\" And the dog immediately turned round and lay o his back with its four paws in the air. The boys laughed. Ilusha looke on with the same suffering smile, but the person most delighted wit the dog's performance was \"mamma.\" She laughed at the dog and bega snapping her fingers and calling it, \"Perezvon, Perezvon!\""},
{"text":"\"Nothing will make him get up, nothing!\" Kolya cried triumphantly proud of his success. \"He won't move for all the shouting in the world but if I call to him, he'll jump up in a minute. Ici, Perezvon!\" Th dog leapt up and bounded about, whining with delight. The captain ra back with a piece of cooked beef."},
{"text":"\"Is it hot?\" Kolya inquired hurriedly, with a businesslike air, takin the meat. \"Dogs don't like hot things. No, it's all right. Look everybody, look, Ilusha, look, old man; why aren't you looking? He doe not look at him, now I've brought him.\""},
{"text":"The new trick consisted in making the dog stand motionless with hi nose out and putting a tempting morsel of meat just on his nose. Th luckless dog had to stand without moving, with the meat on his nose, a long as his master chose to keep him, without a movement, perhaps fo half an hour. But he kept Perezvon only for a brief moment."},
{"text":"\"Paid for!\" cried Kolya, and the meat passed in a flash from the dog' nose to his mouth. The audience, of course, expressed enthusiasm an surprise."},
{"text":"\"Can you really have put off coming all this time simply to train th dog?\" exclaimed Alyosha, with an involuntary note of reproach in hi voice."},
{"text":"\"Simply for that!\" answered Kolya, with perfect simplicity. \"I wante to show him in all his glory.\""},
{"text":"\"Perezvon! Perezvon,\" called Ilusha suddenly, snapping his thin finger and beckoning to the dog."},
{"text":"\"What is it? Let him jump up on the bed! Ici, Perezvon!\" Kolya slappe the bed and Perezvon darted up by Ilusha. The boy threw both arms roun his head and Perezvon instantly licked his cheek. Ilusha crept close t him, stretched himself out in bed and hid his face in the dog's shagg coat."},
{"text":"\"Dear, dear!\" kept exclaiming the captain. Kolya sat down again on th edge of the bed."},
{"text":"\"Ilusha, I can show you another trick. I've brought you a littl cannon. You remember, I told you about it before and you said how muc you'd like to see it. Well, here, I've brought it to you.\""},
{"text":"And Kolya hurriedly pulled out of his satchel the little bronze cannon He hurried, because he was happy himself. Another time he would hav waited till the sensation made by Perezvon had passed off, now h hurried on regardless of all consideration. \"You are all happy now,\" h felt, \"so here's something to make you happier!\" He was perfectl enchanted himself."},
{"text":"\"I've been coveting this thing for a long while; it's for you, old man it's for you. It belonged to Morozov, it was no use to him, he had i from his brother. I swapped a book from father's bookcase for it,  Kinsman of Muhammad or Salutary Folly, a scandalous book published i Moscow a hundred years ago, before they had any censorship. And Morozo has a taste for such things. He was grateful to me, too. ...\""},
{"text":"Kolya held the cannon in his hand so that all could see and admire it Ilusha raised himself, and, with his right arm still round the dog, h gazed enchanted at the toy. The sensation was even greater when Koly announced that he had gunpowder too, and that it could be fired off a once \"if it won't alarm the ladies.\" \"Mamma\" immediately asked to loo at the toy closer and her request was granted. She was much please with the little bronze cannon on wheels and began rolling it to and fr on her lap. She readily gave permission for the cannon to be fired without any idea of what she had been asked. Kolya showed the powde and the shot. The captain, as a military man, undertook to load it putting in a minute quantity of powder. He asked that the shot might b put off till another time. The cannon was put on the floor, aimin towards an empty part of the room, three grains of powder were thrus into the touch-hole and a match was put to it. A magnificent explosio followed. Mamma was startled, but at once laughed with delight. Th boys gazed in speechless triumph. But the captain, looking at Ilusha was more enchanted than any of them. Kolya picked up the cannon an immediately presented it to Ilusha, together with the powder and th shot."},
{"text":"\"I got it for you, for you! I've been keeping it for you a long time,\"he repeated once more in his delight."},
{"text":"\"Oh, give it to me! No, give me the cannon!\" mamma began begging like  little child. Her face showed a piteous fear that she would not get it Kolya was disconcerted. The captain fidgeted uneasily."},
{"text":"\"Mamma, mamma,\" he ran to her, \"the cannon's yours, of course, but le Ilusha have it, because it's a present to him, but it's just as good a yours. Ilusha will always let you play with it; it shall belong to bot of you, both of you.\""},
{"text":"\"No, I don't want it to belong to both of us, I want it to be min altogether, not Ilusha's,\" persisted mamma, on the point of tears."},
{"text":"\"Take it, mother, here, keep it!\" Ilusha cried. \"Krassotkin, may I giv it to my mother?\" he turned to Krassotkin with an imploring face, a though he were afraid he might be offended at his giving his present t someone else."},
{"text":"\"Of course you may,\" Krassotkin assented heartily, and, taking th cannon from Ilusha, he handed it himself to mamma with a polite bow She was so touched that she cried."},
{"text":"\"Ilusha, darling, he's the one who loves his mamma!\" she said tenderly and at once began wheeling the cannon to and fro on her lap again."},
{"text":"\"Mamma, let me kiss your hand.\" The captain darted up to her at onc and did so."},
{"text":"\"And I never saw such a charming fellow as this nice boy,\" said th grateful lady, pointing to Krassotkin."},
{"text":"\"And I'll bring you as much powder as you like, Ilusha. We make th powder ourselves now. Borovikov found out how it's made--twenty-fou parts of saltpeter, ten of sulphur and six of birchwood charcoal. It' all pounded together, mixed into a paste with water and rubbed throug a tammy sieve--that's how it's done.\""},
{"text":"\"Smurov told me about your powder, only father says it's not rea gunpowder,\" responded Ilusha."},
{"text":"\"Not real?\" Kolya flushed. \"It burns. I don't know, of course.\""},
{"text":"\"No, I didn't mean that,\" put in the captain with a guilty face. \" only said that real powder is not made like that, but that's nothing it can be made so.\""},
{"text":"\"I don't know, you know best. We lighted some in a pomatum pot, i burned splendidly, it all burnt away leaving only a tiny ash. But tha was only the paste, and if you rub it through ... but of course yo know best, I don't know. ... And Bulkin's father thrashed him o account of our powder, did you hear?\" he turned to Ilusha."},
{"text":"\"Yes,\" answered Ilusha. He listened to Kolya with immense interest an enjoyment."},
{"text":"\"We had prepared a whole bottle of it and he used to keep it under hi bed. His father saw it. He said it might explode, and thrashed him o the spot. He was going to make a complaint against me to the masters He is not allowed to go about with me now, no one is allowed to g about with me now. Smurov is not allowed to either, I've got a bad nam with everyone. They say I'm a `desperate character,' \" Kolya smile scornfully. \"It all began from what happened on the railway.\""},
{"text":"\"Ah, we've heard of that exploit of yours, too,\" cried the captain \"How could you lie still on the line? Is it possible you weren't th least afraid, lying there under the train? Weren't you frightened?\""},
{"text":"The captain was abject in his flattery of Kolya."},
{"text":"\"N--not particularly,\" answered Kolya carelessly. \"What's blasted m reputation more than anything here was that cursed goose,\" he said turning again to Ilusha. But though he assumed an unconcerned air as h talked, he still could not control himself and was continually missin the note he tried to keep up."},
{"text":"\"Ah! I heard about the goose!\" Ilusha laughed, beaming all over. \"The told me, but I didn't understand. Did they really take you to th court?\""},
{"text":"\"The most stupid, trivial affair, they made a mountain of a molehill a they always do,\" Kolya began carelessly. \"I was walking through th marketplace here one day, just when they'd driven in the geese.  stopped and looked at them. All at once a fellow, who is an errand-bo at Plotnikov's now, looked at me and said, `What are you looking at th geese for?' I looked at him; he was a stupid, moon-faced fellow o twenty. I am always on the side of the peasantry, you know. I lik talking to the peasants. ... We've dropped behind th peasants--that's an axiom. I believe you are laughing, Karamazov?\""},
{"text":"\"No, Heaven forbid, I am listening,\" said Alyosha with a mos good-natured air, and the sensitive Kolya was immediately reassured."},
{"text":"\"My theory, Karamazov, is clear and simple,\" he hurried on again looking pleased. \"I believe in the people and am always glad to giv them their due, but I am not for spoiling them, that is a sine qua non ... But I was telling you about the goose. So I turned to the fool an answered, `I am wondering what the goose thinks about.' He looked at m quite stupidly, `And what does the goose think about?' he asked. `D you see that cart full of oats?' I said. `The oats are dropping out o the sack, and the goose has put its neck right under the wheel t gobble them up--do you see?' `I see that quite well,' he said. `Well, said I, `if that cart were to move on a little, would it break th goose's neck or not?' `It'd be sure to break it,' and he grinned al over his face, highly delighted. `Come on, then,' said I, `let's try. `Let's,' he said. And it did not take us long to arrange: he stood a the bridle without being noticed, and I stood on one side to direct th goose. And the owner wasn't looking, he was talking to someone, so  had nothing to do, the goose thrust its head in after the oats o itself, under the cart, just under the wheel. I winked at the lad, h tugged at the bridle, and crack. The goose's neck was broken in half And, as luck would have it, all the peasants saw us at that moment an they kicked up a shindy at once. `You did that on purpose!' `No, not o purpose.' `Yes, you did, on purpose!' Well, they shouted, `Take him t the justice of the peace!' They took me, too. `You were there, too, they said, `you helped, you're known all over the market!' And, fo some reason, I really am known all over the market,\" Kolya adde conceitedly. \"We all went off to the justice's, they brought the goose too. The fellow was crying in a great funk, simply blubbering like  woman. And the farmer kept shouting that you could kill any number o geese like that. Well, of course, there were witnesses. The justice o the peace settled it in a minute, that the farmer was to be paid  rouble for the goose, and the fellow to have the goose. And he wa warned not to play such pranks again. And the fellow kept blubberin like a woman. `It wasn't me,' he said, `it was he egged me on,' and h pointed to me. I answered with the utmost composure that I hadn't egge him on, that I simply stated the general proposition, had spoke hypothetically. The justice of the peace smiled and was vexed wit himself at once for having smiled. `I'll complain to your masters o you, so that for the future you mayn't waste your time on such genera propositions, instead of sitting at your books and learning you lessons.' He didn't complain to the masters, that was a joke, but th matter was noised abroad and came to the ears of the masters. Thei ears are long, you know! The classical master, Kolbasnikov, wa particularly shocked about it, but Dardanelov got me off again. Bu Kolbasnikov is savage with everyone now like a green ass. Did you know Ilusha, he is just married, got a dowry of a thousand roubles, and hi bride's a regular fright of the first rank and the last degree. Th third-class fellows wrote an epigram on it:"},
{"text":"  Astounding news has reached the class   Kolbasnikov has been an ass."},
{"text":"And so on, awfully funny, I'll bring it to you later on. I say nothin against Dardanelov, he is a learned man, there's no doubt about it.  respect men like that and it's not because he stood up for me.\""},
{"text":"\"But you took him down about the founders of Troy!\" Smurov put i suddenly, unmistakably proud of Krassotkin at such a moment. He wa particularly pleased with the story of the goose."},
{"text":"\"Did you really take him down?\" the captain inquired, in a flatterin way. \"On the question who founded Troy? We heard of it, Ilusha told m about it at the time.\""},
{"text":"\"He knows everything, father, he knows more than any of us!\" put i Ilusha; \"he only pretends to be like that, but really he is top i every subject. ...\""},
{"text":"Ilusha looked at Kolya with infinite happiness."},
{"text":"\"Oh, that's all nonsense about Troy, a trivial matter. I consider thi an unimportant question,\" said Kolya with haughty humility. He had b now completely recovered his dignity, though he was still a littl uneasy. He felt that he was greatly excited and that he had talke about the goose, for instance, with too little reserve, while Alyosh had looked serious and had not said a word all the time. And the vai boy began by degrees to have a rankling fear that Alyosha was silen because he despised him, and thought he was showing off before him. I he dared to think anything like that Kolya would--"},
{"text":"\"I regard the question as quite a trivial one,\" he rapped out again proudly."},
{"text":"\"And I know who founded Troy,\" a boy, who had not spoken before, sai suddenly, to the surprise of everyone. He was silent and seemed to b shy. He was a pretty boy of about eleven, called Kartashov. He wa sitting near the door. Kolya looked at him with dignified amazement."},
{"text":"The fact was that the identity of the founders of Troy had become  secret for the whole school, a secret which could only be discovered b reading Smaragdov, and no one had Smaragdov but Kolya. One day, whe Kolya's back was turned, Kartashov hastily opened Smaragdov, which la among Kolya's books, and immediately lighted on the passage relating t the foundation of Troy. This was a good time ago, but he felt uneas and could not bring himself to announce publicly that he too knew wh had founded Troy, afraid of what might happen and of Krassotkin' somehow putting him to shame over it. But now he couldn't resist sayin it. For weeks he had been longing to."},
{"text":"\"Well, who did found it?\" asked Kolya, turning to him with haught superciliousness. He saw from his face that he really did know and a once made up his mind how to take it. There was, so to speak,  discordant note in the general harmony."},
{"text":"\"Troy was founded by Teucer, Dardanus, Ilius and Tros,\" the boy rappe out at once, and in the same instant he blushed, blushed so, that i was painful to look at him. But the boys stared at him, stared at hi for a whole minute, and then all the staring eyes turned at once an were fastened upon Kolya, who was still scanning the audacious boy wit disdainful composure."},
{"text":"\"In what sense did they found it?\" he deigned to comment at last. \"An what is meant by founding a city or a state? What do they do? Did the go and each lay a brick, do you suppose?\""},
{"text":"There was laughter. The offending boy turned from pink to crimson. H was silent and on the point of tears. Kolya held him so for a minute."},
{"text":"\"Before you talk of a historical event like the foundation of  nationality, you must first understand what you mean by it,\" h admonished him in stern, incisive tones. \"But I attach no consequenc to these old wives' tales and I don't think much of universal histor in general,\" he added carelessly, addressing the company generally."},
{"text":"\"Universal history?\" the captain inquired, looking almost scared."},
{"text":"\"Yes, universal history! It's the study of the successive follies o mankind and nothing more. The only subjects I respect are mathematic and natural science,\" said Kolya. He was showing off and he stole  glance at Alyosha; his was the only opinion he was afraid of there. Bu Alyosha was still silent and still serious as before. If Alyosha ha said a word it would have stopped him, but Alyosha was silent and \"i might be the silence of contempt,\" and that finally irritated Kolya."},
{"text":"\"The classical languages, too ... they are simply madness, nothin more. You seem to disagree with me again, Karamazov?\""},
{"text":"\"I don't agree,\" said Alyosha, with a faint smile."},
{"text":"\"The study of the classics, if you ask my opinion, is simply a polic measure, that's simply why it has been introduced into our schools.\" B degrees Kolya began to get breathless again. \"Latin and Greek wer introduced because they are a bore and because they stupefy th intellect. It was dull before, so what could they do to make thing duller? It was senseless enough before, so what could they do to mak it more senseless? So they thought of Greek and Latin. That's m opinion, I hope I shall never change it,\" Kolya finished abruptly. Hi cheeks were flushed."},
{"text":"\"That's true,\" assented Smurov suddenly, in a ringing tone o conviction. He had listened attentively."},
{"text":"\"And yet he is first in Latin himself,\" cried one of the group of boy suddenly."},
{"text":"\"Yes, father, he says that and yet he is first in Latin,\" echoe Ilusha."},
{"text":"\"What of it?\" Kolya thought fit to defend himself, though the prais was very sweet to him. \"I am fagging away at Latin because I have to because I promised my mother to pass my examination, and I think tha whatever you do, it's worth doing it well. But in my soul I have  profound contempt for the classics and all that fraud. ... You don' agree, Karamazov?\""},
{"text":"\"Why `fraud'?\" Alyosha smiled again."},
{"text":"\"Well, all the classical authors have been translated into al languages, so it was not for the sake of studying the classics the introduced Latin, but solely as a police measure, to stupefy th intelligence. So what can one call it but a fraud?\""},
{"text":"\"Why, who taught you all this?\" cried Alyosha, surprised at last."},
{"text":"\"In the first place I am capable of thinking for myself without bein taught. Besides, what I said just now about the classics bein translated our teacher Kolbasnikov has said to the whole of the thir class.\""},
{"text":"\"The doctor has come!\" cried Nina, who had been silent till then."},
{"text":"A carriage belonging to Madame Hohlakov drove up to the gate. Th captain, who had been expecting the doctor all the morning, rushe headlong out to meet him. \"Mamma\" pulled herself together and assumed  dignified air. Alyosha went up to Ilusha and began setting his pillow straight. Nina, from her invalid chair, anxiously watched him puttin the bed tidy. The boys hurriedly took leave. Some of them promised t come again in the evening. Kolya called Perezvon and the dog jumped of the bed."},
{"text":"\"I won't go away, I won't go away,\" Kolya said hastily to Ilusha. \"I'l wait in the passage and come back when the doctor's gone, I'll com back with Perezvon.\""},
{"text":"But by now the doctor had entered, an important-looking person wit long, dark whiskers and a shiny, shaven chin, wearing a bearskin coat As he crossed the threshold he stopped, taken aback; he probabl fancied he had come to the wrong place. \"How is this? Where am I?\" h muttered, not removing his coat nor his peaked sealskin cap. The crowd the poverty of the room, the washing hanging on a line in the corner puzzled him. The captain, bent double, was bowing low before him."},
{"text":"\"It's here, sir, here, sir,\" he muttered cringingly; \"it's here, you'v come right, you were coming to us ...\""},
{"text":"\"Sne-gi-ryov?\" the doctor said loudly and pompously \"Mr. Snegiryov--is that you?\""},
{"text":"\"That's me, sir!\""},
{"text":"\"Ah!\""},
{"text":"The doctor looked round the room with a squeamish air once more an threw off his coat, displaying to all eyes the grand decoration at hi neck. The captain caught the fur coat in the air, and the doctor too off his cap."},
{"text":"\"Where is the patient?\" he asked emphatically."},
{"text":" VI"},
{"text":"Precocity"},
{"text":"\"What do you think the doctor will say to him?\" Kolya asked quickly \"What a repulsive mug, though, hasn't he? I can't endure medicine!\""},
{"text":"\"Ilusha is dying. I think that's certain,\" answered Alyosha mournfully."},
{"text":"\"They are rogues! Medicine's a fraud! I am glad to have made you acquaintance, though, Karamazov. I wanted to know you for a long time I am only sorry we meet in such sad circumstances.\""},
{"text":"Kolya had a great inclination to say something even warmer and mor demonstrative, but he felt ill at ease. Alyosha noticed this, smiled and pressed his hand."},
{"text":"\"I've long learned to respect you as a rare person,\" Kolya muttere again, faltering and uncertain. \"I have heard you are a mystic and hav been in the monastery. I know you are a mystic, but ... that hasn' put me off. Contact with real life will cure you. ... It's always s with characters like yours.\""},
{"text":"\"What do you mean by mystic? Cure me of what?\" Alyosha was rathe astonished."},
{"text":"\"Oh, God and all the rest of it.\""},
{"text":"\"What, don't you believe in God?\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, I've nothing against God. Of course, God is only a hypothesis but ... I admit that He is needed ... for the order of the univers and all that ... and that if there were no God He would have to b invented,\" added Kolya, beginning to blush. He suddenly fancied tha Alyosha might think he was trying to show off his knowledge and t prove that he was \"grown up.\" \"I haven't the slightest desire to sho off my knowledge to him,\" Kolya thought indignantly. And all of  sudden he felt horribly annoyed."},
{"text":"\"I must confess I can't endure entering on such discussions,\" he sai with a final air. \"It's possible for one who doesn't believe in God t love mankind, don't you think so? Voltaire didn't believe in God an loved mankind?\" (\"I am at it again,\" he thought to himself.)"},
{"text":"\"Voltaire believed in God, though not very much, I think, and I don' think he loved mankind very much either,\" said Alyosha quietly, gently and quite naturally, as though he were talking to someone of his ow age, or even older. Kolya was particularly struck by Alyosha's apparen diffidence about his opinion of Voltaire. He seemed to be leaving th question for him, little Kolya, to settle."},
{"text":"\"Have you read Voltaire?\" Alyosha finished."},
{"text":"\"No, not to say read. ... But I've read Candide in the Russia translation ... in an absurd, grotesque, old translation ... (At i again! again!)\""},
{"text":"\"And did you understand it?\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, yes, everything. ... That is ... Why do you suppose  shouldn't understand it? There's a lot of nastiness in it, of course. ... Of course I can understand that it's a philosophical novel an written to advocate an idea. ...\" Kolya was getting mixed by now. \" am a Socialist, Karamazov, I am an incurable Socialist,\" he announce suddenly, apropos of nothing."},
{"text":"\"A Socialist?\" laughed Alyosha. \"But when have you had time to becom one? Why, I thought you were only thirteen?\""},
{"text":"Kolya winced."},
{"text":"\"In the first place I am not thirteen, but fourteen, fourteen in  fortnight,\" he flushed angrily, \"and in the second place I am at  complete loss to understand what my age has to do with it? The questio is what are my convictions, not what is my age, isn't it?\""},
{"text":"\"When you are older, you'll understand for yourself the influence o age on convictions. I fancied, too, that you were not expressing you own ideas,\" Alyosha answered serenely and modestly, but Koly interrupted him hotly:"},
{"text":"\"Come, you want obedience and mysticism. You must admit that th Christian religion, for instance, has only been of use to the rich an the powerful to keep the lower classes in slavery. That's so, isn' it?\""},
{"text":"\"Ah, I know where you read that, and I am sure someone told you so!\"cried Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"I say, what makes you think I read it? And certainly no one told m so. I can think for myself. ... I am not opposed to Christ, if yo like. He was a most humane person, and if He were alive today, He woul be found in the ranks of the revolutionists, and would perhaps play  conspicuous part. ... There's no doubt about that.\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, where, where did you get that from? What fool have you mad friends with?\" exclaimed Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"Come, the truth will out! It has so chanced that I have often talke to Mr. Rakitin, of course, but ... old Byelinsky said that, too, s they say.\""},
{"text":"\"Byelinsky? I don't remember. He hasn't written that anywhere.\""},
{"text":"\"If he didn't write it, they say he said it. I heard that from a .. but never mind.\""},
{"text":"\"And have you read Byelinsky?\""},
{"text":"\"Well, no ... I haven't read all of him, but ... I read the passag about Tatyana, why she didn't go off with Onyegin.\""},
{"text":"\"Didn't go off with Onyegin? Surely you don't ... understand tha already?\""},
{"text":"\"Why, you seem to take me for little Smurov,\" said Kolya, with a gri of irritation. \"But please don't suppose I am such a revolutionist.  often disagree with Mr. Rakitin. Though I mention Tatyana, I am not a all for the emancipation of women. I acknowledge that women are  subject race and must obey. Les femmes tricottent, as Napoleon said.\"Kolya, for some reason, smiled, \"And on that question at least I a quite of one mind with that pseudo-great man. I think, too, that t leave one's own country and fly to America is mean, worse tha mean--silly. Why go to America when one may be of great service t humanity here? Now especially. There's a perfect mass of fruitfu activity open to us. That's what I answered.\""},
{"text":"\"What do you mean? Answered whom? Has someone suggested your going t America already?\""},
{"text":"\"I must own, they've been at me to go, but I declined. That's betwee ourselves, of course, Karamazov; do you hear, not a word to anyone.  say this only to you. I am not at all anxious to fall into the clutche of the secret police and take lessons at the Chain bridge."},
{"text":"  Long will you remembe   The house at the Chain bridge."},
{"text":"Do you remember? It's splendid. Why are you laughing? You don't suppos I am fibbing, do you?\" (\"What if he should find out that I've only tha one number of The Bell in father's bookcase, and haven't read any mor of it?\" Kolya thought with a shudder.)"},
{"text":"\"Oh, no, I am not laughing and don't suppose for a moment that you ar lying. No, indeed, I can't suppose so, for all this, alas! is perfectl true. But tell me, have you read Pushkin--Onyegin, for instance? .. You spoke just now of Tatyana.\""},
{"text":"\"No, I haven't read it yet, but I want to read it. I have n prejudices, Karamazov; I want to hear both sides. What makes you ask?\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, nothing.\""},
{"text":"\"Tell me, Karamazov, have you an awful contempt for me?\" Kolya rappe out suddenly and drew himself up before Alyosha, as though he were o drill. \"Be so kind as to tell me, without beating about the bush.\""},
{"text":"\"I have a contempt for you?\" Alyosha looked at him wondering. \"Wha for? I am only sad that a charming nature such as yours should b perverted by all this crude nonsense before you have begun life.\""},
{"text":"\"Don't be anxious about my nature,\" Kolya interrupted, not withou complacency. \"But it's true that I am stupidly sensitive, crudel sensitive. You smiled just now, and I fancied you seemed to--\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, my smile meant something quite different. I'll tell you why  smiled. Not long ago I read the criticism made by a German who ha lived in Russia, on our students and schoolboys of today. `Show  Russian schoolboy,' he writes, `a map of the stars, which he know nothing about, and he will give you back the map next day wit corrections on it.' No knowledge and unbounded conceit--that's wha the German meant to say about the Russian schoolboy.\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, that's perfectly right,\" Kolya laughed suddenly, \"exactly so Bravo the German! But he did not see the good side, what do you think Conceit may be, that comes from youth, that will be corrected if nee be, but, on the other hand, there is an independent spirit almost fro childhood, boldness of thought and conviction, and not the spirit o these sausage makers, groveling before authority. ... But the Germa was right all the same. Bravo the German! But Germans want stranglin all the same. Though they are so good at science and learning they mus be strangled.\""},
{"text":"\"Strangled, what for?\" smiled Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"Well, perhaps I am talking nonsense, I agree. I am awfully childis sometimes, and when I am pleased about anything I can't restrain mysel and am ready to talk any stuff. But, I say, we are chattering away her about nothing, and that doctor has been a long time in there. Bu perhaps he's examining the mamma and that poor crippled Nina. I like that Nina, you know. She whispered to me suddenly as I was coming away `Why didn't you come before?' And in such a voice, so reproachfully!  think she is awfully nice and pathetic.\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, yes! Well, you'll be coming often, you will see what she is like It would do you a great deal of good to know people like that, to lear to value a great deal which you will find out from knowing thes people,\" Alyosha observed warmly. \"That would have more effect on yo than anything.\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, how I regret and blame myself for not having come sooner!\" Koly exclaimed, with bitter feeling."},
{"text":"\"Yes, it's a great pity. You saw for yourself how delighted the poo child was to see you. And how he fretted for you to come!\""},
{"text":"\"Don't tell me! You make it worse! But it serves me right. What kept m from coming was my conceit, my egoistic vanity, and the beastl wilfullness, which I never can get rid of, though I've been strugglin with it all my life. I see that now. I am a beast in lots of ways Karamazov!\""},
{"text":"\"No, you have a charming nature, though it's been distorted, and  quite understand why you have had such an influence on this generous morbidly sensitive boy,\" Alyosha answered warmly."},
{"text":"\"And you say that to me!\" cried Kolya; \"and would you believe it,  thought--I've thought several times since I've been here--that yo despised me! If only you knew how I prize your opinion!\""},
{"text":"\"But are you really so sensitive? At your age! Would you believe it just now, when you were telling your story, I thought, as I watche you, that you must be very sensitive!\""},
{"text":"\"You thought so? What an eye you've got, I say! I bet that was when  was talking about the goose. That was just when I was fancying you ha a great contempt for me for being in such a hurry to show off, and fo a moment I quite hated you for it, and began talking like a fool. The I fancied--just now, here--when I said that if there were no God H would have to be invented, that I was in too great a hurry to displa my knowledge, especially as I got that phrase out of a book. But  swear I wasn't showing off out of vanity, though I really don't kno why. Because I was so pleased? Yes, I believe it was because I was s pleased ... though it's perfectly disgraceful for anyone to b gushing directly they are pleased, I know that. But I am convinced no that you don't despise me; it was all my imagination. Oh, Karamazov,  am profoundly unhappy. I sometimes fancy all sorts of things, tha everyone is laughing at me, the whole world, and then I feel ready t overturn the whole order of things.\""},
{"text":"\"And you worry everyone about you,\" smiled Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"Yes, I worry everyone about me, especially my mother. Karamazov, tel me, am I very ridiculous now?\""},
{"text":"\"Don't think about that, don't think of it at all!\" cried Alyosha. \"An what does ridiculous mean? Isn't everyone constantly being or seemin ridiculous? Besides, nearly all clever people now are fearfully afrai of being ridiculous, and that makes them unhappy. All I am surprised a is that you should be feeling that so early, though I've observed i for some time past, and not only in you. Nowadays the very childre have begun to suffer from it. It's almost a sort of insanity. The devi has taken the form of that vanity and entered into the whol generation; it's simply the devil,\" added Alyosha, without a trace o the smile that Kolya, staring at him, expected to see. \"You are lik everyone else,\" said Alyosha, in conclusion, \"that is, like very man others. Only you must not be like everybody else, that's all.\""},
{"text":"\"Even if everyone is like that?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, even if everyone is like that. You be the only one not like it You really are not like everyone else, here you are not ashamed t confess to something bad and even ridiculous. And who will admit s much in these days? No one. And people have even ceased to feel th impulse to self-criticism. Don't be like everyone else, even if you ar the only one.\""},
{"text":"\"Splendid! I was not mistaken in you. You know how to console one. Oh how I have longed to know you, Karamazov! I've long been eager for thi meeting. Can you really have thought about me, too? You said just no that you thought of me, too?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, I'd heard of you and had thought of you, too ... and if it' partly vanity that makes you ask, it doesn't matter.\""},
{"text":"\"Do you know, Karamazov, our talk has been like a declaration of love,\"said Kolya, in a bashful and melting voice. \"That's not ridiculous, i it?\""},
{"text":"\"Not at all ridiculous, and if it were, it wouldn't matter, becaus it's been a good thing.\" Alyosha smiled brightly."},
{"text":"\"But do you know, Karamazov, you must admit that you are a littl ashamed yourself, now. ... I see it by your eyes.\" Kolya smiled wit a sort of sly happiness."},
{"text":"\"Why ashamed?\""},
{"text":"\"Well, why are you blushing?\""},
{"text":"\"It was you made me blush,\" laughed Alyosha, and he really did blush \"Oh, well, I am a little, goodness knows why, I don't know ...\" h muttered, almost embarrassed."},
{"text":"\"Oh, how I love you and admire you at this moment just because you ar rather ashamed! Because you are just like me,\" cried Kolya, in positiv ecstasy. His cheeks glowed, his eyes beamed."},
{"text":"\"You know, Kolya, you will be very unhappy in your life,\" somethin made Alyosha say suddenly."},
{"text":"\"I know, I know. How you know it all beforehand!\" Kolya agreed at once."},
{"text":"\"But you will bless life on the whole, all the same.\""},
{"text":"\"Just so, hurrah! You are a prophet. Oh, we shall get on together Karamazov! Do you know, what delights me most, is that you treat m quite like an equal. But we are not equals, no, we are not, you ar better! But we shall get on. Do you know, all this last month, I'v been saying to myself, `Either we shall be friends at once, forever, o we shall part enemies to the grave!' \""},
{"text":"\"And saying that, of course, you loved me,\" Alyosha laughed gayly."},
{"text":"\"I did. I loved you awfully. I've been loving and dreaming of you. An how do you know it all beforehand? Ah, here's the doctor. Goodness What will he tell us? Look at his face!\""},
{"text":" VII"},
{"text":"Ilusha"},
{"text":"The doctor came out of the room again, muffled in his fur coat and wit his cap on his head. His face looked almost angry and disgusted, a though he were afraid of getting dirty. He cast a cursory glance roun the passage, looking sternly at Alyosha and Kolya as he did so. Alyosh waved from the door to the coachman, and the carriage that had brough the doctor drove up. The captain darted out after the doctor, and bowing apologetically, stopped him to get the last word. The poo fellow looked utterly crushed; there was a scared look in his eyes."},
{"text":"\"Your Excellency, your Excellency ... is it possible?\" he began, bu could not go on and clasped his hands in despair. Yet he still gaze imploringly at the doctor, as though a word from him might still chang the poor boy's fate."},
{"text":"\"I can't help it, I am not God!\" the doctor answered offhand, thoug with the customary impressiveness."},
{"text":"\"Doctor ... your Excellency ... and will it be soon, soon?\""},
{"text":"\"You must be prepared for anything,\" said the doctor in emphatic an incisive tones, and dropping his eyes, he was about to step out to th coach."},
{"text":"\"Your Excellency, for Christ's sake!\" the terror-stricken captai stopped him again. \"Your Excellency! but can nothing, absolutel nothing save him now?\""},
{"text":"\"It's not in my hands now,\" said the doctor impatiently, \"but h'm! ...\" he stopped suddenly. \"If you could, for instance ... send .. your patient ... at once, without delay\" (the words \"at once, withou delay,\" the doctor uttered with an almost wrathful sternness that mad the captain start) \"to Syracuse, the change to the new be-ne-ficia climatic conditions might possibly effect--\""},
{"text":"\"To Syracuse!\" cried the captain, unable to grasp what was said."},
{"text":"\"Syracuse is in Sicily,\" Kolya jerked out suddenly in explanation. Th doctor looked at him."},
{"text":"\"Sicily! your Excellency,\" faltered the captain, \"but you've seen\"--h spread out his hands, indicating his surroundings--\"mamma and m family?\""},
{"text":"\"N--no, Sicily is not the place for the family, the family should g to Caucasus in the early spring ... your daughter must go to th Caucasus, and your wife ... after a course of the waters in th Caucasus for her rheumatism ... must be sent straight to Paris to th mental specialist Lepelletier; I could give you a note to him, an then ... there might be a change--\""},
{"text":"\"Doctor, doctor! But you see!\" The captain flung wide his hands agai despairingly, indicating the bare wooden walls of the passage."},
{"text":"\"Well, that's not my business,\" grinned the doctor. \"I have only tol you the answer of medical science to your question as to possibl treatment. As for the rest, to my regret--\""},
{"text":"\"Don't be afraid, apothecary, my dog won't bite you,\" Kolya rapped ou loudly, noticing the doctor's rather uneasy glance at Perezvon, who wa standing in the doorway. There was a wrathful note in Kolya's voice. H used the word apothecary instead of doctor on purpose, and, as h explained afterwards, used it \"to insult him.\""},
{"text":"\"What's that?\" The doctor flung up his head, staring with surprise a Kolya. \"Who's this?\" he addressed Alyosha, as though asking him t explain."},
{"text":"\"It's Perezvon's master, don't worry about me,\" Kolya said incisivel again."},
{"text":"\"Perezvon?\"[135]7 repeated the doctor, perplexed."},
{"text":"\"He hears the bell, but where it is he cannot tell. Goodbye, we shal meet in Syracuse.\""},
{"text":"\"Who's this? Who's this?\" The doctor flew into a terrible rage."},
{"text":"\"He is a schoolboy, doctor, he is a mischievous boy; take no notice o him,\" said Alyosha, frowning and speaking quickly. \"Kolya, hold you tongue!\" he cried to Krassotkin. \"Take no notice of him, doctor,\" h repeated, rather impatiently."},
{"text":"\"He wants a thrashing, a good thrashing!\" The doctor stamped in  perfect fury."},
{"text":"\"And you know, apothecary, my Perezvon might bite!\" said Kolya, turnin pale, with quivering voice and flashing eyes. \"Ici, Perezvon!\""},
{"text":"\"Kolya, if you say another word, I'll have nothing more to do wit you,\" Alyosha cried peremptorily."},
{"text":"\"There is only one man in the world who can command Nikola Krassotkin--this is the man\"; Kolya pointed to Alyosha. \"I obey him goodbye!\""},
{"text":"He stepped forward, opened the door, and quickly went into the inne room. Perezvon flew after him. The doctor stood still for five second in amazement, looking at Alyosha; then, with a curse, he went ou quickly to the carriage, repeating aloud, \"This is ... this is .. I don't know what it is!\" The captain darted forward to help him int the carriage. Alyosha followed Kolya into the room. He was already b Ilusha's bedside. The sick boy was holding his hand and calling for hi father. A minute later the captain, too, came back."},
{"text":"\"Father, father, come ... we ...\" Ilusha faltered in violen excitement, but apparently unable to go on, he flung his wasted arm round his father and Kolya, uniting them in one embrace, and huggin them as tightly as he could. The captain suddenly began to shake wit dumb sobs, and Kolya's lips and chin twitched."},
{"text":"\"Father, father! How sorry I am for you!\" Ilusha moaned bitterly."},
{"text":"\"Ilusha ... darling ... the doctor said ... you would be al right ... we shall be happy ... the doctor ...\" the captai began."},
{"text":"\"Ah, father! I know what the new doctor said to you about me. ...  saw!\" cried Ilusha, and again he hugged them both with all hi strength, hiding his face on his father's shoulder."},
{"text":"\"Father, don't cry, and when I die get a good boy, another one .. choose one of them all, a good one, call him Ilusha and love hi instead of me. ...\""},
{"text":"\"Hush, old man, you'll get well,\" Krassotkin cried suddenly, in a voic that sounded angry."},
{"text":"\"But don't ever forget me, father,\" Ilusha went on, \"come to my grave ... and, father, bury me by our big stone, where we used to go for ou walk, and come to me there with Krassotkin in the evening ... an Perezvon ... I shall expect you. ... Father, father!\""},
{"text":"His voice broke. They were all three silent, still embracing. Nina wa crying quietly in her chair, and at last seeing them all crying \"mamma,\" too, burst into tears."},
{"text":"\"Ilusha! Ilusha!\" she exclaimed."},
{"text":"Krassotkin suddenly released himself from Ilusha's embrace."},
{"text":"\"Goodbye, old man, mother expects me back to dinner,\" he said quickly \"What a pity I did not tell her! She will be dreadfully anxious. .. But after dinner I'll come back to you for the whole day, for the whol evening, and I'll tell you all sorts of things, all sorts of things And I'll bring Perezvon, but now I will take him with me, because h will begin to howl when I am away and bother you. Goodbye!\""},
{"text":"And he ran out into the passage. He didn't want to cry, but in th passage he burst into tears. Alyosha found him crying."},
{"text":"\"Kolya, you must be sure to keep your word and come, or he will b terribly disappointed,\" Alyosha said emphatically."},
{"text":"\"I will! Oh, how I curse myself for not having come before!\" muttere Kolya, crying, and no longer ashamed of it."},
{"text":"At that moment the captain flew out of the room, and at once closed th door behind him. His face looked frenzied, his lips were trembling. H stood before the two and flung up his arms."},
{"text":"\"I don't want a good boy! I don't want another boy!\" he muttered in  wild whisper, clenching his teeth. \"If I forget thee, Jerusalem, may m tongue--\" He broke off with a sob and sank on his knees before th wooden bench. Pressing his fists against his head, he began sobbin with absurd whimpering cries, doing his utmost that his cries shoul not be heard in the room."},
{"text":"Kolya ran out into the street."},
{"text":"\"Goodbye, Karamazov? Will you come yourself?\" he cried sharply an angrily to Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"I will certainly come in the evening.\""},
{"text":"\"What was that he said about Jerusalem? ... What did he mean b that?\""},
{"text":"\"It's from the Bible. `If I forget thee, Jerusalem,' that is, if  forget all that is most precious to me, if I let anything take it place, then may--\""},
{"text":"\"I understand, that's enough! Mind you come! Ici, Perezvon!\" he crie with positive ferocity to the dog, and with rapid strides he went home."},
{"text":"ook XI"},
{"text":"Ivan"},
{"text":" I"},
{"text":"At Grushenka's"},
{"text":"Alyosha went towards the cathedral square to the widow Morozov's hous to see Grushenka, who had sent Fenya to him early in the morning wit an urgent message begging him to come. Questioning Fenya, Alyosh learned that her mistress had been particularly distressed since th previous day. During the two months that had passed since Mitya' arrest, Alyosha had called frequently at the widow Morozov's house both from his own inclination and to take messages for Mitya. Thre days after Mitya's arrest, Grushenka was taken very ill and was ill fo nearly five weeks. For one whole week she was unconscious. She was ver much changed--thinner and a little sallow, though she had for the pas fortnight been well enough to go out. But to Alyosha her face was eve more attractive than before, and he liked to meet her eyes when he wen in to her. A look of firmness and intelligent purpose had developed i her face. There were signs of a spiritual transformation in her, and  steadfast, fine and humble determination that nothing could shake coul be discerned in her. There was a small vertical line between her brow which gave her charming face a look of concentrated thought, almos austere at the first glance. There was scarcely a trace of her forme frivolity."},
{"text":"It seemed strange to Alyosha, too, that in spite of the calamity tha had overtaken the poor girl, betrothed to a man who had been arreste for a terrible crime, almost at the instant of their betrothal, i spite of her illness and the almost inevitable sentence hanging ove Mitya, Grushenka had not yet lost her youthful cheerfulness. There wa a soft light in the once proud eyes, though at times they gleamed wit the old vindictive fire when she was visited by one disturbing though stronger than ever in her heart. The object of that uneasiness was th same as ever--Katerina Ivanovna, of whom Grushenka had even raved whe she lay in delirium. Alyosha knew that she was fearfully jealous o her. Yet Katerina Ivanovna had not once visited Mitya in his prison though she might have done it whenever she liked. All this made  difficult problem for Alyosha, for he was the only person to who Grushenka opened her heart and from whom she was continually askin advice. Sometimes he was unable to say anything."},
{"text":"Full of anxiety he entered her lodging. She was at home. She ha returned from seeing Mitya half an hour before, and from the rapi movement with which she leapt up from her chair to meet him he saw tha she had been expecting him with great impatience. A pack of cards deal for a game of \"fools\" lay on the table. A bed had been made up on th leather sofa on the other side and Maximov lay, half-reclining, on it He wore a dressing-gown and a cotton nightcap, and was evidently il and weak, though he was smiling blissfully. When the homeless old ma returned with Grushenka from Mokroe two months before, he had simpl stayed on and was still staying with her. He arrived with her in rai and sleet, sat down on the sofa, drenched and scared, and gazed mutel at her with a timid, appealing smile. Grushenka, who was in terribl grief and in the first stage of fever, almost forgot his existence i all she had to do the first half-hour after her arrival. Suddenly sh chanced to look at him intently: he laughed a pitiful, helpless littl laugh. She called Fenya and told her to give him something to eat. Al that day he sat in the same place, almost without stirring. When it go dark and the shutters were closed, Fenya asked her mistress:"},
{"text":"\"Is the gentleman going to stay the night, mistress?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes; make him a bed on the sofa,\" answered Grushenka."},
{"text":"Questioning him more in detail, Grushenka learned from him that he ha literally nowhere to go, and that \"Mr. Kalganov, my benefactor, told m straight that he wouldn't receive me again and gave me five roubles.\""},
{"text":"\"Well, God bless you, you'd better stay, then,\" Grushenka decided i her grief, smiling compassionately at him. Her smile wrung the ol man's heart and his lips twitched with grateful tears. And so th destitute wanderer had stayed with her ever since. He did not leave th house even when she was ill. Fenya and her grandmother, the cook, di not turn him out, but went on serving him meals and making up his be on the sofa. Grushenka had grown used to him, and coming back fro seeing Mitya (whom she had begun to visit in prison before she wa really well) she would sit down and begin talking to \"Maximushka\" abou trifling matters, to keep her from thinking of her sorrow. The old ma turned out to be a good storyteller on occasions, so that at last h became necessary to her. Grushenka saw scarcely anyone else besid Alyosha, who did not come every day and never stayed long. Her ol merchant lay seriously ill at this time, \"at his last gasp\" as the said in the town, and he did, in fact, die a week after Mitya's trial Three weeks before his death, feeling the end approaching, he made hi sons, their wives and children, come upstairs to him at last and bad them not leave him again. From that moment he gave strict orders to hi servants not to admit Grushenka and to tell her if she came, \"Th master wishes you long life and happiness and tells you to forget him.\"But Grushenka sent almost every day to inquire after him."},
{"text":"\"You've come at last!\" she cried, flinging down the cards and joyfull greeting Alyosha, \"and Maximushka's been scaring me that perhaps yo wouldn't come. Ah, how I need you! Sit down to the table. What will yo have--coffee?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, please,\" said Alyosha, sitting down at the table. \"I am ver hungry.\""},
{"text":"\"That's right. Fenya, Fenya, coffee,\" cried Grushenka. \"It's been mad a long time ready for you. And bring some little pies, and mind the are hot. Do you know, we've had a storm over those pies today. I too them to the prison for him, and would you believe it, he threw the back to me: he would not eat them. He flung one of them on the floo and stamped on it. So I said to him: `I shall leave them with th warder; if you don't eat them before evening, it will be that you venomous spite is enough for you!' With that I went away. We quarrele again, would you believe it? Whenever I go we quarrel.\""},
{"text":"Grushenka said all this in one breath in her agitation. Maximov feeling nervous, at once smiled and looked on the floor."},
{"text":"\"What did you quarrel about this time?\" asked Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"I didn't expect it in the least. Only fancy, he is jealous of th Pole. `Why are you keeping him?' he said. `So you've begun keepin him.' He is jealous, jealous of me all the time, jealous eating an sleeping! He even took it into his head to be jealous of Kuzma las week.\""},
{"text":"\"But he knew about the Pole before?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, but there it is. He has known about him from the very beginning but today he suddenly got up and began scolding about him. I am ashame to repeat what he said. Silly fellow! Rakitin went in as I came out Perhaps Rakitin is egging him on. What do you think?\" she adde carelessly."},
{"text":"\"He loves you, that's what it is: he loves you so much. And now he i particularly worried.\""},
{"text":"\"I should think he might be, with the trial tomorrow. And I went to hi to say something about tomorrow, for I dread to think what's going t happen then. You say that he is worried, but how worried I am! And h talks about the Pole! He's too silly! He is not jealous of Maximushk yet, anyway.\""},
{"text":"\"My wife was dreadfully jealous over me, too,\" Maximov put in his word."},
{"text":"\"Jealous of you?\" Grushenka laughed in spite of herself. \"Of whom coul she have been jealous?\""},
{"text":"\"Of the servant girls.\""},
{"text":"\"Hold your tongue, Maximushka, I am in no laughing mood now; I fee angry. Don't ogle the pies. I shan't give you any; they are not goo for you, and I won't give you any vodka either. I have to look afte him, too, just as though I kept an almshouse,\" she laughed."},
{"text":"\"I don't deserve your kindness. I am a worthless creature,\" sai Maximov, with tears in his voice. \"You would do better to spend you kindness on people of more use than me.\""},
{"text":"\"Ech, everyone is of use, Maximushka, and how can we tell who's of mos use? If only that Pole didn't exist, Alyosha. He's taken it into hi head to fall ill, too, today. I've been to see him also. And I shal send him some pies, too, on purpose. I hadn't sent him any, but Mity accused me of it, so now I shall send some! Ah, here's Fenya with  letter! Yes, it's from the Poles--begging again!\""},
{"text":"Pan Mussyalovitch had indeed sent an extremely long an characteristically eloquent letter in which he begged her to lend hi three roubles. In the letter was enclosed a receipt for the sum, with  promise to repay it within three months, signed by Pan Vrublevsky a well. Grushenka had received many such letters, accompanied by suc receipts, from her former lover during the fortnight of he convalescence. But she knew that the two Poles had been to ask afte her health during her illness. The first letter Grushenka got from the was a long one, written on large notepaper and with a big family cres on the seal. It was so obscure and rhetorical that Grushenka put i down before she had read half, unable to make head or tail of it. Sh could not attend to letters then. The first letter was followed nex day by another in which Pan Mussyalovitch begged her for a loan of tw thousand roubles for a very short period. Grushenka left that letter too, unanswered. A whole series of letters had followed--one ever day--all as pompous and rhetorical, but the loan asked for, graduall diminishing, dropped to a hundred roubles, then to twenty-five, to ten and finally Grushenka received a letter in which both the Poles begge her for only one rouble and included a receipt signed by both."},
{"text":"Then Grushenka suddenly felt sorry for them, and at dusk she went roun herself to their lodging. She found the two Poles in great poverty almost destitution, without food or fuel, without cigarettes, in deb to their landlady. The two hundred roubles they had carried off fro Mitya at Mokroe had soon disappeared. But Grushenka was surprised a their meeting her with arrogant dignity and self-assertion, with th greatest punctilio and pompous speeches. Grushenka simply laughed, an gave her former admirer ten roubles. Then, laughing, she told Mitya o it and he was not in the least jealous. But ever since, the Poles ha attached themselves to Grushenka and bombarded her daily with request for money and she had always sent them small sums. And now that da Mitya had taken it into his head to be fearfully jealous."},
{"text":"\"Like a fool, I went round to him just for a minute, on the way to se Mitya, for he is ill, too, my Pole,\" Grushenka began again with nervou haste. \"I was laughing, telling Mitya about it. `Fancy,' I said, `m Pole had the happy thought to sing his old songs to me to the guitar He thought I would be touched and marry him!' Mitya leapt up swearing. ... So, there, I'll send them the pies! Fenya, is it that little gir they've sent? Here, give her three roubles and pack a dozen pies up i a paper and tell her to take them. And you, Alyosha, be sure to tel Mitya that I did send them the pies.\""},
{"text":"\"I wouldn't tell him for anything,\" said Alyosha, smiling."},
{"text":"\"Ech! You think he is unhappy about it. Why, he's jealous on purpose He doesn't care,\" said Grushenka bitterly."},
{"text":"\"On purpose?\" queried Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"I tell you you are silly, Alyosha. You know nothing about it, with al your cleverness. I am not offended that he is jealous of a girl lik me. I would be offended if he were not jealous. I am like that. I a not offended at jealousy. I have a fierce heart, too. I can be jealou myself. Only what offends me is that he doesn't love me at all. I tel you he is jealous now on purpose. Am I blind? Don't I see? He bega talking to me just now of that woman, of Katerina, saying she was thi and that, how she had ordered a doctor from Moscow for him, to try an save him; how she had ordered the best counsel, the most learned one too. So he loves her, if he'll praise her to my face, more shame t him! He's treated me badly himself, so he attacked me, to make out I a in fault first and to throw it all on me. `You were with your Pol before me, so I can't be blamed for Katerina,' that's what it amount to. He wants to throw the whole blame on me. He attacked me on purpose on purpose, I tell you, but I'll--\""},
{"text":"Grushenka could not finish saying what she would do. She hid her eye in her handkerchief and sobbed violently."},
{"text":"\"He doesn't love Katerina Ivanovna,\" said Alyosha firmly."},
{"text":"\"Well, whether he loves her or not, I'll soon find out for myself,\"said Grushenka, with a menacing note in her voice, taking th handkerchief from her eyes. Her face was distorted. Alyosha sa sorrowfully that from being mild and serene, it had become sullen an spiteful."},
{"text":"\"Enough of this foolishness,\" she said suddenly; \"it's not for that  sent for you. Alyosha, darling, tomorrow--what will happen tomorrow That's what worries me! And it's only me it worries! I look at everyon and no one is thinking of it. No one cares about it. Are you thinkin about it even? Tomorrow he'll be tried, you know. Tell me, how will h be tried? You know it's the valet, the valet killed him! Good heavens Can they condemn him in place of the valet and will no one stand up fo him? They haven't troubled the valet at all, have they?\""},
{"text":"\"He's been severely cross-examined,\" observed Alyosha thoughtfully \"but everyone came to the conclusion it was not he. Now he is lyin very ill. He has been ill ever since that attack. Really ill,\" adde Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"Oh, dear! couldn't you go to that counsel yourself and tell him th whole thing by yourself? He's been brought from Petersburg for thre thousand roubles, they say.\""},
{"text":"\"We gave these three thousand together--Ivan, Katerina Ivanovna an I--but she paid two thousand for the doctor from Moscow herself. Th counsel Fetyukovitch would have charged more, but the case has becom known all over Russia; it's talked of in all the papers and journals Fetyukovitch agreed to come more for the glory of the thing, becaus the case has become so notorious. I saw him yesterday.\""},
{"text":"\"Well? Did you talk to him?\" Grushenka put in eagerly."},
{"text":"\"He listened and said nothing. He told me that he had already forme his opinion. But he promised to give my words consideration.\""},
{"text":"\"Consideration! Ah, they are swindlers! They'll ruin him. And why di she send for the doctor?\""},
{"text":"\"As an expert. They want to prove that Mitya's mad and committed th murder when he didn't know what he was doing\"; Alyosha smiled gently \"but Mitya won't agree to that.\""},
{"text":"\"Yes; but that would be the truth if he had killed him!\" crie Grushenka. \"He was mad then, perfectly mad, and that was my fault wretch that I am! But, of course, he didn't do it, he didn't do it! An they are all against him, the whole town. Even Fenya's evidence went t prove he had done it. And the people at the shop, and that official and at the tavern, too, before, people had heard him say so! They ar all, all against him, all crying out against him.\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, there's a fearful accumulation of evidence,\" Alyosha observe grimly."},
{"text":"\"And Grigory--Grigory Vassilyevitch--sticks to his story that th door was open, persists that he saw it--there's no shaking him. I wen and talked to him myself. He's rude about it, too.\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, that's perhaps the strongest evidence against him,\" said Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"And as for Mitya's being mad, he certainly seems like it now,\"Grushenka began with a peculiarly anxious and mysterious air. \"Do yo know, Alyosha, I've been wanting to talk to you about it for a lon time. I go to him every day and simply wonder at him. Tell me, now what do you suppose he's always talking about? He talks and talks and  can make nothing of it. I fancied he was talking of somethin intellectual that I couldn't understand in my foolishness. Only h suddenly began talking to me about a babe--that is, about some child `Why is the babe poor?' he said. `It's for that babe I am going t Siberia now. I am not a murderer, but I must go to Siberia!' What tha meant, what babe, I couldn't tell for the life of me. Only I cried whe he said it, because he said it so nicely. He cried himself, and  cried, too. He suddenly kissed me and made the sign of the cross ove me. What did it mean, Alyosha, tell me? What is this babe?\""},
{"text":"\"It must be Rakitin, who's been going to see him lately,\" smile Alyosha, \"though ... that's not Rakitin's doing. I didn't see Mity yesterday. I'll see him today.\""},
{"text":"\"No, it's not Rakitin; it's his brother Ivan Fyodorovitch upsettin him. It's his going to see him, that's what it is,\" Grushenka began and suddenly broke off. Alyosha gazed at her in amazement."},
{"text":"\"Ivan's going? Has he been to see him? Mitya told me himself that Iva hasn't been once.\""},
{"text":"\"There ... there! What a girl I am! Blurting things out!\" exclaime Grushenka, confused and suddenly blushing. \"Stay, Alyosha, hush! Sinc I've said so much I'll tell the whole truth--he's been to see hi twice, the first directly he arrived. He galloped here from Moscow a once, of course, before I was taken ill; and the second time was a wee ago. He told Mitya not to tell you about it, under any circumstances and not to tell anyone, in fact. He came secretly.\""},
{"text":"Alyosha sat plunged in thought, considering something. The new evidently impressed him."},
{"text":"\"Ivan doesn't talk to me of Mitya's case,\" he said slowly. \"He's sai very little to me these last two months. And whenever I go to see him he seems vexed at my coming, so I've not been to him for the last thre weeks. H'm! ... if he was there a week ago ... there certainly ha been a change in Mitya this week.\""},
{"text":"\"There has been a change,\" Grushenka assented quickly. \"They have  secret, they have a secret! Mitya told me himself there was a secret and such a secret that Mitya can't rest. Before then, he wa cheerful--and, indeed, he is cheerful now--but when he shakes hi head like that, you know, and strides about the room and keeps pullin at the hair on his right temple with his right hand, I know there i something on his mind worrying him. ... I know! He was cheerfu before, though, indeed, he is cheerful today.\""},
{"text":"\"But you said he was worried.\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, he is worried and yet cheerful. He keeps on being irritable for  minute and then cheerful and then irritable again. And you know Alyosha, I am constantly wondering at him--with this awful thin hanging over him, he sometimes laughs at such trifles as though he wer a baby himself.\""},
{"text":"\"And did he really tell you not to tell me about Ivan? Did he say `Don't tell him'?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, he told me, `Don't tell him.' It's you that Mitya's most afrai of. Because it's a secret: he said himself it was a secret. Alyosha darling, go to him and find out what their secret is and come and tel me,\" Grushenka besought him with sudden eagerness. \"Set my mind at res that I may know the worst that's in store for me. That's why I sent fo you.\""},
{"text":"\"You think it's something to do with you? If it were, he wouldn't hav told you there was a secret.\""},
{"text":"\"I don't know. Perhaps he wants to tell me, but doesn't dare to. H warns me. There is a secret, he tells me, but he won't tell me what i is.\""},
{"text":"\"What do you think yourself?\""},
{"text":"\"What do I think? It's the end for me, that's what I think. They al three have been plotting my end, for Katerina's in it. It's al Katerina, it all comes from her. She is this and that, and that mean that I am not. He tells me that beforehand--warns me. He is plannin to throw me over, that's the whole secret. They've planned it together the three of them--Mitya, Katerina, and Ivan Fyodorovitch. Alyosha I've been wanting to ask you a long time. A week ago he suddenly tol me that Ivan was in love with Katerina, because he often goes to se her. Did he tell me the truth or not? Tell me, on your conscience, tel me the worst.\""},
{"text":"\"I won't tell you a lie. Ivan is not in love with Katerina Ivanovna,  think.\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, that's what I thought! He is lying to me, shameless deceiver that's what it is! And he was jealous of me just now, so as to put th blame on me afterwards. He is stupid, he can't disguise what he i doing; he is so open, you know. ... But I'll give it to him, I'l give it to him! `You believe I did it,' he said. He said that to me, t me. He reproached me with that! God forgive him! You wait, I'll make i hot for Katerina at the trial! I'll just say a word then ... I'l tell everything then!\""},
{"text":"And again she cried bitterly."},
{"text":"\"This I can tell you for certain, Grushenka,\" Alyosha said, getting up \"First, that he loves you, loves you more than anyone in the world, an you only, believe me. I know. I do know. The second thing is that  don't want to worm his secret out of him, but if he'll tell me o himself today, I shall tell him straight out that I have promised t tell you. Then I'll come to you today, and tell you. Only ...  fancy ... Katerina Ivanovna has nothing to do with it, and that th secret is about something else. That's certain. It isn't likely it' about Katerina Ivanovna, it seems to me. Goodbye for now.\""},
{"text":"Alyosha shook hands with her. Grushenka was still crying. He saw tha she put little faith in his consolation, but she was better for havin had her sorrow out, for having spoken of it. He was sorry to leave he in such a state of mind, but he was in haste. He had a great man things to do still."},
{"text":" II"},
{"text":"The Injured Foot"},
{"text":"The first of these things was at the house of Madame Hohlakov, and h hurried there to get it over as quickly as possible and not be too lat for Mitya. Madame Hohlakov had been slightly ailing for the last thre weeks: her foot had for some reason swollen up, and though she was no in bed, she lay all day half-reclining on the couch in her boudoir, i a fascinating but decorous dshabill. Alyosha had once noted wit innocent amusement that, in spite of her illness, Madame Hohlakov ha begun to be rather dressy--topknots, ribbons, loose wrappers, had mad their appearance, and he had an inkling of the reason, though h dismissed such ideas from his mind as frivolous. During the last tw months the young official, Perhotin, had become a regular visitor a the house."},
{"text":"Alyosha had not called for four days and he was in haste to go straigh to Lise, as it was with her he had to speak, for Lise had sent a mai to him the previous day, specially asking him to come to her \"abou something very important,\" a request which, for certain reasons, ha interest for Alyosha. But while the maid went to take his name in t Lise, Madame Hohlakov heard of his arrival from someone, an immediately sent to beg him to come to her \"just for one minute.\"Alyosha reflected that it was better to accede to the mamma's request or else she would be sending down to Lise's room every minute that h was there. Madame Hohlakov was lying on a couch. She was particularl smartly dressed and was evidently in a state of extreme nervou excitement. She greeted Alyosha with cries of rapture."},
{"text":"\"It's ages, ages, perfect ages since I've seen you! It's a whol week--only think of it! Ah, but you were here only four days ago, o Wednesday. You have come to see Lise. I'm sure you meant to slip int her room on tiptoe, without my hearing you. My dear, dear Alexe Fyodorovitch, if you only knew how worried I am about her! But of tha later, though that's the most important thing, of that later. Dea Alexey Fyodorovitch, I trust you implicitly with my Lise. Since th death of Father Zossima--God rest his soul!\" (she crosse herself)--\"I look upon you as a monk, though you look charming in you new suit. Where did you find such a tailor in these parts? No, no that's not the chief thing--of that later. Forgive me for sometime calling you Alyosha; an old woman like me may take liberties,\" sh smiled coquettishly; \"but that will do later, too. The important thin is that I shouldn't forget what is important. Please remind me of i yourself. As soon as my tongue runs away with me, you just say `th important thing?' Ach! how do I know now what is of most importance Ever since Lise took back her promise--her childish promise, Alexe Fyodorovitch--to marry you, you've realized, of course, that it wa only the playful fancy of a sick child who had been so long confined t her chair--thank God, she can walk now! ... that new doctor Katy sent for from Moscow for your unhappy brother, who will tomorrow--Bu why speak of tomorrow? I am ready to die at the very thought o tomorrow. Ready to die of curiosity. ... That doctor was with u yesterday and saw Lise. ... I paid him fifty roubles for the visit But that's not the point, that's not the point again. You see, I' mixing everything up. I am in such a hurry. Why am I in a hurry?  don't understand. It's awful how I seem growing unable to understan anything. Everything seems mixed up in a sort of tangle. I am afrai you are so bored you will jump up and run away, and that will be all  shall see of you. Goodness! Why are we sitting here and no coffee Yulia, Glafira, coffee!\""},
{"text":"Alyosha made haste to thank her, and said that he had only just ha coffee."},
{"text":"\"Where?\""},
{"text":"\"At Agrafena Alexandrovna's.\""},
{"text":"\"At ... at that woman's? Ah, it's she has brought ruin on everyone.  know nothing about it though. They say she has become a saint, thoug it's rather late in the day. She had better have done it before. Wha use is it now? Hush, hush, Alexey Fyodorovitch, for I have so much t say to you that I am afraid I shall tell you nothing. This awful trial ... I shall certainly go, I am making arrangements. I shall be carrie there in my chair; besides I can sit up. I shall have people with me And, you know, I am a witness. How shall I speak, how shall I speak?  don't know what I shall say. One has to take an oath, hasn't one?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes; but I don't think you will be able to go.\""},
{"text":"\"I can sit up. Ah, you put me out! Ah! this trial, this savage act, an then they are all going to Siberia, some are getting married, and al this so quickly, so quickly, everything's changing, and a last--nothing. All grow old and have death to look forward to. Well so be it! I am weary. This Katya, cette charmante personne, ha disappointed all my hopes. Now she is going to follow one of you brothers to Siberia, and your other brother is going to follow her, an will live in the nearest town, and they will all torment one another It drives me out of my mind. Worst of all--the publicity. The stor has been told a million times over in all the papers in Moscow an Petersburg. Ah! yes, would you believe it, there's a paragraph that  was `a dear friend' of your brother's , I can't repeat the horri word. Just fancy, just fancy!\""},
{"text":"\"Impossible! Where was the paragraph? What did it say?\""},
{"text":"\"I'll show you directly. I got the paper and read it yesterday. Here in the Petersburg paper Gossip. The paper began coming out this year.  am awfully fond of gossip, and I take it in, and now it pays m out--this is what gossip comes to! Here it is, here, this passage Read it.\""},
{"text":"And she handed Alyosha a sheet of newspaper which had been under he pillow."},
{"text":"It was not exactly that she was upset, she seemed overwhelmed an perhaps everything really was mixed up in a tangle in her head. Th paragraph was very typical, and must have been a great shock to her but, fortunately perhaps, she was unable to keep her mind fixed on an one subject at that moment, and so might race off in a minute t something else and quite forget the newspaper."},
{"text":"Alyosha was well aware that the story of the terrible case had sprea all over Russia. And, good heavens! what wild rumors about his brother about the Karamazovs, and about himself he had read in the course o those two months, among other equally credible items! One paper ha even stated that he had gone into a monastery and become a monk, i horror at his brother's crime. Another contradicted this, and state that he and his elder, Father Zossima, had broken into the monaster chest and \"made tracks from the monastery.\" The present paragraph i the paper Gossip was under the heading, \"The Karamazov Case a Skotoprigonyevsk.\" (That, alas! was the name of our little town. I ha hitherto kept it concealed.) It was brief, and Madame Hohlakov was no directly mentioned in it. No names appeared, in fact. It was merel stated that the criminal, whose approaching trial was making such  sensation--retired army captain, an idle swaggerer, and reactionar bully--was continually involved in amorous intrigues, and particularl popular with certain ladies \"who were pining in solitude.\" One suc lady, a pining widow, who tried to seem young though she had a grownu daughter, was so fascinated by him that only two hours before the crim she offered him three thousand roubles, on condition that he woul elope with her to the gold mines. But the criminal, counting o escaping punishment, had preferred to murder his father to get th three thousand rather than go off to Siberia with the middle-age charms of his pining lady. This playful paragraph finished, of course with an outburst of generous indignation at the wickedness of parricid and at the lately abolished institution of serfdom. Reading it wit curiosity, Alyosha folded up the paper and handed it back to Madam Hohlakov."},
{"text":"\"Well, that must be me,\" she hurried on again. \"Of course I am meant Scarcely more than an hour before, I suggested gold mines to him, an here they talk of `middle-aged charms' as though that were my motive He writes that out of spite! God Almighty forgive him for th middle-aged charms, as I forgive him! You know it's--Do you know wh it is? It's your friend Rakitin.\""},
{"text":"\"Perhaps,\" said Alyosha, \"though I've heard nothing about it.\""},
{"text":"\"It's he, it's he! No `perhaps' about it. You know I turned him out o the house. ... You know all that story, don't you?\""},
{"text":"\"I know that you asked him not to visit you for the future, but why i was, I haven't heard ... from you, at least.\""},
{"text":"\"Ah, then you've heard it from him! He abuses me, I suppose, abuses m dreadfully?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, he does; but then he abuses everyone. But why you've given him u I haven't heard from him either. I meet him very seldom now, indeed. W are not friends.\""},
{"text":"\"Well, then, I'll tell you all about it. There's no help for it, I'l confess, for there is one point in which I was perhaps to blame. Only  little, little point, so little that perhaps it doesn't count. You see my dear boy\"--Madame Hohlakov suddenly looked arch and a charming though enigmatic, smile played about her lips--\"you see, I suspect ... You must forgive me, Alyosha. I am like a mother to you. ... No no; quite the contrary. I speak to you now as though you were m father--mother's quite out of place. Well, it's as though I wer confessing to Father Zossima, that's just it. I called you a monk jus now. Well, that poor young man, your friend, Rakitin (Mercy on us!  can't be angry with him. I feel cross, but not very), that frivolou young man, would you believe it, seems to have taken it into his hea to fall in love with me. I only noticed it later. At first--a mont ago--he only began to come oftener to see me, almost every day though, of course, we were acquainted before. I knew nothing about it ... and suddenly it dawned upon me, and I began to notice things wit surprise. You know, two months ago, that modest, charming, excellen young man, Pyotr Ilyitch Perhotin, who's in the service here, began t be a regular visitor at the house. You met him here ever so many time yourself. And he is an excellent, earnest young man, isn't he? He come once every three days, not every day (though I should be glad to se him every day), and always so well dressed. Altogether, I love youn people, Alyosha, talented, modest, like you, and he has almost the min of a statesman, he talks so charmingly, and I shall certainly certainly try and get promotion for him. He is a future diplomat. O that awful day he almost saved me from death by coming in the night And your friend Rakitin comes in such boots, and always stretches the out on the carpet. ... He began hinting at his feelings, in fact, an one day, as he was going, he squeezed my hand terribly hard. My foo began to swell directly after he pressed my hand like that. He had me Pyotr Ilyitch here before, and would you believe it, he is alway gibing at him, growling at him, for some reason. I simply looked at th way they went on together and laughed inwardly. So I was sitting her alone--no, I was laid up then. Well, I was lying here alone an suddenly Rakitin comes in, and only fancy! brought me some verses o his own composition--a short poem, on my bad foot: that is, h described my foot in a poem. Wait a minute--how did it go?"},
{"text":"  A captivating little foot."},
{"text":"It began somehow like that. I can never remember poetry. I've got i here. I'll show it to you later. But it's a charming thing--charming and, you know, it's not only about the foot, it had a good moral, too a charming idea, only I've forgotten it; in fact, it was just the thin for an album. So, of course, I thanked him, and he was evidentl flattered. I'd hardly had time to thank him when in comes Pyot Ilyitch, and Rakitin suddenly looked as black as night. I could se that Pyotr Ilyitch was in the way, for Rakitin certainly wanted to sa something after giving me the verses. I had a presentiment of it; bu Pyotr Ilyitch came in. I showed Pyotr Ilyitch the verses and didn't sa who was the author. But I am convinced that he guessed, though he won' own it to this day, and declares he had no idea. But he says that o purpose. Pyotr Ilyitch began to laugh at once, and fell to criticizin it. `Wretched doggerel,' he said they were, `some divinity student mus have written them,' and with such vehemence, such vehemence! Then instead of laughing, your friend flew into a rage. `Good gracious!'  thought, `they'll fly at each other.' `It was I who wrote them,' sai he. `I wrote them as a joke,' he said, `for I think it degrading t write verses. ... But they are good poetry. They want to put  monument to your Pushkin for writing about women's feet, while I wrot with a moral purpose, and you,' said he, `are an advocate of serfdom You've no humane ideas,' said he. `You have no modern enlightene feelings, you are uninfluenced by progress, you are a mere official, he said, `and you take bribes.' Then I began screaming and implorin them. And, you know, Pyotr Ilyitch is anything but a coward. He at onc took up the most gentlemanly tone, looked at him sarcastically listened, and apologized. `I'd no idea,' said he. `I shouldn't hav said it, if I had known. I should have praised it. Poets are all s irritable,' he said. In short, he laughed at him under cover of th most gentlemanly tone. He explained to me afterwards that it was al sarcastic. I thought he was in earnest. Only as I lay there, just a before you now, I thought, `Would it, or would it not, be the prope thing for me to turn Rakitin out for shouting so rudely at a visitor i my house?' And, would you believe it, I lay here, shut my eyes, an wondered, would it be the proper thing or not. I kept worrying an worrying, and my heart began to beat, and I couldn't make up my min whether to make an outcry or not. One voice seemed to be telling me `Speak,' and the other `No, don't speak.' And no sooner had the secon voice said that than I cried out, and fainted. Of course, there was  fuss. I got up suddenly and said to Rakitin, `It's painful for me t say it, but I don't wish to see you in my house again.' So I turned hi out. Ah! Alexey Fyodorovitch, I know myself I did wrong. I was puttin it on. I wasn't angry with him at all, really; but I suddenl fancied--that was what did it--that it would be such a fine scene. ... And yet, believe me, it was quite natural, for I really shed tear and cried for several days afterwards, and then suddenly, on afternoon, I forgot all about it. So it's a fortnight since he's bee here, and I kept wondering whether he would come again. I wondered eve yesterday, then suddenly last night came this Gossip. I read it an gasped. Who could have written it? He must have written it. He wen home, sat down, wrote it on the spot, sent it, and they put it in. I was a fortnight ago, you see. But, Alyosha, it's awful how I kee talking and don't say what I want to say. Ah! the words come o themselves!\""},
{"text":"\"It's very important for me to be in time to see my brother today,\"Alyosha faltered."},
{"text":"\"To be sure, to be sure! You bring it all back to me. Listen, what i an aberration?\""},
{"text":"\"What aberration?\" asked Alyosha, wondering."},
{"text":"\"In the legal sense. An aberration in which everything is pardonable Whatever you do, you will be acquitted at once.\""},
{"text":"\"What do you mean?\""},
{"text":"\"I'll tell you. This Katya ... Ah! she is a charming, charmin creature, only I never can make out who it is she is in love with. Sh was with me some time ago and I couldn't get anything out of her Especially as she won't talk to me except on the surface now. She i always talking about my health and nothing else, and she takes up suc a tone with me, too. I simply said to myself, `Well, so be it. I don' care' ... Oh, yes. I was talking of aberration. This doctor has come You know a doctor has come? Of course, you know it--the one wh discovers madmen. You wrote for him. No, it wasn't you, but Katya. It' all Katya's doing. Well, you see, a man may be sitting perfectly san and suddenly have an aberration. He may be conscious and know what h is doing and yet be in a state of aberration. And there's no doubt tha Dmitri Fyodorovitch was suffering from aberration. They found out abou aberration as soon as the law courts were reformed. It's all the goo effect of the reformed law courts. The doctor has been here an questioned me about that evening, about the gold mines. `How did h seem then?' he asked me. He must have been in a state of aberration. H came in shouting, `Money, money, three thousand! Give me thre thousand!' and then went away and immediately did the murder. `I don' want to murder him,' he said, and he suddenly went and murdered him That's why they'll acquit him, because he struggled against it and ye he murdered him.\""},
{"text":"\"But he didn't murder him,\" Alyosha interrupted rather sharply. He fel more and more sick with anxiety and impatience."},
{"text":"\"Yes, I know it was that old man Grigory murdered him.\""},
{"text":"\"Grigory?\" cried Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"Yes, yes; it was Grigory. He lay as Dmitri Fyodorovitch struck hi down, and then got up, saw the door open, went in and killed Fyodo Pavlovitch.\""},
{"text":"\"But why, why?\""},
{"text":"\"Suffering from aberration. When he recovered from the blow Dmitr Fyodorovitch gave him on the head, he was suffering from aberration; h went and committed the murder. As for his saying he didn't, he ver likely doesn't remember. Only, you know, it'll be better, ever so muc better, if Dmitri Fyodorovitch murdered him. And that's how it mus have been, though I say it was Grigory. It certainly was Dmitr Fyodorovitch, and that's better, ever so much better! Oh! not bette that a son should have killed his father, I don't defend that. Childre ought to honor their parents, and yet it would be better if it were he as you'd have nothing to cry over then, for he did it when he wa unconscious or rather when he was conscious, but did not know what h was doing. Let them acquit him--that's so humane, and would show wha a blessing reformed law courts are. I knew nothing about it, but the say they have been so a long time. And when I heard it yesterday, I wa so struck by it that I wanted to send for you at once. And if he i acquitted, make him come straight from the law courts to dinner wit me, and I'll have a party of friends, and we'll drink to the reforme law courts. I don't believe he'd be dangerous; besides, I'll invite  great many friends, so that he could always be led out if he di anything. And then he might be made a justice of the peace or somethin in another town, for those who have been in trouble themselves make th best judges. And, besides, who isn't suffering from aberratio nowadays?--you, I, all of us are in a state of aberration, and ther are ever so many examples of it: a man sits singing a song, suddenl something annoys him, he takes a pistol and shoots the first person h comes across, and no one blames him for it. I read that lately, and al the doctors confirm it. The doctors are always confirming; they confir anything. Why, my Lise is in a state of aberration. She made me cr again yesterday, and the day before, too, and today I suddenly realize that it's all due to aberration. Oh, Lise grieves me so! I believ she's quite mad. Why did she send for you? Did she send for you or di you come of yourself?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, she sent for me, and I am just going to her.\" Alyosha got u resolutely."},
{"text":"\"Oh, my dear, dear Alexey Fyodorovitch, perhaps that's what's mos important,\" Madame Hohlakov cried, suddenly bursting into tears. \"Go knows I trust Lise to you with all my heart, and it's no matter he sending for you on the sly, without telling her mother. But forgive me I can't trust my daughter so easily to your brother Ivan Fyodorovitch though I still consider him the most chivalrous young man. But onl fancy, he's been to see Lise and I knew nothing about it!\""},
{"text":"\"How? What? When?\" Alyosha was exceedingly surprised. He had not sa down again and listened standing."},
{"text":"\"I will tell you; that's perhaps why I asked you to come, for I don' know now why I did ask you to come. Well, Ivan Fyodorovitch has been t see me twice, since he came back from Moscow. First time he came as  friend to call on me, and the second time Katya was here and he cam because he heard she was here. I didn't, of course, expect him to com often, knowing what a lot he has to do as it is, vous comprenez, cett affaire et la mort terrible de votre papa. But I suddenly heard he' been here again, not to see me but to see Lise. That's six days ag now. He came, stayed five minutes, and went away. And I didn't hear o it till three days afterwards, from Glafira, so it was a great shock t me. I sent for Lise directly. She laughed. `He thought you wer asleep,' she said, `and came in to me to ask after your health.' O course, that's how it happened. But Lise, Lise, mercy on us, how sh distresses me! Would you believe it, one night, four days ago, jus after you saw her last time, and had gone away, she suddenly had a fit screaming, shrieking, hysterics! Why is it I never have hysterics Then, next day another fit, and the same thing on the third, an yesterday too, and then yesterday that aberration. She suddenl screamed out, `I hate Ivan Fyodorovitch. I insist on your never lettin him come to the house again.' I was struck dumb at these amazing words and answered, `On what grounds could I refuse to see such an excellen young man, a young man of such learning too, and so unfortunate?'--fo all this business is a misfortune, isn't it? She suddenly burst ou laughing at my words, and so rudely, you know. Well, I was pleased;  thought I had amused her and the fits would pass off, especially as  wanted to refuse to see Ivan Fyodorovitch anyway on account of hi strange visits without my knowledge, and meant to ask him for a explanation. But early this morning Lise waked up and flew into  passion with Yulia and, would you believe it, slapped her in the face That's monstrous; I am always polite to my servants. And an hour late she was hugging Yulia's feet and kissing them. She sent a message to m that she wasn't coming to me at all, and would never come and see m again, and when I dragged myself down to her, she rushed to kiss me crying, and as she kissed me, she pushed me out of the room withou saying a word, so I couldn't find out what was the matter. Now, dea Alexey Fyodorovitch, I rest all my hopes on you, and, of course, m whole life is in your hands. I simply beg you to go to Lise and fin out everything from her, as you alone can, and come back and tel me--me, her mother, for you understand it will be the death of me simply the death of me, if this goes on, or else I shall run away.  can stand no more. I have patience; but I may lose patience, and then ... then something awful will happen. Ah, dear me! At last, Pyot Ilyitch!\" cried Madame Hohlakov, beaming all over as she saw Perhoti enter the room. \"You are late, you are late! Well, sit down, speak, pu us out of suspense. What does the counsel say. Where are you off to Alexey Fyodorovitch?\""},
{"text":"\"To Lise.\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, yes. You won't forget, you won't forget what I asked you? It's  question of life and death!\""},
{"text":"\"Of course, I won't forget, if I can ... but I am so late,\" muttere Alyosha, beating a hasty retreat."},
{"text":"\"No, be sure, be sure to come in; don't say `If you can.' I shall di if you don't,\" Madame Hohlakov called after him, but Alyosha ha already left the room."},
{"text":" III"},
{"text":"A Little Demon"},
{"text":"Going in to Lise, he found her half reclining in the invalid-chair, i which she had been wheeled when she was unable to walk. She did no move to meet him, but her sharp, keen eyes were simply riveted on hi face. There was a feverish look in her eyes, her face was pale an yellow. Alyosha was amazed at the change that had taken place in her i three days. She was positively thinner. She did not hold out her han to him. He touched the thin, long fingers which lay motionless on he dress, then he sat down facing her, without a word."},
{"text":"\"I know you are in a hurry to get to the prison,\" Lise said curtly \"and mamma's kept you there for hours; she's just been telling yo about me and Yulia.\""},
{"text":"\"How do you know?\" asked Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"I've been listening. Why do you stare at me? I want to listen and I d listen, there's no harm in that. I don't apologize.\""},
{"text":"\"You are upset about something?\""},
{"text":"\"On the contrary, I am very happy. I've only just been reflecting fo the thirtieth time what a good thing it is I refused you and shall no be your wife. You are not fit to be a husband. If I were to marry yo and give you a note to take to the man I loved after you, you'd take i and be sure to give it to him and bring an answer back, too. If yo were forty, you would still go on taking my love-letters for me.\""},
{"text":"She suddenly laughed."},
{"text":"\"There is something spiteful and yet openhearted about you,\" Alyosh smiled to her."},
{"text":"\"The openheartedness consists in my not being ashamed of myself wit you. What's more, I don't want to feel ashamed with you, just with you Alyosha, why is it I don't respect you? I am very fond of you, but  don't respect you. If I respected you, I shouldn't talk to you withou shame, should I?\""},
{"text":"\"No.\""},
{"text":"\"But do you believe that I am not ashamed with you?\""},
{"text":"\"No, I don't believe it.\""},
{"text":"Lise laughed nervously again; she spoke rapidly."},
{"text":"\"I sent your brother, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, some sweets in prison Alyosha, you know, you are quite pretty! I shall love you awfully fo having so quickly allowed me not to love you.\""},
{"text":"\"Why did you send for me today, Lise?\""},
{"text":"\"I wanted to tell you of a longing I have. I should like someone t torture me, marry me and then torture me, deceive me and go away.  don't want to be happy.\""},
{"text":"\"You are in love with disorder?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, I want disorder. I keep wanting to set fire to the house. I kee imagining how I'll creep up and set fire to the house on the sly; i must be on the sly. They'll try to put it out, but it'll go on burning And I shall know and say nothing. Ah, what silliness! And how bored  am!\""},
{"text":"She waved her hand with a look of repulsion."},
{"text":"\"It's your luxurious life,\" said Alyosha, softly."},
{"text":"\"Is it better, then, to be poor?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, it is better.\""},
{"text":"\"That's what your monk taught you. That's not true. Let me be rich an all the rest poor, I'll eat sweets and drink cream and not give any t anyone else. Ach, don't speak, don't say anything,\" she shook her han at him, though Alyosha had not opened his mouth. \"You've told me al that before, I know it all by heart. It bores me. If I am ever poor,  shall murder somebody, and even if I am rich, I may murder someone perhaps--why do nothing! But do you know, I should like to reap, cu the rye? I'll marry you, and you shall become a peasant, a rea peasant; we'll keep a colt, shall we? Do you know Kalganov?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes.\""},
{"text":"\"He is always wandering about, dreaming. He says, `Why live in rea life? It's better to dream. One can dream the most delightful things but real life is a bore.' But he'll be married soon for all that; he' been making love to me already. Can you spin tops?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes.\""},
{"text":"\"Well, he's just like a top: he wants to be wound up and set spinnin and then to be lashed, lashed, lashed with a whip. If I marry him, I'l keep him spinning all his life. You are not ashamed to be with me?\""},
{"text":"\"No.\""},
{"text":"\"You are awfully cross, because I don't talk about holy things. I don' want to be holy. What will they do to one in the next world for th greatest sin? You must know all about that.\""},
{"text":"\"God will censure you.\" Alyosha was watching her steadily."},
{"text":"\"That's just what I should like. I would go up and they would censur me, and I would burst out laughing in their faces. I should dreadfull like to set fire to the house, Alyosha, to our house; you still don' believe me?\""},
{"text":"\"Why? There are children of twelve years old, who have a longing to se fire to something and they do set things on fire, too. It's a sort o disease.\""},
{"text":"\"That's not true, that's not true; there may be children, but that' not what I mean.\""},
{"text":"\"You take evil for good; it's a passing crisis, it's the result of you illness, perhaps.\""},
{"text":"\"You do despise me, though! It's simply that I don't want to do good,  want to do evil, and it has nothing to do with illness.\""},
{"text":"\"Why do evil?\""},
{"text":"\"So that everything might be destroyed. Ah, how nice it would be i everything were destroyed! You know, Alyosha, I sometimes think o doing a fearful lot of harm and everything bad, and I should do it fo a long while on the sly and suddenly everyone would find it out Everyone will stand round and point their fingers at me and I woul look at them all. That would be awfully nice. Why would it be so nice Alyosha?\""},
{"text":"\"I don't know. It's a craving to destroy something good or, as you say to set fire to something. It happens sometimes.\""},
{"text":"\"I not only say it, I shall do it.\""},
{"text":"\"I believe you.\""},
{"text":"\"Ah, how I love you for saying you believe me. And you are not lyin one little bit. But perhaps you think that I am saying all this o purpose to annoy you?\""},
{"text":"\"No, I don't think that ... though perhaps there is a little desir to do that in it, too.\""},
{"text":"\"There is a little. I never can tell lies to you,\" she declared, with  strange fire in her eyes."},
{"text":"What struck Alyosha above everything was her earnestness. There was no a trace of humor or jesting in her face now, though, in old days, fu and gayety never deserted her even at her most \"earnest\" moments."},
{"text":"\"There are moments when people love crime,\" said Alyosha thoughtfully."},
{"text":"\"Yes, yes! You have uttered my thought; they love crime, everyone love crime, they love it always, not at some `moments.' You know, it's a though people have made an agreement to lie about it and have lie about it ever since. They all declare that they hate evil, but secretl they all love it.\""},
{"text":"\"And are you still reading nasty books?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, I am. Mamma reads them and hides them under her pillow and  steal them.\""},
{"text":"\"Aren't you ashamed to destroy yourself?\""},
{"text":"\"I want to destroy myself. There's a boy here, who lay down between th railway lines when the train was passing. Lucky fellow! Listen, you brother is being tried now for murdering his father and everyone love his having killed his father.\""},
{"text":"\"Loves his having killed his father?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, loves it; everyone loves it! Everybody says it's so awful, bu secretly they simply love it. I for one love it.\""},
{"text":"\"There is some truth in what you say about everyone,\" said Alyosh softly."},
{"text":"\"Oh, what ideas you have!\" Lise shrieked in delight. \"And you a monk too! You wouldn't believe how I respect you, Alyosha, for never tellin lies. Oh, I must tell you a funny dream of mine. I sometimes dream o devils. It's night; I am in my room with a candle and suddenly ther are devils all over the place, in all the corners, under the table, an they open the doors; there's a crowd of them behind the doors and the want to come and seize me. And they are just coming, just seizing me But I suddenly cross myself and they all draw back, though they don' go away altogether, they stand at the doors and in the corners waiting. And suddenly I have a frightful longing to revile God aloud and so I begin, and then they come crowding back to me, delighted, an seize me again and I cross myself again and they all draw back. It' awful fun, it takes one's breath away.\""},
{"text":"\"I've had the same dream, too,\" said Alyosha suddenly."},
{"text":"\"Really?\" cried Lise, surprised. \"I say, Alyosha, don't laugh, that' awfully important. Could two different people have the same dream?\""},
{"text":"\"It seems they can.\""},
{"text":"\"Alyosha, I tell you, it's awfully important,\" Lise went on, wit really excessive amazement. \"It's not the dream that's important, bu your having the same dream as me. You never lie to me, don't lie now is it true? You are not laughing?\""},
{"text":"\"It's true.\""},
{"text":"Lise seemed extraordinarily impressed and for half a minute she wa silent."},
{"text":"\"Alyosha, come and see me, come and see me more often,\" she sai suddenly, in a supplicating voice."},
{"text":"\"I'll always come to see you, all my life,\" answered Alyosha firmly."},
{"text":"\"You are the only person I can talk to, you know,\" Lise began again. \" talk to no one but myself and you. Only you in the whole world. And t you more readily than to myself. And I am not a bit ashamed with you not a bit. Alyosha, why am I not ashamed with you, not a bit? Alyosha is it true that at Easter the Jews steal a child and kill it?\""},
{"text":"\"I don't know.\""},
{"text":"\"There's a book here in which I read about the trial of a Jew, who too a child of four years old and cut off the fingers from both hands, an then crucified him on the wall, hammered nails into him and crucifie him, and afterwards, when he was tried, he said that the child die soon, within four hours. That was `soon'! He said the child moaned kept on moaning and he stood admiring it. That's nice!\""},
{"text":"\"Nice?\""},
{"text":"\"Nice; I sometimes imagine that it was I who crucified him. He woul hang there moaning and I would sit opposite him eating pineappl compote. I am awfully fond of pineapple compote. Do you like it?\""},
{"text":"Alyosha looked at her in silence. Her pale, sallow face was suddenl contorted, her eyes burned."},
{"text":"\"You know, when I read about that Jew I shook with sobs all night.  kept fancying how the little thing cried and moaned (a child of fou years old understands, you know), and all the while the thought o pineapple compote haunted me. In the morning I wrote a letter to  certain person, begging him particularly to come and see me. He cam and I suddenly told him all about the child and the pineapple compote All about it, all, and said that it was nice. He laughed and said i really was nice. Then he got up and went away. He was only here fiv minutes. Did he despise me? Did he despise me? Tell me, tell me Alyosha, did he despise me or not?\" She sat up on the couch, wit flashing eyes."},
{"text":"\"Tell me,\" Alyosha asked anxiously, \"did you send for that person?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, I did.\""},
{"text":"\"Did you send him a letter?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes.\""},
{"text":"\"Simply to ask about that, about that child?\""},
{"text":"\"No, not about that at all. But when he came, I asked him about that a once. He answered, laughed, got up and went away.\""},
{"text":"\"That person behaved honorably,\" Alyosha murmured."},
{"text":"\"And did he despise me? Did he laugh at me?\""},
{"text":"\"No, for perhaps he believes in the pineapple compote himself. He i very ill now, too, Lise.\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, he does believe in it,\" said Lise, with flashing eyes."},
{"text":"\"He doesn't despise anyone,\" Alyosha went on. \"Only he does not believ anyone. If he doesn't believe in people, of course, he does despis them.\""},
{"text":"\"Then he despises me, me?\""},
{"text":"\"You, too.\""},
{"text":"\"Good,\" Lise seemed to grind her teeth. \"When he went out laughing,  felt that it was nice to be despised. The child with fingers cut off i nice, and to be despised is nice. ...\""},
{"text":"And she laughed in Alyosha's face, a feverish malicious laugh."},
{"text":"\"Do you know, Alyosha, do you know, I should like--Alyosha, save me!\"She suddenly jumped from the couch, rushed to him and seized him wit both hands. \"Save me!\" she almost groaned. \"Is there anyone in th world I could tell what I've told you? I've told you the truth, th truth. I shall kill myself, because I loathe everything! I don't wan to live, because I loathe everything! I loathe everything, everything Alyosha, why don't you love me in the least?\" she finished in a frenzy."},
{"text":"\"But I do love you!\" answered Alyosha warmly."},
{"text":"\"And will you weep over me, will you?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes.\""},
{"text":"\"Not because I won't be your wife, but simply weep for me?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes.\""},
{"text":"\"Thank you! It's only your tears I want. Everyone else may punish m and trample me under foot, everyone, everyone, not excepting anyone For I don't love anyone. Do you hear, not anyone! On the contrary,  hate him! Go, Alyosha; it's time you went to your brother\"; she tor herself away from him suddenly."},
{"text":"\"How can I leave you like this?\" said Alyosha, almost in alarm."},
{"text":"\"Go to your brother, the prison will be shut; go, here's your hat. Giv my love to Mitya, go, go!\""},
{"text":"And she almost forcibly pushed Alyosha out of the door. He looked a her with pained surprise, when he was suddenly aware of a letter in hi right hand, a tiny letter folded up tight and sealed. He glanced at i and instantly read the address, \"To Ivan Fyodorovitch Karamazov.\" H looked quickly at Lise. Her face had become almost menacing."},
{"text":"\"Give it to him, you must give it to him!\" she ordered him, tremblin and beside herself. \"Today, at once, or I'll poison myself! That's wh I sent for you.\""},
{"text":"And she slammed the door quickly. The bolt clicked. Alyosha put th note in his pocket and went straight downstairs, without going back t Madame Hohlakov; forgetting her, in fact. As soon as Alyosha had gone Lise unbolted the door, opened it a little, put her finger in the crac and slammed the door with all her might, pinching her finger. Te seconds after, releasing her finger, she walked softly, slowly to he chair, sat up straight in it and looked intently at her blackene finger and at the blood that oozed from under the nail. Her lips wer quivering and she kept whispering rapidly to herself:"},
{"text":"\"I am a wretch, wretch, wretch, wretch!\""},
{"text":" IV"},
{"text":"A Hymn and a Secret"},
{"text":"It was quite late (days are short in November) when Alyosha rang at th prison gate. It was beginning to get dusk. But Alyosha knew that h would be admitted without difficulty. Things were managed in our littl town, as everywhere else. At first, of course, on the conclusion of th preliminary inquiry, relations and a few other persons could onl obtain interviews with Mitya by going through certain inevitabl formalities. But later, though the formalities were not relaxed exceptions were made for some, at least, of Mitya's visitors. So muc so, that sometimes the interviews with the prisoner in the room se aside for the purpose were practically tte--tte."},
{"text":"These exceptions, however, were few in number; only Grushenka, Alyosh and Rakitin were treated like this. But the captain of the police Mihail Mihailovitch, was very favorably disposed to Grushenka. Hi abuse of her at Mokroe weighed on the old man's conscience, and when h learned the whole story, he completely changed his view of her. An strange to say, though he was firmly persuaded of his guilt, yet afte Mitya was once in prison, the old man came to take a more and mor lenient view of him. \"He was a man of good heart, perhaps,\" he thought \"who had come to grief from drinking and dissipation.\" His first horro had been succeeded by pity. As for Alyosha, the police captain was ver fond of him and had known him for a long time. Rakitin, who had of lat taken to coming very often to see the prisoner, was one of the mos intimate acquaintances of the \"police captain's young ladies,\" as h called them, and was always hanging about their house. He gave lesson in the house of the prison superintendent, too, who, though scrupulou in the performance of his duties, was a kindhearted old man. Alyosha again, had an intimate acquaintance of long standing with th superintendent, who was fond of talking to him, generally on sacre subjects. He respected Ivan Fyodorovitch, and stood in awe of hi opinion, though he was a great philosopher himself; \"self-taught,\" o course. But Alyosha had an irresistible attraction for him. During th last year the old man had taken to studying the Apocryphal Gospels, an constantly talked over his impressions with his young friend. He use to come and see him in the monastery and discussed for hours togethe with him and with the monks. So even if Alyosha were late at th prison, he had only to go to the superintendent and everything was mad easy. Besides, everyone in the prison, down to the humblest warder, ha grown used to Alyosha. The sentry, of course, did not trouble him s long as the authorities were satisfied."},
{"text":"When Mitya was summoned from his cell, he always went downstairs, t the place set aside for interviews. As Alyosha entered the room he cam upon Rakitin, who was just taking leave of Mitya. They were bot talking loudly. Mitya was laughing heartily as he saw him out, whil Rakitin seemed grumbling. Rakitin did not like meeting Alyosha especially of late. He scarcely spoke to him, and bowed to him stiffly Seeing Alyosha enter now, he frowned and looked away, as though he wer entirely absorbed in buttoning his big, warm, fur-trimmed overcoat Then he began looking at once for his umbrella."},
{"text":"\"I must mind not to forget my belongings,\" he muttered, simply to sa something."},
{"text":"\"Mind you don't forget other people's belongings,\" said Mitya, as  joke, and laughed at once at his own wit. Rakitin fired up instantly."},
{"text":"\"You'd better give that advice to your own family, who've always been  slave-driving lot, and not to Rakitin,\" he cried, suddenly tremblin with anger."},
{"text":"\"What's the matter? I was joking,\" cried Mitya. \"Damn it all! They ar all like that,\" he turned to Alyosha, nodding towards Rakitin' hurriedly retreating figure. \"He was sitting here, laughing an cheerful, and all at once he boils up like that. He didn't even nod t you. Have you broken with him completely? Why are you so late? I've no been simply waiting, but thirsting for you the whole morning. But neve mind. We'll make up for it now.\""},
{"text":"\"Why does he come here so often? Surely you are not such grea friends?\" asked Alyosha. He, too, nodded at the door through whic Rakitin had disappeared."},
{"text":"\"Great friends with Rakitin? No, not as much as that. Is it likely-- pig like that? He considers I am ... a blackguard. They can' understand a joke either, that's the worst of such people. They neve understand a joke, and their souls are dry, dry and flat; they remin me of prison walls when I was first brought here. But he is a cleve fellow, very clever. Well, Alexey, it's all over with me now.\""},
{"text":"He sat down on the bench and made Alyosha sit down beside him."},
{"text":"\"Yes, the trial's tomorrow. Are you so hopeless, brother?\" Alyosh said, with an apprehensive feeling."},
{"text":"\"What are you talking about?\" said Mitya, looking at him rathe uncertainly. \"Oh, you mean the trial! Damn it all! Till now we've bee talking of things that don't matter, about this trial, but I haven' said a word to you about the chief thing. Yes, the trial is tomorrow but it wasn't the trial I meant, when I said it was all over with me Why do you look at me so critically?\""},
{"text":"\"What do you mean, Mitya?\""},
{"text":"\"Ideas, ideas, that's all! Ethics! What is ethics?\""},
{"text":"\"Ethics?\" asked Alyosha, wondering."},
{"text":"\"Yes; is it a science?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, there is such a science ... but ... I confess I can't explai to you what sort of science it is.\""},
{"text":"\"Rakitin knows. Rakitin knows a lot, damn him! He's not going to be  monk. He means to go to Petersburg. There he'll go in for criticism o an elevating tendency. Who knows, he may be of use and make his ow career, too. Ough! they are first-rate, these people, at making  career! Damn ethics, I am done for, Alexey, I am, you man of God!  love you more than anyone. It makes my heart yearn to look at you. Wh was Karl Bernard?\""},
{"text":"\"Karl Bernard?\" Alyosha was surprised again."},
{"text":"\"No, not Karl. Stay, I made a mistake. Claude Bernard. What was he Chemist or what?\""},
{"text":"\"He must be a savant,\" answered Alyosha; \"but I confess I can't tel you much about him, either. I've heard of him as a savant, but wha sort I don't know.\""},
{"text":"\"Well, damn him, then! I don't know either,\" swore Mitya. \"A scoundre of some sort, most likely. They are all scoundrels. And Rakitin wil make his way. Rakitin will get on anywhere; he is another Bernard. Ugh these Bernards! They are all over the place.\""},
{"text":"\"But what is the matter?\" Alyosha asked insistently."},
{"text":"\"He wants to write an article about me, about my case, and so begin hi literary career. That's what he comes for; he said so himself. He want to prove some theory. He wants to say `he couldn't help murdering hi father, he was corrupted by his environment,' and so on. He explaine it all to me. He is going to put in a tinge of Socialism, he says. Bu there, damn the fellow, he can put in a tinge if he likes, I don' care. He can't bear Ivan, he hates him. He's not fond of you, either But I don't turn him out, for he is a clever fellow. Awfully conceited though. I said to him just now, `The Karamazovs are not blackguards but philosophers; for all true Russians are philosophers, and thoug you've studied, you are not a philosopher--you are a low fellow.' H laughed, so maliciously. And I said to him, `De ideabus non es disputandum.' Isn't that rather good? I can set up for being a classic you see!\" Mitya laughed suddenly."},
{"text":"\"Why is it all over with you? You said so just now,\" Alyosh interposed."},
{"text":"\"Why is it all over with me? H'm! ... The fact of it is ... if yo take it as a whole, I am sorry to lose God--that's why it is.\""},
{"text":"\"What do you mean by `sorry to lose God'?\""},
{"text":"\"Imagine: inside, in the nerves, in the head--that is, these nerve are there in the brain ... (damn them!) there are sort of littl tails, the little tails of those nerves, and as soon as they begi quivering ... that is, you see, I look at something with my eyes an then they begin quivering, those little tails ... and when the quiver, then an image appears ... it doesn't appear at once, but a instant, a second, passes ... and then something like a momen appears; that is, not a moment--devil take the moment!--but an image that is, an object, or an action, damn it! That's why I see and the think, because of those tails, not at all because I've got a soul, an that I am some sort of image and likeness. All that is nonsense Rakitin explained it all to me yesterday, brother, and it simply bowle me over. It's magnificent, Alyosha, this science! A new man' arising--that I understand. ... And yet I am sorry to lose God!\""},
{"text":"\"Well, that's a good thing, anyway,\" said Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"That I am sorry to lose God? It's chemistry, brother, chemistry There's no help for it, your reverence, you must make way fo chemistry. And Rakitin does dislike God. Ough! doesn't he dislike Him That's the sore point with all of them. But they conceal it. They tel lies. They pretend. `Will you preach this in your reviews?' I aske him. `Oh, well, if I did it openly, they won't let it through,' h said. He laughed. `But what will become of men then?' I asked him `without God and immortal life? All things are lawful then, they can d what they like?' `Didn't you know?' he said laughing, `a clever man ca do what he likes,' he said. `A clever man knows his way about, bu you've put your foot in it, committing a murder, and now you ar rotting in prison.' He says that to my face! A regular pig! I used t kick such people out, but now I listen to them. He talks a lot o sense, too. Writes well. He began reading me an article last week.  copied out three lines of it. Wait a minute. Here it is.\""},
{"text":"Mitya hurriedly pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket and read:"},
{"text":"\" `In order to determine this question, it is above all essential t put one's personality in contradiction to one's reality.' Do yo understand that?\""},
{"text":"\"No, I don't,\" said Alyosha. He looked at Mitya and listened to hi with curiosity."},
{"text":"\"I don't understand either. It's dark and obscure, but intellectual `Everyone writes like that now,' he says, `it's the effect of thei environment.' They are afraid of the environment. He writes poetry too, the rascal. He's written in honor of Madame Hohlakov's foot. Ha h ha!\""},
{"text":"\"I've heard about it,\" said Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"Have you? And have you heard the poem?\""},
{"text":"\"No.\""},
{"text":"\"I've got it. Here it is. I'll read it to you. You don't know-- haven't told you--there's quite a story about it. He's a rascal! Thre weeks ago he began to tease me. `You've got yourself into a mess, lik a fool, for the sake of three thousand, but I'm going to collar  hundred and fifty thousand. I am going to marry a widow and buy a hous in Petersburg.' And he told me he was courting Madame Hohlakov. Sh hadn't much brains in her youth, and now at forty she has lost what sh had. `But she's awfully sentimental,' he says; `that's how I shall ge hold of her. When I marry her, I shall take her to Petersburg and ther I shall start a newspaper.' And his mouth was simply watering, th beast, not for the widow, but for the hundred and fifty thousand. An he made me believe it. He came to see me every day. `She is comin round,' he declared. He was beaming with delight. And then, all of  sudden, he was turned out of the house. Perhotin's carrying everythin before him, bravo! I could kiss the silly old noodle for turning hi out of the house. And he had written this doggerel. `It's the firs time I've soiled my hands with writing poetry,' he said. `It's to wi her heart, so it's in a good cause. When I get hold of the sill woman's fortune, I can be of great social utility.' They have thi social justification for every nasty thing they do! `Anyway it's bette than your Pushkin's poetry,' he said, `for I've managed to advocat enlightenment even in that.' I understand what he means about Pushkin I quite see that, if he really was a man of talent and only wrote abou women's feet. But wasn't Rakitin stuck up about his doggerel! Th vanity of these fellows! `On the convalescence of the swollen foot o the object of my affections'--he thought of that for a title. He's  waggish fellow."},
{"text":"  A captivating little foot   Though swollen and red and tender   The doctors come and plasters put   But still they cannot mend her."},
{"text":"  Yet, 'tis not for her foot I dread-   A theme for Pushkin's muse more fit-   It's not her foot, it is her head   I tremble for her loss of wit!"},
{"text":"  For as her foot swells, strange to say   Her intellect is on the wane-   Oh, for some remedy I pra   That may restore both foot and brain!"},
{"text":"He is a pig, a regular pig, but he's very arch, the rascal! And h really has put in a progressive idea. And wasn't he angry when sh kicked him out! He was gnashing his teeth!\""},
{"text":"\"He's taken his revenge already,\" said Alyosha. \"He's written  paragraph about Madame Hohlakov.\""},
{"text":"And Alyosha told him briefly about the paragraph in Gossip."},
{"text":"\"That's his doing, that's his doing!\" Mitya assented, frowning. \"That' him! These paragraphs ... I know ... the insulting things that hav been written about Grushenka, for instance. ... And about Katya too. ... H'm!\""},
{"text":"He walked across the room with a harassed air."},
{"text":"\"Brother, I cannot stay long,\" Alyosha said, after a pause. \"Tomorro will be a great and awful day for you, the judgment of God will b accomplished ... I am amazed at you, you walk about here, talking o I don't know what ...\""},
{"text":"\"No, don't be amazed at me,\" Mitya broke in warmly. \"Am I to talk o that stinking dog? Of the murderer? We've talked enough of him. I don' want to say more of the stinking son of Stinking Lizaveta! God wil kill him, you will see. Hush!\""},
{"text":"He went up to Alyosha excitedly and kissed him. His eyes glowed."},
{"text":"\"Rakitin wouldn't understand it,\" he began in a sort of exaltation \"but you, you'll understand it all. That's why I was thirsting for you You see, there's so much I've been wanting to tell you for ever s long, here, within these peeling walls, but I haven't said a word abou what matters most; the moment never seems to have come. Now I can wai no longer. I must pour out my heart to you. Brother, these last tw months I've found in myself a new man. A new man has risen up in me. H was hidden in me, but would never have come to the surface, if i hadn't been for this blow from heaven. I am afraid! And what do I car if I spend twenty years in the mines, breaking ore with a hammer? I a not a bit afraid of that--it's something else I am afraid of now: tha that new man may leave me. Even there, in the mines, underground, I ma find a human heart in another convict and murderer by my side, and  may make friends with him, for even there one may live and love an suffer. One may thaw and revive a frozen heart in that convict, one ma wait upon him for years, and at last bring up from the dark depths  lofty soul, a feeling, suffering creature; one may bring forth a angel, create a hero! There are so many of them, hundreds of them, an we are all to blame for them. Why was it I dreamed of that `babe' a such a moment? `Why is the babe so poor?' That was a sign to me at tha moment. It's for the babe I'm going. Because we are all responsible fo all. For all the `babes,' for there are big children as well as littl children. All are `babes.' I go for all, because someone must go fo all. I didn't kill father, but I've got to go. I accept it. It's al come to me here, here, within these peeling walls. There are numbers o them there, hundreds of them underground, with hammers in their hands Oh, yes, we shall be in chains and there will be no freedom, but then in our great sorrow, we shall rise again to joy, without which ma cannot live nor God exist, for God gives joy: it's His privilege-- grand one. Ah, man should be dissolved in prayer! What should I b underground there without God? Rakitin's laughing! If they drive Go from the earth, we shall shelter Him underground. One cannot exist i prison without God; it's even more impossible than out of prison. An then we men underground will sing from the bowels of the earth  glorious hymn to God, with Whom is joy. Hail to God and His joy! I lov Him!\""},
{"text":"Mitya was almost gasping for breath as he uttered his wild speech. H turned pale, his lips quivered, and tears rolled down his cheeks."},
{"text":"\"Yes, life is full, there is life even underground,\" he began again \"You wouldn't believe, Alexey, how I want to live now, what a thirs for existence and consciousness has sprung up in me within thes peeling walls. Rakitin doesn't understand that; all he cares about i building a house and letting flats. But I've been longing for you. An what is suffering? I am not afraid of it, even if it were beyon reckoning. I am not afraid of it now. I was afraid of it before. Do yo know, perhaps I won't answer at the trial at all. ... And I seem t have such strength in me now, that I think I could stand anything, an suffering, only to be able to say and to repeat to myself every moment `I exist.' In thousands of agonies--I exist. I'm tormented on th rack--but I exist! Though I sit alone on a pillar--I exist! I see th sun, and if I don't see the sun, I know it's there. And there's a whol life in that, in knowing that the sun is there. Alyosha, my angel, al these philosophies are the death of me. Damn them! Brother Ivan--\""},
{"text":"\"What of brother Ivan?\" interrupted Alyosha, but Mitya did not hear."},
{"text":"\"You see, I never had any of these doubts before, but it was all hidde away in me. It was perhaps just because ideas I did not understand wer surging up in me, that I used to drink and fight and rage. It was t stifle them in myself, to still them, to smother them. Ivan is no Rakitin, there is an idea in him. Ivan is a sphinx and is silent; he i always silent. It's God that's worrying me. That's the only thin that's worrying me. What if He doesn't exist? What if Rakitin' right--that it's an idea made up by men? Then if He doesn't exist, ma is the chief of the earth, of the universe. Magnificent! Only how is h going to be good without God? That's the question. I always come bac to that. For whom is man going to love then? To whom will he b thankful? To whom will he sing the hymn? Rakitin laughs. Rakitin say that one can love humanity without God. Well, only a sniveling idio can maintain that. I can't understand it. Life's easy for Rakitin `You'd better think about the extension of civic rights, or even o keeping down the price of meat. You will show your love for humanit more simply and directly by that, than by philosophy.' I answered him `Well, but you, without a God, are more likely to raise the price o meat, if it suits you, and make a rouble on every copeck.' He lost hi temper. But after all, what is goodness? Answer me that, Alexey Goodness is one thing with me and another with a Chinaman, so it's  relative thing. Or isn't it? Is it not relative? A treacherou question! You won't laugh if I tell you it's kept me awake two nights I only wonder now how people can live and think nothing about it Vanity! Ivan has no God. He has an idea. It's beyond me. But he i silent. I believe he is a freemason. I asked him, but he is silent.  wanted to drink from the springs of his soul--he was silent. But onc he did drop a word.\""},
{"text":"\"What did he say?\" Alyosha took it up quickly."},
{"text":"\"I said to him, `Then everything is lawful, if it is so?' He frowned `Fyodor Pavlovitch, our papa,' he said, `was a pig, but his ideas wer right enough.' That was what he dropped. That was all he said. That wa going one better than Rakitin.\""},
{"text":"\"Yes,\" Alyosha assented bitterly. \"When was he with you?\""},
{"text":"\"Of that later; now I must speak of something else. I have said nothin about Ivan to you before. I put it off to the last. When my busines here is over and the verdict has been given, then I'll tell yo something. I'll tell you everything. We've something tremendous o hand. ... And you shall be my judge in it. But don't begin about tha now; be silent. You talk of tomorrow, of the trial; but, would yo believe it, I know nothing about it.\""},
{"text":"\"Have you talked to the counsel?\""},
{"text":"\"What's the use of the counsel? I told him all about it. He's a soft city-bred rogue--a Bernard! But he doesn't believe me--not a bit o it. Only imagine, he believes I did it. I see it. `In that case,'  asked him, `why have you come to defend me?' Hang them all! They've go a doctor down, too, want to prove I'm mad. I won't have that! Katerin Ivanovna wants to do her `duty' to the end, whatever the strain!\" Mity smiled bitterly. \"The cat! Hard-hearted creature! She knows that I sai of her at Mokroe that she was a woman of `great wrath.' They repeate it. Yes, the facts against me have grown numerous as the sands of th sea. Grigory sticks to his point. Grigory's honest, but a fool. Man people are honest because they are fools: that's Rakitin's idea Grigory's my enemy. And there are some people who are better as foe than friends. I mean Katerina Ivanovna. I am afraid, oh, I am afrai she will tell how she bowed to the ground after that four thousand She'll pay it back to the last farthing. I don't want her sacrifice they'll put me to shame at the trial. I wonder how I can stand it. G to her, Alyosha, ask her not to speak of that in the court, can't you But damn it all, it doesn't matter! I shall get through somehow.  don't pity her. It's her own doing. She deserves what she gets. I shal have my own story to tell, Alexey.\" He smiled bitterly again. \"Only ... only Grusha, Grusha! Good Lord! Why should she have such sufferin to bear?\" he exclaimed suddenly, with tears. \"Grusha's killing me; th thought of her's killing me, killing me. She was with me just now. ...\""},
{"text":"\"She told me she was very much grieved by you today.\""},
{"text":"\"I know. Confound my temper! It was jealousy. I was sorry, I kissed he as she was going. I didn't ask her forgiveness.\""},
{"text":"\"Why didn't you?\" exclaimed Alyosha."},
{"text":"Suddenly Mitya laughed almost mirthfully."},
{"text":"\"God preserve you, my dear boy, from ever asking forgiveness for  fault from a woman you love. From one you love especially, howeve greatly you may have been in fault. For a woman--devil only knows wha to make of a woman! I know something about them, anyway. But tr acknowledging you are in fault to a woman. Say, `I am sorry, forgiv me,' and a shower of reproaches will follow! Nothing will make he forgive you simply and directly, she'll humble you to the dust, brin forward things that have never happened, recall everything, forge nothing, add something of her own, and only then forgive you. And eve the best, the best of them do it. She'll scrape up all the scraping and load them on your head. They are ready to flay you alive, I tel you, every one of them, all these angels without whom we cannot live!  tell you plainly and openly, dear boy, every decent man ought to b under some woman's thumb. That's my conviction--not conviction, bu feeling. A man ought to be magnanimous, and it's no disgrace to a man No disgrace to a hero, not even a Caesar! But don't ever beg her pardo all the same for anything. Remember that rule given you by your brothe Mitya, who's come to ruin through women. No, I'd better make it up t Grusha somehow, without begging pardon. I worship her, Alexey, worshi her. Only she doesn't see it. No, she still thinks I don't love he enough. And she tortures me, tortures me with her love. The past wa nothing! In the past it was only those infernal curves of hers tha tortured me, but now I've taken all her soul into my soul and throug her I've become a man myself. Will they marry us? If they don't,  shall die of jealousy. I imagine something every day. ... What di she say to you about me?\""},
{"text":"Alyosha repeated all Grushenka had said to him that day. Mity listened, made him repeat things, and seemed pleased."},
{"text":"\"Then she is not angry at my being jealous?\" he exclaimed. \"She is  regular woman! `I've a fierce heart myself!' Ah, I love such fierc hearts, though I can't bear anyone's being jealous of me. I can' endure it. We shall fight. But I shall love her, I shall love he infinitely. Will they marry us? Do they let convicts marry? That's th question. And without her I can't exist. ...\""},
{"text":"Mitya walked frowning across the room. It was almost dark. He suddenl seemed terribly worried."},
{"text":"\"So there's a secret, she says, a secret? We have got up a plot agains her, and Katya is mixed up in it, she thinks. No, my good Grushenka that's not it. You are very wide of the mark, in your foolish feminin way. Alyosha, darling, well, here goes! I'll tell you our secret!\""},
{"text":"He looked round, went close up quickly to Alyosha, who was standin before him, and whispered to him with an air of mystery, though i reality no one could hear them: the old warder was dozing in th corner, and not a word could reach the ears of the soldiers on guard."},
{"text":"\"I will tell you all our secret,\" Mitya whispered hurriedly. \"I mean to tell you later, for how could I decide on anything without you? Yo are everything to me. Though I say that Ivan is superior to us, you ar my angel. It's your decision will decide it. Perhaps it's you that i superior and not Ivan. You see, it's a question of conscience, questio of the higher conscience--the secret is so important that I can' settle it myself, and I've put it off till I could speak to you. Bu anyway it's too early to decide now, for we must wait for the verdict As soon as the verdict is given, you shall decide my fate. Don't decid it now. I'll tell you now. You listen, but don't decide. Stand and kee quiet. I won't tell you everything. I'll only tell you the idea without details, and you keep quiet. Not a question, not a movement You agree? But, goodness, what shall I do with your eyes? I'm afrai your eyes will tell me your decision, even if you don't speak. Oo! I' afraid! Alyosha, listen! Ivan suggests my escaping. I won't tell yo the details: it's all been thought out: it can all be arranged. Hush don't decide. I should go to America with Grusha. You know I can't liv without Grusha! What if they won't let her follow me to Siberia? D they let convicts get married? Ivan thinks not. And without Grusha wha should I do there underground with a hammer? I should only smash m skull with the hammer! But, on the other hand, my conscience? I shoul have run away from suffering. A sign has come, I reject the sign.  have a way of salvation and I turn my back on it. Ivan says that i America, `with the goodwill,' I can be of more use than underground But what becomes of our hymn from underground? What's America? Americ is vanity again! And there's a lot of swindling in America, too,  expect. I should have run away from crucifixion! I tell you, you know Alexey, because you are the only person who can understand this There's no one else. It's folly, madness to others, all I've told yo of the hymn. They'll say I'm out of my mind or a fool. I am not out o my mind and I am not a fool. Ivan understands about the hymn, too. H understands, only he doesn't answer--he doesn't speak. He doesn' believe in the hymn. Don't speak, don't speak. I see how you look! Yo have already decided. Don't decide, spare me! I can't live withou Grusha. Wait till after the trial!\""},
{"text":"Mitya ended beside himself. He held Alyosha with both hands on hi shoulders, and his yearning, feverish eyes were fixed on his brother's."},
{"text":"\"They don't let convicts marry, do they?\" he repeated for the thir time in a supplicating voice."},
{"text":"Alyosha listened with extreme surprise and was deeply moved."},
{"text":"\"Tell me one thing,\" he said. \"Is Ivan very keen on it, and whose ide was it?\""},
{"text":"\"His, his, and he is very keen on it. He didn't come to see me a first, then he suddenly came a week ago and he began about it straigh away. He is awfully keen on it. He doesn't ask me, but orders me t escape. He doesn't doubt of my obeying him, though I showed him all m heart as I have to you, and told him about the hymn, too. He told m he'd arrange it; he's found out about everything. But of that later He's simply set on it. It's all a matter of money: he'll pay te thousand for escape and give me twenty thousand for America. And h says we can arrange a magnificent escape for ten thousand.\""},
{"text":"\"And he told you on no account to tell me?\" Alyosha asked again."},
{"text":"\"To tell no one, and especially not you; on no account to tell you. H is afraid, no doubt, that you'll stand before me as my conscience Don't tell him I told you. Don't tell him, for anything.\""},
{"text":"\"You are right,\" Alyosha pronounced; \"it's impossible to decid anything before the trial is over. After the trial you'll decide o yourself. Then you'll find that new man in yourself and he wil decide.\""},
{"text":"\"A new man, or a Bernard who'll decide  la Bernard, for I believe I' a contemptible Bernard myself,\" said Mitya, with a bitter grin."},
{"text":"\"But, brother, have you no hope then of being acquitted?\""},
{"text":"Mitya shrugged his shoulders nervously and shook his head. \"Alyosha darling, it's time you were going,\" he said, with a sudden haste \"There's the superintendent shouting in the yard. He'll be her directly. We are late; it's irregular. Embrace me quickly. Kiss me Sign me with the cross, darling, for the cross I have to bea tomorrow.\""},
{"text":"They embraced and kissed."},
{"text":"\"Ivan,\" said Mitya suddenly, \"suggests my escaping; but, of course, h believes I did it.\""},
{"text":"A mournful smile came on to his lips."},
{"text":"\"Have you asked him whether he believes it?\" asked Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"No, I haven't. I wanted to, but I couldn't. I hadn't the courage. Bu I saw it from his eyes. Well, goodbye!\""},
{"text":"Once more they kissed hurriedly, and Alyosha was just going out, whe Mitya suddenly called him back."},
{"text":"\"Stand facing me! That's right!\" And again he seized Alyosha, puttin both hands on his shoulders. His face became suddenly quite pale, s that it was dreadfully apparent, even through the gathering darkness His lips twitched, his eyes fastened upon Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"Alyosha, tell me the whole truth, as you would before God. Do yo believe I did it? Do you, do you in yourself, believe it? The whol truth, don't lie!\" he cried desperately."},
{"text":"Everything seemed heaving before Alyosha, and he felt something like  stab at his heart."},
{"text":"\"Hush! What do you mean?\" he faltered helplessly."},
{"text":"\"The whole truth, the whole, don't lie!\" repeated Mitya."},
{"text":"\"I've never for one instant believed that you were the murderer!\" brok in a shaking voice from Alyosha's breast, and he raised his right han in the air, as though calling God to witness his words."},
{"text":"Mitya's whole face was lighted up with bliss."},
{"text":"\"Thank you!\" he articulated slowly, as though letting a sigh escape hi after fainting. \"Now you have given me new life. Would you believe it till this moment I've been afraid to ask you, you, even you. Well, go You've given me strength for tomorrow. God bless you! Come, go along Love Ivan!\" was Mitya's last word."},
{"text":"Alyosha went out in tears. Such distrustfulness in Mitya, such lack o confidence even to him, to Alyosha--all this suddenly opened befor Alyosha an unsuspected depth of hopeless grief and despair in the sou of his unhappy brother. Intense, infinite compassion overwhelmed hi instantly. There was a poignant ache in his torn heart. \"Lov Ivan!\"--he suddenly recalled Mitya's words. And he was going to Ivan He badly wanted to see Ivan all day. He was as much worried about Iva as about Mitya, and more than ever now."},
{"text":" V"},
{"text":"Not You, Not You!"},
{"text":"On the way to Ivan he had to pass the house where Katerina Ivanovna wa living. There was light in the windows. He suddenly stopped an resolved to go in. He had not seen Katerina Ivanovna for more than  week. But now it struck him that Ivan might be with her, especially o the eve of the terrible day. Ringing, and mounting the staircase, whic was dimly lighted by a Chinese lantern, he saw a man coming down, an as they met, he recognized him as his brother. So he was just comin from Katerina Ivanovna."},
{"text":"\"Ah, it's only you,\" said Ivan dryly. \"Well, goodbye! You are going t her?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes.\""},
{"text":"\"I don't advise you to; she's upset and you'll upset her more.\""},
{"text":"A door was instantly flung open above, and a voice cried suddenly:"},
{"text":"\"No, no! Alexey Fyodorovitch, have you come from him?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, I have been with him.\""},
{"text":"\"Has he sent me any message? Come up, Alyosha, and you, Iva Fyodorovitch, you must come back, you must. Do you hear?\""},
{"text":"There was such a peremptory note in Katya's voice that Ivan, after  moment's hesitation, made up his mind to go back with Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"She was listening,\" he murmured angrily to himself, but Alyosha hear it."},
{"text":"\"Excuse my keeping my greatcoat on,\" said Ivan, going into th drawing-room. \"I won't sit down. I won't stay more than a minute.\""},
{"text":"\"Sit down, Alexey Fyodorovitch,\" said Katerina Ivanovna, though sh remained standing. She had changed very little during this time, bu there was an ominous gleam in her dark eyes. Alyosha remembere afterwards that she had struck him as particularly handsome at tha moment."},
{"text":"\"What did he ask you to tell me?\""},
{"text":"\"Only one thing,\" said Alyosha, looking her straight in the face, \"tha you would spare yourself and say nothing at the trial of what\" (he wa a little confused) \"... passed between you ... at the time of you first acquaintance ... in that town.\""},
{"text":"\"Ah! that I bowed down to the ground for that money!\" She broke into  bitter laugh. \"Why, is he afraid for me or for himself? He asks me t spare--whom? Him or myself? Tell me, Alexey Fyodorovitch!\""},
{"text":"Alyosha watched her intently, trying to understand her."},
{"text":"\"Both yourself and him,\" he answered softly."},
{"text":"\"I am glad to hear it,\" she snapped out maliciously, and she suddenl blushed."},
{"text":"\"You don't know me yet, Alexey Fyodorovitch,\" she said menacingly. \"An I don't know myself yet. Perhaps you'll want to trample me under foo after my examination tomorrow.\""},
{"text":"\"You will give your evidence honorably,\" said Alyosha; \"that's al that's wanted.\""},
{"text":"\"Women are often dishonorable,\" she snarled. \"Only an hour ago I wa thinking I felt afraid to touch that monster ... as though he were  reptile ... but no, he is still a human being to me! But did he d it? Is he the murderer?\" she cried, all of a sudden, hysterically turning quickly to Ivan. Alyosha saw at once that she had asked Iva that question before, perhaps only a moment before he came in, and no for the first time, but for the hundredth, and that they had ended b quarreling."},
{"text":"\"I've been to see Smerdyakov. ... It was you, you who persuaded m that he murdered his father. It's only you I believed!\" she continued still addressing Ivan. He gave her a sort of strained smile. Alyosh started at her tone. He had not suspected such familiar intimac between them."},
{"text":"\"Well, that's enough, anyway,\" Ivan cut short the conversation. \"I a going. I'll come tomorrow.\" And turning at once, he walked out of th room and went straight downstairs."},
{"text":"With an imperious gesture, Katerina Ivanovna seized Alyosha by bot hands."},
{"text":"\"Follow him! Overtake him! Don't leave him alone for a minute!\" sh said, in a hurried whisper. \"He's mad! Don't you know that he's mad? H is in a fever, nervous fever. The doctor told me so. Go, run afte him. ...\""},
{"text":"Alyosha jumped up and ran after Ivan, who was not fifty paces ahead o him."},
{"text":"\"What do you want?\" He turned quickly on Alyosha, seeing that he wa running after him. \"She told you to catch me up, because I'm mad.  know it all by heart,\" he added irritably."},
{"text":"\"She is mistaken, of course; but she is right that you are ill,\" sai Alyosha. \"I was looking at your face just now. You look very ill Ivan.\""},
{"text":"Ivan walked on without stopping. Alyosha followed him."},
{"text":"\"And do you know, Alexey Fyodorovitch, how people do go out of thei mind?\" Ivan asked in a voice suddenly quiet, without a trace o irritation, with a note of the simplest curiosity."},
{"text":"\"No, I don't. I suppose there are all kinds of insanity.\""},
{"text":"\"And can one observe that one's going mad oneself?\""},
{"text":"\"I imagine one can't see oneself clearly in such circumstances,\"Alyosha answered with surprise."},
{"text":"Ivan paused for half a minute."},
{"text":"\"If you want to talk to me, please change the subject,\" he sai suddenly."},
{"text":"\"Oh, while I think of it, I have a letter for you,\" said Alyosh timidly, and he took Lise's note from his pocket and held it out t Ivan. They were just under a lamppost. Ivan recognized the handwritin at once."},
{"text":"\"Ah, from that little demon!\" he laughed maliciously, and, withou opening the envelope, he tore it into bits and threw it in the air. Th bits were scattered by the wind."},
{"text":"\"She's not sixteen yet, I believe, and already offering herself,\" h said contemptuously, striding along the street again."},
{"text":"\"How do you mean, offering herself?\" exclaimed Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"As wanton women offer themselves, to be sure.\""},
{"text":"\"How can you, Ivan, how can you?\" Alyosha cried warmly, in a grieve voice. \"She is a child; you are insulting a child! She is ill; she i very ill, too. She is on the verge of insanity, too, perhaps. ...  had hoped to hear something from you ... that would save her.\""},
{"text":"\"You'll hear nothing from me. If she is a child I am not her nurse. B quiet, Alexey. Don't go on about her. I am not even thinking about it.\""},
{"text":"They were silent again for a moment."},
{"text":"\"She will be praying all night now to the Mother of God to show her ho to act tomorrow at the trial,\" he said sharply and angrily again."},
{"text":"\"You ... you mean Katerina Ivanovna?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes. Whether she's to save Mitya or ruin him. She'll pray for ligh from above. She can't make up her mind for herself, you see. She ha not had time to decide yet. She takes me for her nurse, too. She want me to sing lullabies to her.\""},
{"text":"\"Katerina Ivanovna loves you, brother,\" said Alyosha sadly."},
{"text":"\"Perhaps; but I am not very keen on her.\""},
{"text":"\"She is suffering. Why do you ... sometimes say things to her tha give her hope?\" Alyosha went on, with timid reproach. \"I know tha you've given her hope. Forgive me for speaking to you like this,\" h added."},
{"text":"\"I can't behave to her as I ought--break off altogether and tell he so straight out,\" said Ivan, irritably. \"I must wait till sentence i passed on the murderer. If I break off with her now, she will aveng herself on me by ruining that scoundrel tomorrow at the trial, for sh hates him and knows she hates him. It's all a lie--lie upon lie! A long as I don't break off with her, she goes on hoping, and she won' ruin that monster, knowing how I want to get him out of trouble. I only that damned verdict would come!\""},
{"text":"The words \"murderer\" and \"monster\" echoed painfully in Alyosha's heart."},
{"text":"\"But how can she ruin Mitya?\" he asked, pondering on Ivan's words \"What evidence can she give that would ruin Mitya?\""},
{"text":"\"You don't know that yet. She's got a document in her hands, in Mitya' own writing, that proves conclusively that he did murder Fyodo Pavlovitch.\""},
{"text":"\"That's impossible!\" cried Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"Why is it impossible? I've read it myself.\""},
{"text":"\"There can't be such a document!\" Alyosha repeated warmly. \"There can' be, because he's not the murderer. It's not he murdered father, no he!\""},
{"text":"Ivan suddenly stopped."},
{"text":"\"Who is the murderer then, according to you?\" he asked, with apparen coldness. There was even a supercilious note in his voice."},
{"text":"\"You know who,\" Alyosha pronounced in a low, penetrating voice."},
{"text":"\"Who? You mean the myth about that crazy idiot, the epileptic Smerdyakov?\""},
{"text":"Alyosha suddenly felt himself trembling all over."},
{"text":"\"You know who,\" broke helplessly from him. He could scarcely breathe."},
{"text":"\"Who? Who?\" Ivan cried almost fiercely. All his restraint suddenl vanished."},
{"text":"\"I only know one thing,\" Alyosha went on, still almost in a whisper \"it wasn't you killed father.\""},
{"text":"\" `Not you'! What do you mean by `not you'?\" Ivan was thunderstruck."},
{"text":"\"It was not you killed father, not you!\" Alyosha repeated firmly."},
{"text":"The silence lasted for half a minute."},
{"text":"\"I know I didn't. Are you raving?\" said Ivan, with a pale, distorte smile. His eyes were riveted on Alyosha. They were standing again unde a lamppost."},
{"text":"\"No, Ivan. You've told yourself several times that you are th murderer.\""},
{"text":"\"When did I say so? I was in Moscow. ... When have I said so?\" Iva faltered helplessly."},
{"text":"\"You've said so to yourself many times, when you've been alone durin these two dreadful months,\" Alyosha went on softly and distinctly a before. Yet he was speaking now, as it were, not of himself, not of hi own will, but obeying some irresistible command. \"You have accuse yourself and have confessed to yourself that you are the murderer an no one else. But you didn't do it: you are mistaken: you are not th murderer. Do you hear? It was not you! God has sent me to tell you so.\""},
{"text":"They were both silent. The silence lasted a whole long minute. The were both standing still, gazing into each other's eyes. They were bot pale. Suddenly Ivan began trembling all over, and clutched Alyosha' shoulder."},
{"text":"\"You've been in my room!\" he whispered hoarsely. \"You've been there a night, when he came. ... Confess ... have you seen him, have yo seen him?\""},
{"text":"\"Whom do you mean--Mitya?\" Alyosha asked, bewildered."},
{"text":"\"Not him, damn the monster!\" Ivan shouted, in a frenzy. \"Do you kno that he visits me? How did you find out? Speak!\""},
{"text":"\"Who is he! I don't know whom you are talking about,\" Alyosha faltered beginning to be alarmed."},
{"text":"\"Yes, you do know ... or how could you--? It's impossible that yo don't know.\""},
{"text":"Suddenly he seemed to check himself. He stood still and seemed t reflect. A strange grin contorted his lips."},
{"text":"\"Brother,\" Alyosha began again, in a shaking voice, \"I have said thi to you, because you'll believe my word, I know that. I tell you onc and for all, it's not you. You hear, once for all! God has put it int my heart to say this to you, even though it may make you hate me fro this hour.\""},
{"text":"But by now Ivan had apparently regained his self-control."},
{"text":"\"Alexey Fyodorovitch,\" he said, with a cold smile, \"I can't endur prophets and epileptics--messengers from God especially--and you kno that only too well. I break off all relations with you from this momen and probably forever. I beg you to leave me at this turning. It's th way to your lodgings, too. You'd better be particularly careful not t come to me today! Do you hear?\""},
{"text":"He turned and walked on with a firm step, not looking back."},
{"text":"\"Brother,\" Alyosha called after him, \"if anything happens to you today turn to me before anyone!\""},
{"text":"But Ivan made no reply. Alyosha stood under the lamppost at the cros roads, till Ivan had vanished into the darkness. Then he turned an walked slowly homewards. Both Alyosha and Ivan were living in lodgings neither of them was willing to live in Fyodor Pavlovitch's empty house Alyosha had a furnished room in the house of some working people. Iva lived some distance from him. He had taken a roomy and fairl comfortable lodge attached to a fine house that belonged to  well-to-do lady, the widow of an official. But his only attendant was  deaf and rheumatic old crone who went to bed at six o'clock ever evening and got up at six in the morning. Ivan had become remarkabl indifferent to his comforts of late, and very fond of being alone. H did everything for himself in the one room he lived in, and rarel entered any of the other rooms in his abode."},
{"text":"He reached the gate of the house and had his hand on the bell, when h suddenly stopped. He felt that he was trembling all over with anger Suddenly he let go of the bell, turned back with a curse, and walke with rapid steps in the opposite direction. He walked a mile and a hal to a tiny, slanting, wooden house, almost a hut, where Mary Kondratyevna, the neighbor who used to come to Fyodor Pavlovitch' kitchen for soup and to whom Smerdyakov had once sung his songs an played on the guitar, was now lodging. She had sold their little house and was now living here with her mother. Smerdyakov, who wa ill--almost dying--had been with them ever since Fyodor Pavlovitch' death. It was to him Ivan was going now, drawn by a sudden an irresistible prompting."},
{"text":" VI"},
{"text":"The First Interview with Smerdyakov"},
{"text":"This was the third time that Ivan had been to see Smerdyakov since hi return from Moscow. The first time he had seen him and talked to hi was on the first day of his arrival, then he had visited him once more a fortnight later. But his visits had ended with that second one, s that it was now over a month since he had seen him. And he had scarcel heard anything of him."},
{"text":"Ivan had only returned five days after his father's death, so that h was not present at the funeral, which took place the day before he cam back. The cause of his delay was that Alyosha, not knowing his Mosco address, had to apply to Katerina Ivanovna to telegraph to him, an she, not knowing his address either, telegraphed to her sister an aunt, reckoning on Ivan's going to see them as soon as he arrived i Moscow. But he did not go to them till four days after his arrival When he got the telegram, he had, of course, set off post-haste to ou town. The first to meet him was Alyosha, and Ivan was greatly surprise to find that, in opposition to the general opinion of the town, h refused to entertain a suspicion against Mitya, and spoke openly o Smerdyakov as the murderer. Later on, after seeing the police captai and the prosecutor, and hearing the details of the charge and th arrest, he was still more surprised at Alyosha, and ascribed hi opinion only to his exaggerated brotherly feeling and sympathy wit Mitya, of whom Alyosha, as Ivan knew, was very fond."},
{"text":"By the way, let us say a word or two of Ivan's feeling to his brothe Dmitri. He positively disliked him; at most, felt sometimes  compassion for him, and even that was mixed with great contempt, almos repugnance. Mitya's whole personality, even his appearance, wa extremely unattractive to him. Ivan looked with indignation on Katerin Ivanovna's love for his brother. Yet he went to see Mitya on the firs day of his arrival, and that interview, far from shaking Ivan's belie in his guilt, positively strengthened it. He found his brothe agitated, nervously excited. Mitya had been talkative, but ver absentminded and incoherent. He used violent language, accuse Smerdyakov, and was fearfully muddled. He talked principally about th three thousand roubles, which he said had been \"stolen\" from him by hi father."},
{"text":"\"The money was mine, it was my money,\" Mitya kept repeating. \"Even if  had stolen it, I should have had the right.\""},
{"text":"He hardly contested the evidence against him, and if he tried to turn  fact to his advantage, it was in an absurd and incoherent way. H hardly seemed to wish to defend himself to Ivan or anyone else. Quit the contrary, he was angry and proudly scornful of the charges agains him; he was continually firing up and abusing everyone. He only laughe contemptuously at Grigory's evidence about the open door, and declare that it was \"the devil that opened it.\" But he could not bring forwar any coherent explanation of the fact. He even succeeded in insultin Ivan during their first interview, telling him sharply that it was no for people who declared that \"everything was lawful,\" to suspect an question him. Altogether he was anything but friendly with Ivan on tha occasion. Immediately after that interview with Mitya, Ivan went fo the first time to see Smerdyakov."},
{"text":"In the railway train on his way from Moscow, he kept thinking o Smerdyakov and of his last conversation with him on the evening befor he went away. Many things seemed to him puzzling and suspicious. Bu when he gave his evidence to the investigating lawyer Ivan sai nothing, for the time, of that conversation. He put that off till h had seen Smerdyakov, who was at that time in the hospital."},
{"text":"Doctor Herzenstube and Varvinsky, the doctor he met in the hospital confidently asserted in reply to Ivan's persistent questions, tha Smerdyakov's epileptic attack was unmistakably genuine, and wer surprised indeed at Ivan asking whether he might not have been shammin on the day of the catastrophe. They gave him to understand that th attack was an exceptional one, the fits persisting and recurrin several times, so that the patient's life was positively in danger, an it was only now, after they had applied remedies, that they coul assert with confidence that the patient would survive. \"Though it migh well be,\" added Doctor Herzenstube, \"that his reason would be impaire for a considerable period, if not permanently.\" On Ivan's askin impatiently whether that meant that he was now mad, they told him tha this was not yet the case, in the full sense of the word, but tha certain abnormalities were perceptible. Ivan decided to find out fo himself what those abnormalities were."},
{"text":"At the hospital he was at once allowed to see the patient. Smerdyako was lying on a truckle-bed in a separate ward. There was only one othe bed in the room, and in it lay a tradesman of the town, swollen wit dropsy, who was obviously almost dying; he could be no hindrance t their conversation. Smerdyakov grinned uncertainly on seeing Ivan, an for the first instant seemed nervous. So at least Ivan fancied. Bu that was only momentary. For the rest of the time he was struck, on th contrary, by Smerdyakov's composure. From the first glance Ivan had n doubt that he was very ill. He was very weak; he spoke slowly, seemin to move his tongue with difficulty; he was much thinner and sallower Throughout the interview, which lasted twenty minutes, he kep complaining of headache and of pain in all his limbs. His thi emasculate face seemed to have become so tiny; his hair was ruffled and his crest of curls in front stood up in a thin tuft. But in th left eye, which was screwed up and seemed to be insinuating something Smerdyakov showed himself unchanged. \"It's always worth while speakin to a clever man.\" Ivan was reminded of that at once. He sat down on th stool at his feet. Smerdyakov, with painful effort, shifted hi position in bed, but he was not the first to speak. He remained dumb and did not even look much interested."},
{"text":"\"Can you talk to me?\" asked Ivan. \"I won't tire you much.\""},
{"text":"\"Certainly I can,\" mumbled Smerdyakov, in a faint voice. \"Has you honor been back long?\" he added patronizingly, as though encouraging  nervous visitor."},
{"text":"\"I only arrived today. ... To see the mess you are in here.\""},
{"text":"Smerdyakov sighed."},
{"text":"\"Why do you sigh? You knew of it all along,\" Ivan blurted out."},
{"text":"Smerdyakov was stolidly silent for a while."},
{"text":"\"How could I help knowing? It was clear beforehand. But how could  tell it would turn out like that?\""},
{"text":"\"What would turn out? Don't prevaricate! You've foretold you'd have  fit; on the way down to the cellar, you know. You mentioned the ver spot.\""},
{"text":"\"Have you said so at the examination yet?\" Smerdyakov queried wit composure."},
{"text":"Ivan felt suddenly angry."},
{"text":"\"No, I haven't yet, but I certainly shall. You must explain a grea deal to me, my man; and let me tell you, I am not going to let you pla with me!\""},
{"text":"\"Why should I play with you, when I put my whole trust in you, as i God Almighty?\" said Smerdyakov, with the same composure, only for  moment closing his eyes."},
{"text":"\"In the first place,\" began Ivan, \"I know that epileptic fits can't b told beforehand. I've inquired; don't try and take me in. You can' foretell the day and the hour. How was it you told me the day and th hour beforehand, and about the cellar, too? How could you tell that yo would fall down the cellar stairs in a fit, if you didn't sham a fit o purpose?\""},
{"text":"\"I had to go to the cellar anyway, several times a day, indeed,\"Smerdyakov drawled deliberately. \"I fell from the garret just in th same way a year ago. It's quite true you can't tell the day and hour o a fit beforehand, but you can always have a presentiment of it.\""},
{"text":"\"But you did foretell the day and the hour!\""},
{"text":"\"In regard to my epilepsy, sir, you had much better inquire of th doctors here. You can ask them whether it was a real fit or a sham it's no use my saying any more about it.\""},
{"text":"\"And the cellar? How could you know beforehand of the cellar?\""},
{"text":"\"You don't seem able to get over that cellar! As I was going down t the cellar, I was in terrible dread and doubt. What frightened me mos was losing you and being left without defense in all the world. So  went down into the cellar thinking, `Here, it'll come on directly it'll strike me down directly, shall I fall?' And it was through thi fear that I suddenly felt the spasm that always comes ... and so  went flying. All that and all my previous conversation with you at th gate the evening before, when I told you how frightened I was and spok of the cellar, I told all that to Doctor Herzenstube and Nikola Parfenovitch, the investigating lawyer, and it's all been written dow in the protocol. And the doctor here, Mr. Varvinsky, maintained to al of them that it was just the thought of it brought it on, th apprehension that I might fall. It was just then that the fit seize me. And so they've written it down, that it's just how it must hav happened, simply from my fear.\""},
{"text":"As he finished, Smerdyakov drew a deep breath, as though exhausted."},
{"text":"\"Then you have said all that in your evidence?\" said Ivan, somewha taken aback. He had meant to frighten him with the threat of repeatin their conversation, and it appeared that Smerdyakov had alread reported it all himself."},
{"text":"\"What have I to be afraid of? Let them write down the whole truth,\"Smerdyakov pronounced firmly."},
{"text":"\"And have you told them every word of our conversation at the gate?\""},
{"text":"\"No, not to say every word.\""},
{"text":"\"And did you tell them that you can sham fits, as you boasted then?\""},
{"text":"\"No, I didn't tell them that either.\""},
{"text":"\"Tell me now, why did you send me then to Tchermashnya?\""},
{"text":"\"I was afraid you'd go away to Moscow; Tchermashnya is nearer, anyway.\""},
{"text":"\"You are lying; you suggested my going away yourself; you told me t get out of the way of trouble.\""},
{"text":"\"That was simply out of affection and my sincere devotion to you foreseeing trouble in the house, to spare you. Only I wanted to spar myself even more. That's why I told you to get out of harm's way, tha you might understand that there would be trouble in the house, an would remain at home to protect your father.\""},
{"text":"\"You might have said it more directly, you blockhead!\" Ivan suddenl fired up."},
{"text":"\"How could I have said it more directly then? It was simply my fea that made me speak, and you might have been angry, too. I might wel have been apprehensive that Dmitri Fyodorovitch would make a scene an carry away that money, for he considered it as good as his own; but wh could tell that it would end in a murder like this? I thought that h would only carry off the three thousand that lay under the master' mattress in the envelope, and you see, he's murdered him. How could yo guess it either, sir?\""},
{"text":"\"But if you say yourself that it couldn't be guessed, how could I hav guessed and stayed at home? You contradict yourself!\" said Ivan pondering."},
{"text":"\"You might have guessed from my sending you to Tchermashnya and not t Moscow.\""},
{"text":"\"How could I guess it from that?\""},
{"text":"Smerdyakov seemed much exhausted, and again he was silent for a minute."},
{"text":"\"You might have guessed from the fact of my asking you not to go t Moscow, but to Tchermashnya, that I wanted to have you nearer, fo Moscow's a long way off, and Dmitri Fyodorovitch, knowing you are no far off, would not be so bold. And if anything had happened, you migh have come to protect me, too, for I warned you of Grigor Vassilyevitch's illness, and that I was afraid of having a fit. An when I explained those knocks to you, by means of which one could go i to the deceased, and that Dmitri Fyodorovitch knew them all through me I thought that you would guess yourself that he would be sure to d something, and so wouldn't go to Tchermashnya even, but would stay.\""},
{"text":"\"He talks very coherently,\" thought Ivan, \"though he does mumble what's the derangement of his faculties that Herzenstube talked of?\""},
{"text":"\"You are cunning with me, damn you!\" he exclaimed, getting angry."},
{"text":"\"But I thought at the time that you quite guessed,\" Smerdyakov parrie with the simplest air."},
{"text":"\"If I'd guessed, I should have stayed,\" cried Ivan."},
{"text":"\"Why, I thought that it was because you guessed, that you went away i such a hurry, only to get out of trouble, only to run away and sav yourself in your fright.\""},
{"text":"\"You think that everyone is as great a coward as yourself?\""},
{"text":"\"Forgive me, I thought you were like me.\""},
{"text":"\"Of course, I ought to have guessed,\" Ivan said in agitation; \"and  did guess there was some mischief brewing on your part ... only yo are lying, you are lying again,\" he cried, suddenly recollecting. \"D you remember how you went up to the carriage and said to me, `It' always worth while speaking to a clever man'? So you were glad I wen away, since you praised me?\""},
{"text":"Smerdyakov sighed again and again. A trace of color came into his face."},
{"text":"\"If I was pleased,\" he articulated rather breathlessly, \"it was simpl because you agreed not to go to Moscow, but to Tchermashnya. For it wa nearer, anyway. Only when I said these words to you, it was not by wa of praise, but of reproach. You didn't understand it.\""},
{"text":"\"What reproach?\""},
{"text":"\"Why, that foreseeing such a calamity you deserted your own father, an would not protect us, for I might have been taken up any time fo stealing that three thousand.\""},
{"text":"\"Damn you!\" Ivan swore again. \"Stay, did you tell the prosecutor an the investigating lawyer about those knocks?\""},
{"text":"\"I told them everything just as it was.\""},
{"text":"Ivan wondered inwardly again."},
{"text":"\"If I thought of anything then,\" he began again, \"it was solely of som wickedness on your part. Dmitri might kill him, but that he woul steal--I did not believe that then. ... But I was prepared for an wickedness from you. You told me yourself you could sham a fit. Wha did you say that for?\""},
{"text":"\"It was just through my simplicity, and I never have shammed a fit o purpose in my life. And I only said so then to boast to you. It wa just foolishness. I liked you so much then, and was openhearted wit you.\""},
{"text":"\"My brother directly accuses you of the murder and theft.\""},
{"text":"\"What else is left for him to do?\" said Smerdyakov, with a bitter grin \"And who will believe him with all the proofs against him? Grigor Vassilyevitch saw the door open. What can he say after that? But neve mind him! He is trembling to save himself.\""},
{"text":"He slowly ceased speaking; then suddenly, as though on reflection added:"},
{"text":"\"And look here again. He wants to throw it on me and make out that i is the work of my hands--I've heard that already. But as to my bein clever at shamming a fit: should I have told you beforehand that  could sham one, if I really had had such a design against your father If I had been planning such a murder could I have been such a fool a to give such evidence against myself beforehand? And to his son, too Upon my word! Is that likely? As if that could be, such a thing ha never happened. No one hears this talk of ours now, except Providenc itself, and if you were to tell of it to the prosecutor and Nikola Parfenovitch you might defend me completely by doing so, for who woul be likely to be such a criminal, if he is so openhearted beforehand Anyone can see that.\""},
{"text":"\"Well,\" and Ivan got up to cut short the conversation, struck b Smerdyakov's last argument. \"I don't suspect you at all, and I thin it's absurd, indeed, to suspect you. On the contrary, I am grateful t you for setting my mind at rest. Now I am going, but I'll come again Meanwhile, goodbye. Get well. Is there anything you want?\""},
{"text":"\"I am very thankful for everything. Marfa Ignatyevna does not forge me, and provides me anything I want, according to her kindness. Goo people visit me every day.\""},
{"text":"\"Goodbye. But I shan't say anything of your being able to sham a fit and I don't advise you to, either,\" something made Ivan say suddenly."},
{"text":"\"I quite understand. And if you don't speak of that, I shall sa nothing of that conversation of ours at the gate.\""},
{"text":"Then it happened that Ivan went out, and only when he had gone a doze steps along the corridor, he suddenly felt that there was an insultin significance in Smerdyakov's last words. He was almost on the point o turning back, but it was only a passing impulse, and muttering \"Nonsense!\" he went out of the hospital."},
{"text":"His chief feeling was one of relief at the fact that it was no Smerdyakov, but Mitya, who had committed the murder, though he migh have been expected to feel the opposite. He did not want to analyze th reason for this feeling, and even felt a positive repugnance at pryin into his sensations. He felt as though he wanted to make haste t forget something. In the following days he became convinced of Mitya' guilt, as he got to know all the weight of evidence against him. Ther was evidence of people of no importance, Fenya and her mother, fo instance, but the effect of it was almost overpowering. As to Perhotin the people at the tavern, and at Plotnikov's shop, as well as th witnesses at Mokroe, their evidence seemed conclusive. It was th details that were so damning. The secret of the knocks impressed th lawyers almost as much as Grigory's evidence as to the open door Grigory's wife, Marfa, in answer to Ivan's questions, declared tha Smerdyakov had been lying all night the other side of the partitio wall. \"He was not three paces from our bed,\" and that although she wa a sound sleeper she waked several times and heard him moaning, \"He wa moaning the whole time, moaning continually.\""},
{"text":"Talking to Herzenstube, and giving it as his opinion that Smerdyako was not mad, but only rather weak, Ivan only evoked from the old man  subtle smile."},
{"text":"\"Do you know how he spends his time now?\" he asked; \"learning lists o French words by heart. He has an exercise-book under his pillow wit the French words written out in Russian letters for him by someone, h he he!\""},
{"text":"Ivan ended by dismissing all doubts. He could not think of Dmitr without repulsion. Only one thing was strange, however. Alyosh persisted that Dmitri was not the murderer, and that \"in al probability\" Smerdyakov was. Ivan always felt that Alyosha's opinio meant a great deal to him, and so he was astonished at it now. Anothe thing that was strange was that Alyosha did not make any attempt t talk about Mitya with Ivan, that he never began on the subject and onl answered his questions. This, too, struck Ivan particularly."},
{"text":"But he was very much preoccupied at that time with something quit apart from that. On his return from Moscow, he abandoned himsel hopelessly to his mad and consuming passion for Katerina Ivanovna. Thi is not the time to begin to speak of this new passion of Ivan's, whic left its mark on all the rest of his life: this would furnish th subject for another novel, which I may perhaps never write. But  cannot omit to mention here that when Ivan, on leaving Katerin Ivanovna with Alyosha, as I've related already, told him, \"I am no keen on her,\" it was an absolute lie: he loved her madly, though a times he hated her so that he might have murdered her. Many cause helped to bring about this feeling. Shattered by what had happened wit Mitya, she rushed on Ivan's return to meet him as her one salvation She was hurt, insulted and humiliated in her feelings. And here the ma had come back to her, who had loved her so ardently before (oh! sh knew that very well), and whose heart and intellect she considered s superior to her own. But the sternly virtuous girl did not abando herself altogether to the man she loved, in spite of the Karamazo violence of his passions and the great fascination he had for her. Sh was continually tormented at the same time by remorse for havin deserted Mitya, and in moments of discord and violent anger (and the were numerous) she told Ivan so plainly. This was what he had called t Alyosha \"lies upon lies.\" There was, of course, much that was false i it, and that angered Ivan more than anything. ... But of all thi later."},
{"text":"He did, in fact, for a time almost forget Smerdyakov's existence, an yet, a fortnight after his first visit to him, he began to be haunte by the same strange thoughts as before. It's enough to say that he wa continually asking himself, why was it that on that last night i Fyodor Pavlovitch's house he had crept out on to the stairs like  thief and listened to hear what his father was doing below? Why had h recalled that afterwards with repulsion? Why next morning, had he bee suddenly so depressed on the journey? Why, as he reached Moscow, had h said to himself, \"I am a scoundrel\"? And now he almost fancied tha these tormenting thoughts would make him even forget Katerina Ivanovna so completely did they take possession of him again. It was just afte fancying this, that he met Alyosha in the street. He stopped him a once, and put a question to him:"},
{"text":"\"Do you remember when Dmitri burst in after dinner and beat father, an afterwards I told you in the yard that I reserved `the right t desire'? ... Tell me, did you think then that I desired father' death or not?\""},
{"text":"\"I did think so,\" answered Alyosha, softly."},
{"text":"\"It was so, too; it was not a matter of guessing. But didn't you fanc then that what I wished was just that `one reptile should devou another'; that is, just that Dmitri should kill father, and as soon a possible ... and that I myself was even prepared to help to brin that about?\""},
{"text":"Alyosha turned rather pale, and looked silently into his brother' face."},
{"text":"\"Speak!\" cried Ivan, \"I want above everything to know what you though then. I want the truth, the truth!\""},
{"text":"He drew a deep breath, looking angrily at Alyosha before his answe came."},
{"text":"\"Forgive me, I did think that, too, at the time,\" whispered Alyosha and he did not add one softening phrase."},
{"text":"\"Thanks,\" snapped Ivan, and, leaving Alyosha, he went quickly on hi way. From that time Alyosha noticed that Ivan began obviously to avoi him and seemed even to have taken a dislike to him, so much so tha Alyosha gave up going to see him. Immediately after that meeting wit him, Ivan had not gone home, but went straight to Smerdyakov again."},
{"text":" VII"},
{"text":"The Second Visit to Smerdyakov"},
{"text":"By that time Smerdyakov had been discharged from the hospital. Iva knew his new lodging, the dilapidated little wooden house, divided i two by a passage on one side of which lived Marya Kondratyevna and he mother, and on the other, Smerdyakov. No one knew on what terms h lived with them, whether as a friend or as a lodger. It was suppose afterwards that he had come to stay with them as Marya Kondratyevna' betrothed, and was living there for a time without paying for board o lodging. Both mother and daughter had the greatest respect for him an looked upon him as greatly superior to themselves."},
{"text":"Ivan knocked, and, on the door being opened, went straight into th passage. By Marya Kondratyevna's directions he went straight to th better room on the left, occupied by Smerdyakov. There was a tile stove in the room and it was extremely hot. The walls were gay wit blue paper, which was a good deal used however, and in the cracks unde it cockroaches swarmed in amazing numbers, so that there was  continual rustling from them. The furniture was very scanty: tw benches against each wall and two chairs by the table. The table o plain wood was covered with a cloth with pink patterns on it. There wa a pot of geranium on each of the two little windows. In the corne there was a case of icons. On the table stood a little copper samova with many dents in it, and a tray with two cups. But Smerdyakov ha finished tea and the samovar was out. He was sitting at the table on  bench. He was looking at an exercise-book and slowly writing with  pen. There was a bottle of ink by him and a flat iron candlestick, bu with a composite candle. Ivan saw at once from Smerdyakov's face tha he had completely recovered from his illness. His face was fresher fuller, his hair stood up jauntily in front, and was plastered down a the sides. He was sitting in a parti-colored, wadded dressing-gown rather dirty and frayed, however. He had spectacles on his nose, whic Ivan had never seen him wearing before. This trifling circumstanc suddenly redoubled Ivan's anger: \"A creature like that and wearin spectacles!\""},
{"text":"Smerdyakov slowly raised his head and looked intently at his visito through his spectacles; then he slowly took them off and rose from th bench, but by no means respectfully, almost lazily, doing the leas possible required by common civility. All this struck Ivan instantly he took it all in and noted it at once--most of all the look i Smerdyakov's eyes, positively malicious, churlish and haughty. \"What d you want to intrude for?\" it seemed to say; \"we settled everythin then; why have you come again?\" Ivan could scarcely control himself."},
{"text":"\"It's hot here,\" he said, still standing, and unbuttoned his overcoat."},
{"text":"\"Take off your coat,\" Smerdyakov conceded."},
{"text":"Ivan took off his coat and threw it on a bench with trembling hands. H took a chair, moved it quickly to the table and sat down. Smerdyako managed to sit down on his bench before him."},
{"text":"\"To begin with, are we alone?\" Ivan asked sternly and impulsively. \"Ca they overhear us in there?\""},
{"text":"\"No one can hear anything. You've seen for yourself: there's  passage.\""},
{"text":"\"Listen, my good fellow; what was that you babbled, as I was leavin the hospital, that if I said nothing about your faculty of shammin fits, you wouldn't tell the investigating lawyer all our conversatio at the gate? What do you mean by all? What could you mean by it? Wer you threatening me? Have I entered into some sort of compact with you Do you suppose I am afraid of you?\""},
{"text":"Ivan said this in a perfect fury, giving him to understand with obviou intention that he scorned any subterfuge or indirectness and meant t show his cards. Smerdyakov's eyes gleamed resentfully, his left ey winked, and he at once gave his answer, with his habitual composure an deliberation. \"You want to have everything aboveboard; very well, yo shall have it,\" he seemed to say."},
{"text":"\"This is what I meant then, and this is why I said that, that you knowing beforehand of this murder of your own parent, left him to hi fate, and that people mightn't after that conclude any evil about you feelings and perhaps of something else, too--that's what I promise not to tell the authorities.\""},
{"text":"Though Smerdyakov spoke without haste and obviously controllin himself, yet there was something in his voice, determined and emphatic resentful and insolently defiant. He stared impudently at Ivan. A mis passed before Ivan's eyes for the first moment."},
{"text":"\"How? What? Are you out of your mind?\""},
{"text":"\"I'm perfectly in possession of all my faculties.\""},
{"text":"\"Do you suppose I knew of the murder?\" Ivan cried at last, and h brought his fist violently on the table. \"What do you mean b `something else, too'? Speak, scoundrel!\""},
{"text":"Smerdyakov was silent and still scanned Ivan with the same insolen stare."},
{"text":"\"Speak, you stinking rogue, what is that `something else, too'?\""},
{"text":"\"The `something else' I meant was that you probably, too, were ver desirous of your parent's death.\""},
{"text":"Ivan jumped up and struck him with all his might on the shoulder, s that he fell back against the wall. In an instant his face was bathe in tears. Saying, \"It's a shame, sir, to strike a sick man,\" he drie his eyes with a very dirty blue check handkerchief and sank into quie weeping. A minute passed."},
{"text":"\"That's enough! Leave off,\" Ivan said peremptorily, sitting down again \"Don't put me out of all patience.\""},
{"text":"Smerdyakov took the rag from his eyes. Every line of his puckered fac reflected the insult he had just received."},
{"text":"\"So you thought then, you scoundrel, that together with Dmitri I mean to kill my father?\""},
{"text":"\"I didn't know what thoughts were in your mind then,\" said Smerdyako resentfully; \"and so I stopped you then at the gate to sound you o that very point.\""},
{"text":"\"To sound what, what?\""},
{"text":"\"Why, that very circumstance, whether you wanted your father to b murdered or not.\""},
{"text":"What infuriated Ivan more than anything was the aggressive, insolen tone to which Smerdyakov persistently adhered."},
{"text":"\"It was you murdered him?\" he cried suddenly."},
{"text":"Smerdyakov smiled contemptuously."},
{"text":"\"You know of yourself, for a fact, that it wasn't I murdered him. And  should have thought that there was no need for a sensible man to spea of it again.\""},
{"text":"\"But why, why had you such a suspicion about me at the time?\""},
{"text":"\"As you know already, it was simply from fear. For I was in such  position, shaking with fear, that I suspected everyone. I resolved t sound you, too, for I thought if you wanted the same as your brother then the business was as good as settled and I should be crushed like  fly, too.\""},
{"text":"\"Look here, you didn't say that a fortnight ago.\""},
{"text":"\"I meant the same when I talked to you in the hospital, only I though you'd understand without wasting words, and that being such a sensibl man you wouldn't care to talk of it openly.\""},
{"text":"\"What next! Come answer, answer, I insist: what was it ... what coul I have done to put such a degrading suspicion into your mean soul?\""},
{"text":"\"As for the murder, you couldn't have done that and didn't want to, bu as for wanting someone else to do it, that was just what you did want.\""},
{"text":"\"And how coolly, how coolly he speaks! But why should I have wanted it what grounds had I for wanting it?\""},
{"text":"\"What grounds had you? What about the inheritance?\" said Smerdyako sarcastically, and, as it were, vindictively. \"Why, after your parent' death there was at least forty thousand to come to each of you, an very likely more, but if Fyodor Pavlovitch got married then to tha lady, Agrafena Alexandrovna, she would have had all his capital mad over to her directly after the wedding, for she's plenty of sense, s that your parent would not have left you two roubles between the thre of you. And were they far from a wedding, either? Not a hair's-breadth that lady had only to lift her little finger and he would have ru after her to church, with his tongue out.\""},
{"text":"Ivan restrained himself with painful effort."},
{"text":"\"Very good,\" he commented at last. \"You see, I haven't jumped up,  haven't knocked you down, I haven't killed you. Speak on. So, accordin to you, I had fixed on Dmitri to do it; I was reckoning on him?\""},
{"text":"\"How could you help reckoning on him? If he killed him, then he woul lose all the rights of a nobleman, his rank and property, and would g off to exile; so his share of the inheritance would come to you an your brother Alexey Fyodorovitch in equal parts; so you'd each have no forty, but sixty thousand each. There's not a doubt you did reckon o Dmitri Fyodorovitch.\""},
{"text":"\"What I put up with from you! Listen, scoundrel, if I had reckoned o anyone then, it would have been on you, not on Dmitri, and I swear  did expect some wickedness from you ... at the time. ... I remembe my impression!\""},
{"text":"\"I thought, too, for a minute, at the time, that you were reckoning o me as well,\" said Smerdyakov, with a sarcastic grin. \"So that it wa just by that more than anything you showed me what was in your mind For if you had a foreboding about me and yet went away, you as good a said to me, `You can murder my parent, I won't hinder you!' \""},
{"text":"\"You scoundrel! So that's how you understood it!\""},
{"text":"\"It was all that going to Tchermashnya. Why! You were meaning to go t Moscow and refused all your father's entreaties to go t Tchermashnya--and simply at a foolish word from me you consented a once! What reason had you to consent to Tchermashnya? Since you went t Tchermashnya with no reason, simply at my word, it shows that you mus have expected something from me.\""},
{"text":"\"No, I swear I didn't!\" shouted Ivan, grinding his teeth."},
{"text":"\"You didn't? Then you ought, as your father's son, to have had me take to the lockup and thrashed at once for my words then ... or at least to have given me a punch in the face on the spot, but you were not  bit angry, if you please, and at once in a friendly way acted on m foolish word and went away, which was utterly absurd, for you ought t have stayed to save your parent's life. How could I help drawing m conclusions?\""},
{"text":"Ivan sat scowling, both his fists convulsively pressed on his knees."},
{"text":"\"Yes, I am sorry I didn't punch you in the face,\" he said with a bitte smile. \"I couldn't have taken you to the lockup just then. Who woul have believed me and what charge could I bring against you? But th punch in the face ... oh, I'm sorry I didn't think of it. Thoug blows are forbidden, I should have pounded your ugly face to a jelly.\""},
{"text":"Smerdyakov looked at him almost with relish."},
{"text":"\"In the ordinary occasions of life,\" he said in the same complacent an sententious tone in which he had taunted Grigory and argued with hi about religion at Fyodor Pavlovitch's table, \"in the ordinary occasion of life, blows on the face are forbidden nowadays by law, and peopl have given them up, but in exceptional occasions of life people stil fly to blows, not only among us but all over the world, be it even th fullest Republic of France, just as in the time of Adam and Eve, an they never will leave off, but you, even in an exceptional case, di not dare.\""},
{"text":"\"What are you learning French words for?\" Ivan nodded towards th exercise-book lying on the table."},
{"text":"\"Why shouldn't I learn them so as to improve my education, supposin that I may myself chance to go some day to those happy parts o Europe?\""},
{"text":"\"Listen, monster.\" Ivan's eyes flashed and he trembled all over. \"I a not afraid of your accusations; you can say what you like about me, an if I don't beat you to death, it's simply because I suspect you of tha crime and I'll drag you to justice. I'll unmask you.\""},
{"text":"\"To my thinking, you'd better keep quiet, for what can you accuse m of, considering my absolute innocence? and who would believe you? Onl if you begin, I shall tell everything, too, for I must defend myself.\""},
{"text":"\"Do you think I am afraid of you now?\""},
{"text":"\"If the court doesn't believe all I've said to you just now, the publi will, and you will be ashamed.\""},
{"text":"\"That's as much as to say, `It's always worth while speaking to  sensible man,' eh?\" snarled Ivan."},
{"text":"\"You hit the mark, indeed. And you'd better be sensible.\""},
{"text":"Ivan got up, shaking all over with indignation, put on his coat, an without replying further to Smerdyakov, without even looking at him walked quickly out of the cottage. The cool evening air refreshed him There was a bright moon in the sky. A nightmare of ideas and sensation filled his soul. \"Shall I go at once and give information agains Smerdyakov? But what information can I give? He is not guilty, anyway On the contrary, he'll accuse me. And in fact, why did I set off fo Tchermashnya then? What for? What for?\" Ivan asked himself. \"Yes, o course, I was expecting something and he is right. ...\" And h remembered for the hundredth time how, on the last night in hi father's house, he had listened on the stairs. But he remembered it no with such anguish that he stood still on the spot as though he had bee stabbed. \"Yes, I expected it then, that's true! I wanted the murder,  did want the murder! Did I want the murder? Did I want it? I must kil Smerdyakov! If I don't dare kill Smerdyakov now, life is not wort living!\""},
{"text":"Ivan did not go home, but went straight to Katerina Ivanovna an alarmed her by his appearance. He was like a madman. He repeated al his conversation with Smerdyakov, every syllable of it. He couldn't b calmed, however much she tried to soothe him: he kept walking about th room, speaking strangely, disconnectedly. At last he sat down, put hi elbows on the table, leaned his head on his hands and pronounced thi strange sentence: \"If it's not Dmitri, but Smerdyakov who's th murderer, I share his guilt, for I put him up to it. Whether I did,  don't know yet. But if he is the murderer, and not Dmitri, then, o course, I am the murderer, too.\""},
{"text":"When Katerina Ivanovna heard that, she got up from her seat without  word, went to her writing-table, opened a box standing on it, took ou a sheet of paper and laid it before Ivan. This was the document o which Ivan spoke to Alyosha later on as a \"conclusive proof\" tha Dmitri had killed his father. It was the letter written by Mitya t Katerina Ivanovna when he was drunk, on the very evening he met Alyosh at the crossroads on the way to the monastery, after the scene a Katerina Ivanovna's, when Grushenka had insulted her. Then, partin from Alyosha, Mitya had rushed to Grushenka. I don't know whether h saw her, but in the evening he was at the Metropolis, where he go thoroughly drunk. Then he asked for pen and paper and wrote a documen of weighty consequences to himself. It was a wordy, disconnected frantic letter, a drunken letter in fact. It was like the talk of  drunken man, who, on his return home, begins with extraordinary hea telling his wife or one of his household how he has just been insulted what a rascal had just insulted him, what a fine fellow he is on th other hand, and how he will pay that scoundrel out; and all that a great length, with great excitement and incoherence, with drunken tear and blows on the table. The letter was written on a dirty piece o ordinary paper of the cheapest kind. It had been provided by the taver and there were figures scrawled on the back of it. There was evidentl not space enough for his drunken verbosity and Mitya not only fille the margins but had written the last line right across the rest. Th letter ran as follows:"},
{"text":"  Fatal Katya: Tomorrow I will get the money and repay your thre   thousand and farewell, woman of great wrath, but farewell, too, m   love! Let us make an end! Tomorrow I shall try and get it fro   everyone, and if I can't borrow it, I give you my word of honor    shall go to my father and break his skull and take the money fro   under the pillow, if only Ivan has gone. If I have to go to Siberi   for it, I'll give you back your three thousand. And farewell. I bo   down to the ground before you, for I've been a scoundrel to you   Forgive me! No, better not forgive me, you'll be happier and s   shall I! Better Siberia than your love, for I love another woman an   you got to know her too well today, so how can you forgive? I wil   murder the man who's robbed me! I'll leave you all and go to th   East so as to see no one again. Not her either, for you are not m   only tormentress; she is too. Farewell!"},
{"text":"  P.S.-- I write my curse, but I adore you! I hear it in my heart   One string is left, and it vibrates. Better tear my heart in two!    shall kill myself, but first of all that cur. I shall tear thre   thousand from him and fling it to you. Though I've been a scoundre   to you, I am not a thief! You can expect three thousand. The cu   keeps it under his mattress, in pink ribbon. I am not a thief, bu   I'll murder my thief. Katya, don't look disdainful. Dmitri is not    thief! but a murderer! He has murdered his father and ruined himsel   to hold his ground, rather than endure your pride. And he doesn'   love you."},
{"text":"  P.P.S.--I kiss your feet, farewell! P.P.P.S.-- Katya, pray to Go   that someone'll give me the money. Then I shall not be steeped i   gore, and if no one does--I shall! Kill me!"},
{"text":"  Your slave and enemy,"},
{"text":"  D. Karamazov."},
{"text":"When Ivan read this \"document\" he was convinced. So then it was hi brother, not Smerdyakov. And if not Smerdyakov, then not he, Ivan. Thi letter at once assumed in his eyes the aspect of a logical proof. Ther could be no longer the slightest doubt of Mitya's guilt. The suspicio never occurred to Ivan, by the way, that Mitya might have committed th murder in conjunction with Smerdyakov, and, indeed, such a theory di not fit in with the facts. Ivan was completely reassured. The nex morning he only thought of Smerdyakov and his gibes with contempt.  few days later he positively wondered how he could have been s horribly distressed at his suspicions. He resolved to dismiss him wit contempt and forget him. So passed a month. He made no further inquir about Smerdyakov, but twice he happened to hear that he was very il and out of his mind."},
{"text":"\"He'll end in madness,\" the young doctor Varvinsky observed about him and Ivan remembered this. During the last week of that month Iva himself began to feel very ill. He went to consult the Moscow docto who had been sent for by Katerina Ivanovna just before the trial. An just at that time his relations with Katerina Ivanovna became acutel strained. They were like two enemies in love with one another. Katerin Ivanovna's \"returns\" to Mitya, that is, her brief but violen revulsions of feeling in his favor, drove Ivan to perfect frenzy Strange to say, until that last scene described above, when Alyosh came from Mitya to Katerina Ivanovna, Ivan had never once, during tha month, heard her express a doubt of Mitya's guilt, in spite of thos \"returns\" that were so hateful to him. It is remarkable, too, tha while he felt that he hated Mitya more and more every day, he realize that it was not on account of Katya's \"returns\" that he hated him, bu just because he was the murderer of his father. He was conscious o this and fully recognized it to himself."},
{"text":"Nevertheless, he went to see Mitya ten days before the trial an proposed to him a plan of escape--a plan he had obviously thought ove a long time. He was partly impelled to do this by a sore place stil left in his heart from a phrase of Smerdyakov's, that it was to his Ivan's, advantage that his brother should be convicted, as that woul increase his inheritance and Alyosha's from forty to sixty thousan roubles. He determined to sacrifice thirty thousand on arrangin Mitya's escape. On his return from seeing him, he was very mournful an dispirited; he suddenly began to feel that he was anxious for Mitya' escape, not only to heal that sore place by sacrificing thirt thousand, but for another reason. \"Is it because I am as much  murderer at heart?\" he asked himself. Something very deep down seeme burning and rankling in his soul. His pride above all suffered cruell all that month. But of that later. ..."},
{"text":"When, after his conversation with Alyosha, Ivan suddenly decided wit his hand on the bell of his lodging to go to Smerdyakov, he obeyed  sudden and peculiar impulse of indignation. He suddenly remembered ho Katerina Ivanovna had only just cried out to him in Alyosha's presence \"It was you, you, persuaded me of his\" (that is, Mitya's) \"guilt!\" Iva was thunderstruck when he recalled it. He had never once tried t persuade her that Mitya was the murderer; on the contrary, he ha suspected himself in her presence, that time when he came back fro Smerdyakov. It was she, she, who had produced that \"document\" an proved his brother's guilt. And now she suddenly exclaimed: \"I've bee at Smerdyakov's myself!\" When had she been there? Ivan had know nothing of it. So she was not at all so sure of Mitya's guilt! And wha could Smerdyakov have told her? What, what, had he said to her? Hi heart burned with violent anger. He could not understand how he could half an hour before, have let those words pass and not have cried ou at the moment. He let go of the bell and rushed off to Smerdyakov. \" shall kill him, perhaps, this time,\" he thought on the way."},
{"text":" VIII"},
{"text":"The Third and Last Interview with Smerdyakov"},
{"text":"When he was halfway there, the keen dry wind that had been blowin early that morning rose again, and a fine dry snow began fallin thickly. It did not lie on the ground, but was whirled about by th wind, and soon there was a regular snowstorm. There were scarcely an lampposts in the part of the town where Smerdyakov lived. Ivan strod alone in the darkness, unconscious of the storm, instinctively pickin out his way. His head ached and there was a painful throbbing in hi temples. He felt that his hands were twitching convulsively. Not fa from Marya Kondratyevna's cottage, Ivan suddenly came upon a solitar drunken little peasant. He was wearing a coarse and patched coat, an was walking in zigzags, grumbling and swearing to himself. The suddenly he would begin singing in a husky drunken voice:"},
{"text":"  \"Ach, Vanka's gone to Petersburg   I won't wait till he comes back.\""},
{"text":"But he broke off every time at the second line and began swearin again; then he would begin the same song again. Ivan felt an intens hatred for him before he had thought about him at all. Suddenly h realized his presence and felt an irresistible impulse to knock hi down. At that moment they met, and the peasant with a violent lurc fell full tilt against Ivan, who pushed him back furiously. The peasan went flying backwards and fell like a log on the frozen ground. H uttered one plaintive \"O--oh!\" and then was silent. Ivan stepped up t him. He was lying on his back, without movement or consciousness. \"H will be frozen,\" thought Ivan, and he went on his way to Smerdyakov's."},
{"text":"In the passage, Marya Kondratyevna, who ran out to open the door with  candle in her hand, whispered that Smerdyakov was very ill, \"It's no that he's laid up, but he seems not himself, and he even told us t take the tea away; he wouldn't have any.\""},
{"text":"\"Why, does he make a row?\" asked Ivan coarsely."},
{"text":"\"Oh, dear, no, quite the contrary, he's very quiet. Only please don' talk to him too long,\" Marya Kondratyevna begged him. Ivan opened th door and stepped into the room."},
{"text":"It was overheated as before, but there were changes in the room. One o the benches at the side had been removed, and in its place had been pu a large old mahogany leather sofa, on which a bed had been made up with fairly clean white pillows. Smerdyakov was sitting on the sofa wearing the same dressing-gown. The table had been brought out in fron of the sofa, so that there was hardly room to move. On the table lay  thick book in yellow cover, but Smerdyakov was not reading it. H seemed to be sitting doing nothing. He met Ivan with a slow silen gaze, and was apparently not at all surprised at his coming. There wa a great change in his face; he was much thinner and sallower. His eye were sunken and there were blue marks under them."},
{"text":"\"Why, you really are ill?\" Ivan stopped short. \"I won't keep you long I won't even take off my coat. Where can one sit down?\""},
{"text":"He went to the other end of the table, moved up a chair and sat down o it."},
{"text":"\"Why do you look at me without speaking? I've only come with on question, and I swear I won't go without an answer. Has the young lady Katerina Ivanovna, been with you?\""},
{"text":"Smerdyakov still remained silent, looking quietly at Ivan as before Suddenly, with a motion of his hand, he turned his face away."},
{"text":"\"What's the matter with you?\" cried Ivan."},
{"text":"\"Nothing.\""},
{"text":"\"What do you mean by `nothing'?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, she has. It's no matter to you. Let me alone.\""},
{"text":"\"No, I won't let you alone. Tell me, when was she here?\""},
{"text":"\"Why, I'd quite forgotten about her,\" said Smerdyakov, with a scornfu smile, and turning his face to Ivan again, he stared at him with a loo of frenzied hatred, the same look that he had fixed on him at thei last interview, a month before."},
{"text":"\"You seem very ill yourself, your face is sunken; you don't look lik yourself,\" he said to Ivan."},
{"text":"\"Never mind my health, tell me what I ask you.\""},
{"text":"\"But why are your eyes so yellow? The whites are quite yellow. Are yo so worried?\" He smiled contemptuously and suddenly laughed outright."},
{"text":"\"Listen; I've told you I won't go away without an answer!\" Ivan cried intensely irritated."},
{"text":"\"Why do you keep pestering me? Why do you torment me?\" said Smerdyakov with a look of suffering."},
{"text":"\"Damn it! I've nothing to do with you. Just answer my question and I'l go away.\""},
{"text":"\"I've no answer to give you,\" said Smerdyakov, looking down again."},
{"text":"\"You may be sure I'll make you answer!\""},
{"text":"\"Why are you so uneasy?\" Smerdyakov stared at him, not simply wit contempt, but almost with repulsion. \"Is this because the trial begin tomorrow? Nothing will happen to you; can't you believe that at last Go home, go to bed and sleep in peace, don't be afraid of anything.\""},
{"text":"\"I don't understand you. ... What have I to be afraid of tomorrow?\"Ivan articulated in astonishment, and suddenly a chill breath of fea did in fact pass over his soul. Smerdyakov measured him with his eyes."},
{"text":"\"You don't understand?\" he drawled reproachfully. \"It's a strange thin a sensible man should care to play such a farce!\""},
{"text":"Ivan looked at him speechless. The startling, incredibly superciliou tone of this man who had once been his valet, was extraordinary i itself. He had not taken such a tone even at their last interview."},
{"text":"\"I tell you, you've nothing to be afraid of. I won't say anything abou you; there's no proof against you. I say, how your hands are trembling Why are your fingers moving like that? Go home, you did not murde him.\""},
{"text":"Ivan started. He remembered Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"I know it was not I,\" he faltered."},
{"text":"\"Do you?\" Smerdyakov caught him up again."},
{"text":"Ivan jumped up and seized him by the shoulder."},
{"text":"\"Tell me everything, you viper! Tell me everything!\""},
{"text":"Smerdyakov was not in the least scared. He only riveted his eyes o Ivan with insane hatred."},
{"text":"\"Well, it was you who murdered him, if that's it,\" he whispere furiously."},
{"text":"Ivan sank back on his chair, as though pondering something. He laughe malignantly."},
{"text":"\"You mean my going away. What you talked about last time?\""},
{"text":"\"You stood before me last time and understood it all, and yo understand it now.\""},
{"text":"\"All I understand is that you are mad.\""},
{"text":"\"Aren't you tired of it? Here we are face to face; what's the use o going on keeping up a farce to each other? Are you still trying t throw it all on me, to my face? You murdered him; you are the rea murderer, I was only your instrument, your faithful servant, and it wa following your words I did it.\""},
{"text":"\"Did it? Why, did you murder him?\" Ivan turned cold."},
{"text":"Something seemed to give way in his brain, and he shuddered all ove with a cold shiver. Then Smerdyakov himself looked at him wonderingly probably the genuineness of Ivan's horror struck him."},
{"text":"\"You don't mean to say you really did not know?\" he faltere mistrustfully, looking with a forced smile into his eyes. Ivan stil gazed at him, and seemed unable to speak."},
{"text":"  Ach, Vanka's gone to Petersburg   I won't wait till he comes back,"},
{"text":"suddenly echoed in his head."},
{"text":"\"Do you know, I am afraid that you are a dream, a phantom sittin before me,\" he muttered."},
{"text":"\"There's no phantom here, but only us two and one other. No doubt he i here, that third, between us.\""},
{"text":"\"Who is he? Who is here? What third person?\" Ivan cried in alarm looking about him, his eyes hastily searching in every corner."},
{"text":"\"That third is God Himself--Providence. He is the third beside us now Only don't look for Him, you won't find Him.\""},
{"text":"\"It's a lie that you killed him!\" Ivan cried madly. \"You are mad, o teasing me again!\""},
{"text":"Smerdyakov, as before, watched him curiously, with no sign of fear. H could still scarcely get over his incredulity; he still fancied tha Ivan knew everything and was trying to \"throw it all on him to hi face.\""},
{"text":"\"Wait a minute,\" he said at last in a weak voice, and suddenly bringin up his left leg from under the table, he began turning up his trouse leg. He was wearing long white stockings and slippers. Slowly he too off his garter and fumbled to the bottom of his stocking. Ivan gazed a him, and suddenly shuddered in a paroxysm of terror."},
{"text":"\"He's mad!\" he cried, and rapidly jumping up, he drew back, so that h knocked his back against the wall and stood up against it, stiff an straight. He looked with insane terror at Smerdyakov, who, entirel unaffected by his terror, continued fumbling in his stocking, as thoug he were making an effort to get hold of something with his fingers an pull it out. At last he got hold of it and began pulling it out. Iva saw that it was a piece of paper, or perhaps a roll of papers Smerdyakov pulled it out and laid it on the table."},
{"text":"\"Here,\" he said quietly."},
{"text":"\"What is it?\" asked Ivan, trembling."},
{"text":"\"Kindly look at it,\" Smerdyakov answered, still in the same low tone."},
{"text":"Ivan stepped up to the table, took up the roll of paper and bega unfolding it, but suddenly he drew back his fingers, as though fro contact with a loathsome reptile."},
{"text":"\"Your hands keep twitching,\" observed Smerdyakov, and he deliberatel unfolded the bundle himself. Under the wrapper were three packets o hundred-rouble notes."},
{"text":"\"They are all here, all the three thousand roubles; you need not coun them. Take them,\" Smerdyakov suggested to Ivan, nodding at the notes Ivan sank back in his chair. He was as white as a handkerchief."},
{"text":"\"You frightened me ... with your stocking,\" he said, with a strang grin."},
{"text":"\"Can you really not have known till now?\" Smerdyakov asked once more."},
{"text":"\"No, I did not know. I kept thinking of Dmitri. Brother, brother! Ach!\"He suddenly clutched his head in both hands."},
{"text":"\"Listen. Did you kill him alone? With my brother's help or without?\""},
{"text":"\"It was only with you, with your help, I killed him, and Dmitr Fyodorovitch is quite innocent.\""},
{"text":"\"All right, all right. Talk about me later. Why do I keep on trembling I can't speak properly.\""},
{"text":"\"You were bold enough then. You said `everything was lawful,' and ho frightened you are now,\" Smerdyakov muttered in surprise. \"Won't yo have some lemonade? I'll ask for some at once. It's very refreshing Only I must hide this first.\""},
{"text":"And again he motioned at the notes. He was just going to get up an call at the door to Marya Kondratyevna to make some lemonade and brin it them, but, looking for something to cover up the notes that sh might not see them, he first took out his handkerchief, and as i turned out to be very dirty, took up the big yellow book that Ivan ha noticed at first lying on the table, and put it over the notes. Th book was The Sayings of the Holy Father Isaac the Syrian. Ivan read i mechanically."},
{"text":"\"I won't have any lemonade,\" he said. \"Talk of me later. Sit down an tell me how you did it. Tell me all about it.\""},
{"text":"\"You'd better take off your greatcoat, or you'll be too hot.\" Ivan, a though he'd only just thought of it, took off his coat, and, withou getting up from his chair, threw it on the bench."},
{"text":"\"Speak, please, speak.\""},
{"text":"He seemed calmer. He waited, feeling sure that Smerdyakov would tel him all about it."},
{"text":"\"How it was done?\" sighed Smerdyakov. \"It was done in a most natura way, following your very words.\""},
{"text":"\"Of my words later,\" Ivan broke in again, apparently with complet self-possession, firmly uttering his words, and not shouting as before \"Only tell me in detail how you did it. Everything, as it happened Don't forget anything. The details, above everything, the details,  beg you.\""},
{"text":"\"You'd gone away, then I fell into the cellar.\""},
{"text":"\"In a fit or in a sham one?\""},
{"text":"\"A sham one, naturally. I shammed it all. I went quietly down the step to the very bottom and lay down quietly, and as I lay down I gave  scream, and struggled, till they carried me out.\""},
{"text":"\"Stay! And were you shamming all along, afterwards, and in th hospital?\""},
{"text":"\"No, not at all. Next day, in the morning, before they took me to th hospital, I had a real attack and a more violent one than I've had fo years. For two days I was quite unconscious.\""},
{"text":"\"All right, all right. Go on.\""},
{"text":"\"They laid me on the bed. I knew I'd be the other side of th partition, for whenever I was ill, Marfa Ignatyevna used to put m there, near them. She's always been very kind to me, from my birth up At night I moaned, but quietly. I kept expecting Dmitri Fyodorovitch t come.\""},
{"text":"\"Expecting him? To come to you?\""},
{"text":"\"Not to me. I expected him to come into the house, for I'd no doub that he'd come that night, for being without me and getting no news he'd be sure to come and climb over the fence, as he used to, and d something.\""},
{"text":"\"And if he hadn't come?\""},
{"text":"\"Then nothing would have happened. I should never have brought mysel to it without him.\""},
{"text":"\"All right, all right ... speak more intelligibly, don't hurry; abov all, don't leave anything out!\""},
{"text":"\"I expected him to kill Fyodor Pavlovitch. I thought that was certain for I had prepared him for it ... during the last few days. ... H knew about the knocks, that was the chief thing. With hi suspiciousness and the fury which had been growing in him all thos days, he was bound to get into the house by means of those taps. Tha was inevitable, so I was expecting him.\""},
{"text":"\"Stay,\" Ivan interrupted; \"if he had killed him, he would have take the money and carried it away; you must have considered that. Wha would you have got by it afterwards? I don't see.\""},
{"text":"\"But he would never have found the money. That was only what I tol him, that the money was under the mattress. But that wasn't true. I had been lying in a box. And afterwards I suggested to Fyodo Pavlovitch, as I was the only person he trusted, to hide the envelop with the notes in the corner behind the icons, for no one would hav guessed that place, especially if they came in a hurry. So that's wher the envelope lay, in the corner behind the icons. It would have bee absurd to keep it under the mattress; the box, anyway, could be locked But all believe it was under the mattress. A stupid thing to believe So if Dmitri Fyodorovitch had committed the murder, finding nothing, h would either have run away in a hurry, afraid of every sound, as alway happens with murderers, or he would have been arrested. So I coul always have clambered up to the icons and have taken away the mone next morning or even that night, and it would have all been put down t Dmitri Fyodorovitch. I could reckon upon that.\""},
{"text":"\"But what if he did not kill him, but only knocked him down?\""},
{"text":"\"If he did not kill him, of course, I would not have ventured to tak the money, and nothing would have happened. But I calculated that h would beat him senseless, and I should have time to take it then, an then I'd make out to Fyodor Pavlovitch that it was no one but Dmitr Fyodorovitch who had taken the money after beating him.\""},
{"text":"\"Stop ... I am getting mixed. Then it was Dmitri after all who kille him; you only took the money?\""},
{"text":"\"No, he didn't kill him. Well, I might as well have told you now tha he was the murderer. ... But I don't want to lie to you now, because ... because if you really haven't understood till now, as I see fo myself, and are not pretending, so as to throw your guilt on me to m very face, you are still responsible for it all, since you knew of th murder and charged me to do it, and went away knowing all about it. An so I want to prove to your face this evening that you are the only rea murderer in the whole affair, and I am not the real murderer, though  did kill him. You are the rightful murderer.\""},
{"text":"\"Why, why, am I a murderer? Oh, God!\" Ivan cried, unable to restrai himself at last, and forgetting that he had put off discussing himsel till the end of the conversation. \"You still mean that Tchermashnya Stay, tell me, why did you want my consent, if you really too Tchermashnya for consent? How will you explain that now?\""},
{"text":"\"Assured of your consent, I should have known that you wouldn't hav made an outcry over those three thousand being lost, even if I'd bee suspected, instead of Dmitri Fyodorovitch, or as his accomplice; on th contrary, you would have protected me from others. ... And when yo got your inheritance you would have rewarded me when you were able, al the rest of your life. For you'd have received your inheritance throug me, seeing that if he had married Agrafena Alexandrovna, you wouldn' have had a farthing.\""},
{"text":"\"Ah! Then you intended to worry me all my life afterwards,\" snarle Ivan. \"And what if I hadn't gone away then, but had informed agains you?\""},
{"text":"\"What could you have informed? That I persuaded you to go t Tchermashnya? That's all nonsense. Besides, after our conversation yo would either have gone away or have stayed. If you had stayed, nothin would have happened. I should have known that you didn't want it done and should have attempted nothing. As you went away, it meant yo assured me that you wouldn't dare to inform against me at the trial and that you'd overlook my having the three thousand. And, indeed, yo couldn't have prosecuted me afterwards, because then I should have tol it all in the court; that is, not that I had stolen the money or kille him--I shouldn't have said that--but that you'd put me up to th theft and the murder, though I didn't consent to it. That's why  needed your consent, so that you couldn't have cornered me afterwards for what proof could you have had? I could always have cornered you revealing your eagerness for your father's death, and I tell you th public would have believed it all, and you would have been ashamed fo the rest of your life.\""},
{"text":"\"Was I then so eager, was I?\" Ivan snarled again."},
{"text":"\"To be sure you were, and by your consent you silently sanctioned m doing it.\" Smerdyakov looked resolutely at Ivan. He was very weak an spoke slowly and wearily, but some hidden inner force urged him on. H evidently had some design. Ivan felt that."},
{"text":"\"Go on,\" he said. \"Tell me what happened that night.\""},
{"text":"\"What more is there to tell! I lay there and I thought I heard th master shout. And before that Grigory Vassilyevitch had suddenly got u and came out, and he suddenly gave a scream, and then all was silenc and darkness. I lay there waiting, my heart beating; I couldn't bea it. I got up at last, went out. I saw the window open on the left int the garden, and I stepped to the left to listen whether he was sittin there alive, and I heard the master moving about, sighing, so I knew h was alive. `Ech!' I thought. I went to the window and shouted to th master, `It's I.' And he shouted to me, `He's been, he's been; he's ru away.' He meant Dmitri Fyodorovitch had been. `He's killed Grigory! `Where?' I whispered. `There, in the corner,' he pointed. He wa whispering, too. `Wait a bit,' I said. I went to the corner of th garden to look, and there I came upon Grigory Vassilyevitch lying b the wall, covered with blood, senseless. So it's true that Dmitr Fyodorovitch has been here, was the thought that came into my head, an I determined on the spot to make an end of it, as Grigor Vassilyevitch, even if he were alive, would see nothing of it, as h lay there senseless. The only risk was that Marfa Ignatyevna might wak up. I felt that at the moment, but the longing to get it done came ove me, till I could scarcely breathe. I went back to the window to th master and said, `She's here, she's come; Agrafena Alexandrovna ha come, wants to be let in.' And he started like a baby. `Where is she? he fairly gasped, but couldn't believe it. `She's standing there,' sai I. `Open.' He looked out of the window at me, half believing and hal distrustful, but afraid to open. `Why, he is afraid of me now,'  thought. And it was funny. I bethought me to knock on the window-fram those taps we'd agreed upon as a signal that Grushenka had come, in hi presence, before his eyes. He didn't seem to believe my word, but a soon as he heard the taps, he ran at once to open the door. He opene it. I would have gone in, but he stood in the way to prevent m passing. `Where is she? Where is she?' He looked at me, all of  tremble. `Well,' thought I, `if he's so frightened of me as all that it's a bad look out!' And my legs went weak with fright that h wouldn't let me in or would call out, or Marfa Ignatyevna would run up or something else might happen. I don't remember now, but I must hav stood pale, facing him. I whispered to him, `Why, she's there, there under the window; how is it you don't see her?' I said. `Bring he then, bring her.' `She's afraid,' said I; `she was frightened at th noise, she's hidden in the bushes; go and call to her yourself from th study.' He ran to the window, put the candle in the window `Grushenka,' he cried, `Grushenka, are you here?' Though he cried that he didn't want to lean out of the window, he didn't want to move awa from me, for he was panic-stricken; he was so frightened he didn't dar to turn his back on me. `Why, here she is,' said I. I went up to th window and leaned right out of it. `Here she is; she's in the bush laughing at you, don't you see her?' He suddenly believed it; he wa all of a shake--he was awfully crazy about her--and he leaned righ out of the window. I snatched up that iron paperweight from his table do you remember, weighing about three pounds? I swung it and hit him o the top of the skull with the corner of it. He didn't even cry out. H only sank down suddenly, and I hit him again and a third time. And th third time I knew I'd broken his skull. He suddenly rolled on his back face upwards, covered with blood. I looked round. There was no blood o me, not a spot. I wiped the paperweight, put it back, went up to th icons, took the money out of the envelope, and flung the envelope o the floor and the pink ribbon beside it. I went out into the garden al of a tremble, straight to the apple-tree with a hollow in it--you kno that hollow. I'd marked it long before and put a rag and a piece o paper ready in it. I wrapped all the notes in the rag and stuffed i deep down in the hole. And there it stayed for over a fortnight. I too it out later, when I came out of the hospital. I went back to my bed lay down and thought, `If Grigory Vassilyevitch has been kille outright it may be a bad job for me, but if he is not killed an recovers, it will be first-rate, for then he'll bear witness tha Dmitri Fyodorovitch has been here, and so he must have killed him an taken the money.' Then I began groaning with suspense and impatience so as to wake Marfa Ignatyevna as soon as possible. At last she got u and she rushed to me, but when she saw Grigory Vassilyevitch was no there, she ran out, and I heard her scream in the garden. And that se it all going and set my mind at rest.\""},
{"text":"He stopped. Ivan had listened all the time in dead silence withou stirring or taking his eyes off him. As he told his story Smerdyako glanced at him from time to time, but for the most part kept his eye averted. When he had finished he was evidently agitated and wa breathing hard. The perspiration stood out on his face. But it wa impossible to tell whether it was remorse he was feeling, or what."},
{"text":"\"Stay,\" cried Ivan, pondering. \"What about the door? If he only opene the door to you, how could Grigory have seen it open before? Fo Grigory saw it before you went.\""},
{"text":"It was remarkable that Ivan spoke quite amicably, in a different tone not angry as before, so if anyone had opened the door at that momen and peeped in at them, he would certainly have concluded that they wer talking peaceably about some ordinary, though interesting, subject."},
{"text":"\"As for that door and Grigory Vassilyevitch's having seen it open that's only his fancy,\" said Smerdyakov, with a wry smile. \"He is not  man, I assure you, but an obstinate mule. He didn't see it, but fancie he had seen it, and there's no shaking him. It's just our luck he too that notion into his head, for they can't fail to convict Dmitr Fyodorovitch after that.\""},
{"text":"\"Listen ...\" said Ivan, beginning to seem bewildered again and makin an effort to grasp something. \"Listen. There are a lot of questions  want to ask you, but I forget them ... I keep forgetting and gettin mixed up. Yes. Tell me this at least, why did you open the envelope an leave it there on the floor? Why didn't you simply carry off th envelope? ... When you were telling me, I thought you spoke about i as though it were the right thing to do ... but why, I can' understand. ...\""},
{"text":"\"I did that for a good reason. For if a man had known all about it, a I did for instance, if he'd seen those notes before, and perhaps ha put them in that envelope himself, and had seen the envelope sealed u and addressed, with his own eyes, if such a man had done the murder what should have made him tear open the envelope afterwards, especiall in such desperate haste, since he'd know for certain the notes must b in the envelope? No, if the robber had been someone like me, he' simply have put the envelope straight in his pocket and got away wit it as fast as he could. But it'd be quite different with Dmitr Fyodorovitch. He only knew about the envelope by hearsay; he had neve seen it, and if he'd found it, for instance, under the mattress, he' have torn it open as quickly as possible to make sure the notes were i it. And he'd have thrown the envelope down, without having time t think that it would be evidence against him. Because he was not a habitual thief and had never directly stolen anything before, for he i a gentleman born, and if he did bring himself to steal, it would not b regular stealing, but simply taking what was his own, for he'd told th whole town he meant to before, and had even bragged aloud befor everyone that he'd go and take his property from Fyodor Pavlovitch.  didn't say that openly to the prosecutor when I was being examined, bu quite the contrary, I brought him to it by a hint, as though I didn' see it myself, and as though he'd thought of it himself and I hadn' prompted him; so that Mr. Prosecutor's mouth positively watered at m suggestion.\""},
{"text":"\"But can you possibly have thought of all that on the spot?\" crie Ivan, overcome with astonishment. He looked at Smerdyakov again wit alarm."},
{"text":"\"Mercy on us! Could anyone think of it all in such a desperate hurry It was all thought out beforehand.\""},
{"text":"\"Well ... well, it was the devil helped you!\" Ivan cried again. \"No you are not a fool, you are far cleverer than I thought. ...\""},
{"text":"He got up, obviously intending to walk across the room. He was i terrible distress. But as the table blocked his way, and there wa hardly room to pass between the table and the wall, he only turne round where he stood and sat down again. Perhaps the impossibility o moving irritated him, as he suddenly cried out almost as furiously a before."},
{"text":"\"Listen, you miserable, contemptible creature! Don't you understan that if I haven't killed you, it's simply because I am keeping you t answer tomorrow at the trial. God sees,\" Ivan raised his hand, \"perhap I, too, was guilty; perhaps I really had a secret desire for m father's ... death, but I swear I was not as guilty as you think, an perhaps I didn't urge you on at all. No, no, I didn't urge you on! Bu no matter, I will give evidence against myself tomorrow at the trial I'm determined to! I shall tell everything, everything. But we'll mak our appearance together. And whatever you may say against me at th trial, whatever evidence you give, I'll face it; I am not afraid o you. I'll confirm it all myself! But you must confess, too! You must you must; we'll go together. That's how it shall be!\""},
{"text":"Ivan said this solemnly and resolutely and from his flashing eyes alon it could be seen that it would be so."},
{"text":"\"You are ill, I see; you are quite ill. Your eyes are yellow,\"Smerdyakov commented, without the least irony, with apparent sympath in fact."},
{"text":"\"We'll go together,\" Ivan repeated. \"And if you won't go, no matter I'll go alone.\""},
{"text":"Smerdyakov paused as though pondering."},
{"text":"\"There'll be nothing of the sort, and you won't go,\" he concluded a last positively."},
{"text":"\"You don't understand me,\" Ivan exclaimed reproachfully."},
{"text":"\"You'll be too much ashamed, if you confess it all. And, what's more it will be no use at all, for I shall say straight out that I neve said anything of the sort to you, and that you are either ill (and i looks like it, too), or that you're so sorry for your brother that yo are sacrificing yourself to save him and have invented it all agains me, for you've always thought no more of me than if I'd been a fly. An who will believe you, and what single proof have you got?\""},
{"text":"\"Listen, you showed me those notes just now to convince me.\""},
{"text":"Smerdyakov lifted the book off the notes and laid it on one side."},
{"text":"\"Take that money away with you,\" Smerdyakov sighed."},
{"text":"\"Of course, I shall take it. But why do you give it to me, if yo committed the murder for the sake of it?\" Ivan looked at him with grea surprise."},
{"text":"\"I don't want it,\" Smerdyakov articulated in a shaking voice, with  gesture of refusal. \"I did have an idea of beginning a new life wit that money in Moscow or, better still, abroad. I did dream of it chiefly because `all things are lawful.' That was quite right what yo taught me, for you talked a lot to me about that. For if there's n everlasting God, there's no such thing as virtue, and there's no nee of it. You were right there. So that's how I looked at it.\""},
{"text":"\"Did you come to that of yourself?\" asked Ivan, with a wry smile."},
{"text":"\"With your guidance.\""},
{"text":"\"And now, I suppose, you believe in God, since you are giving back th money?\""},
{"text":"\"No, I don't believe,\" whispered Smerdyakov."},
{"text":"\"Then why are you giving it back?\""},
{"text":"\"Leave off ... that's enough!\" Smerdyakov waved his hand again. \"Yo used to say yourself that everything was lawful, so now why are you s upset, too? You even want to go and give evidence against yourself. ... Only there'll be nothing of the sort! You won't go to giv evidence,\" Smerdyakov decided with conviction."},
{"text":"\"You'll see,\" said Ivan."},
{"text":"\"It isn't possible. You are very clever. You are fond of money, I kno that. You like to be respected, too, for you're very proud; you are fa too fond of female charms, too, and you mind most of all about livin in undisturbed comfort, without having to depend on anyone--that' what you care most about. You won't want to spoil your life forever b taking such a disgrace on yourself. You are like Fyodor Pavlovitch, yo are more like him than any of his children; you've the same soul as h had.\""},
{"text":"\"You are not a fool,\" said Ivan, seeming struck. The blood rushed t his face. \"You are serious now!\" he observed, looking suddenly a Smerdyakov with a different expression."},
{"text":"\"It was your pride made you think I was a fool. Take the money.\""},
{"text":"Ivan took the three rolls of notes and put them in his pocket withou wrapping them in anything."},
{"text":"\"I shall show them at the court tomorrow,\" he said."},
{"text":"\"Nobody will believe you, as you've plenty of money of your own; yo may simply have taken it out of your cashbox and brought it to th court.\""},
{"text":"Ivan rose from his seat."},
{"text":"\"I repeat,\" he said, \"the only reason I haven't killed you is that  need you for tomorrow, remember that, don't forget it!\""},
{"text":"\"Well, kill me. Kill me now,\" Smerdyakov said, all at once lookin strangely at Ivan. \"You won't dare do that even!\" he added, with  bitter smile. \"You won't dare to do anything, you, who used to be s bold!\""},
{"text":"\"Till tomorrow,\" cried Ivan, and moved to go out."},
{"text":"\"Stay a moment. ... Show me those notes again.\""},
{"text":"Ivan took out the notes and showed them to him. Smerdyakov looked a them for ten seconds."},
{"text":"\"Well, you can go,\" he said, with a wave of his hand. \"Iva Fyodorovitch!\" he called after him again."},
{"text":"\"What do you want?\" Ivan turned without stopping."},
{"text":"\"Goodbye!\""},
{"text":"\"Till tomorrow!\" Ivan cried again, and he walked out of the cottage."},
{"text":"The snowstorm was still raging. He walked the first few steps boldly but suddenly began staggering. \"It's something physical,\" he though with a grin. Something like joy was springing up in his heart. He wa conscious of unbounded resolution; he would make an end of the waverin that had so tortured him of late. His determination was taken, \"and no it will not be changed,\" he thought with relief. At that moment h stumbled against something and almost fell down. Stopping short, h made out at his feet the peasant he had knocked down, still lyin senseless and motionless. The snow had almost covered his face. Iva seized him and lifted him in his arms. Seeing a light in the littl house to the right he went up, knocked at the shutters, and asked th man to whom the house belonged to help him carry the peasant to th police-station, promising him three roubles. The man got ready and cam out. I won't describe in detail how Ivan succeeded in his object bringing the peasant to the police-station and arranging for a docto to see him at once, providing with a liberal hand for the expenses.  will only say that this business took a whole hour, but Ivan was wel content with it. His mind wandered and worked incessantly."},
{"text":"\"If I had not taken my decision so firmly for tomorrow,\" he reflecte with satisfaction, \"I should not have stayed a whole hour to look afte the peasant, but should have passed by, without caring about his bein frozen. I am quite capable of watching myself, by the way,\" he though at the same instant, with still greater satisfaction, \"although the have decided that I am going out of my mind!\""},
{"text":"Just as he reached his own house he stopped short, asking himsel suddenly hadn't he better go at once to the prosecutor and tell hi everything. He decided the question by turning back to the house \"Everything together tomorrow!\" he whispered to himself, and, strang to say, almost all his gladness and self-satisfaction passed in on instant."},
{"text":"As he entered his own room he felt something like a touch of ice on hi heart, like a recollection or, more exactly, a reminder, of somethin agonizing and revolting that was in that room now, at that moment, an had been there before. He sank wearily on his sofa. The old woma brought him a samovar; he made tea, but did not touch it. He sat on th sofa and felt giddy. He felt that he was ill and helpless. He wa beginning to drop asleep, but got up uneasily and walked across th room to shake off his drowsiness. At moments he fancied he wa delirious, but it was not illness that he thought of most. Sitting dow again, he began looking round, as though searching for something. Thi happened several times. At last his eyes were fastened intently on on point. Ivan smiled, but an angry flush suffused his face. He sat a lon time in his place, his head propped on both arms, though he looke sideways at the same point, at the sofa that stood against the opposit wall. There was evidently something, some object, that irritated hi there, worried him and tormented him."},
{"text":" IX"},
{"text":"The Devil. Ivan's Nightmare"},
{"text":"I am not a doctor, but yet I feel that the moment has come when I mus inevitably give the reader some account of the nature of Ivan' illness. Anticipating events I can say at least one thing: he was a that moment on the very eve of an attack of brain fever. Though hi health had long been affected, it had offered a stubborn resistance t the fever which in the end gained complete mastery over it. Though  know nothing of medicine, I venture to hazard the suggestion that h really had perhaps, by a terrible effort of will, succeeded in delayin the attack for a time, hoping, of course, to check it completely. H knew that he was unwell, but he loathed the thought of being ill a that fatal time, at the approaching crisis in his life, when he neede to have all his wits about him, to say what he had to say boldly an resolutely and \"to justify himself to himself.\""},
{"text":"He had, however, consulted the new doctor, who had been brought fro Moscow by a fantastic notion of Katerina Ivanovna's to which I hav referred already. After listening to him and examining him the docto came to the conclusion that he was actually suffering from som disorder of the brain, and was not at all surprised by an admissio which Ivan had reluctantly made him. \"Hallucinations are quite likel in your condition,\" the doctor opined, \"though it would be better t verify them ... you must take steps at once, without a moment' delay, or things will go badly with you.\" But Ivan did not follow thi judicious advice and did not take to his bed to be nursed. \"I a walking about, so I am strong enough, if I drop, it'll be differen then, anyone may nurse me who likes,\" he decided, dismissing th subject."},
{"text":"And so he was sitting almost conscious himself of his delirium and, a I have said already, looking persistently at some object on the sof against the opposite wall. Someone appeared to be sitting there, thoug goodness knows how he had come in, for he had not been in the room whe Ivan came into it, on his return from Smerdyakov. This was a person or more accurately speaking, a Russian gentleman of a particular kind, n longer young, qui faisait la cinquantaine, as the French say, wit rather long, still thick, dark hair, slightly streaked with gray and  small pointed beard. He was wearing a brownish reefer jacket, rathe shabby, evidently made by a good tailor though, and of a fashion a least three years old, that had been discarded by smart and well-to-d people for the last two years. His linen and his long scarf-lik necktie were all such as are worn by people who aim at being stylish but on closer inspection his linen was not over-clean and his wid scarf was very threadbare. The visitor's check trousers were o excellent cut, but were too light in color and too tight for th present fashion. His soft fluffy white hat was out of keeping with th season."},
{"text":"In brief there was every appearance of gentility on straitened means It looked as though the gentleman belonged to that class of idl landowners who used to flourish in the times of serfdom. He ha unmistakably been, at some time, in good and fashionable society, ha once had good connections, had possibly preserved them indeed, but after a gay youth, becoming gradually impoverished on the abolition o serfdom, he had sunk into the position of a poor relation of the bes class, wandering from one good old friend to another and received b them for his companionable and accommodating disposition and as being after all, a gentleman who could be asked to sit down with anyone though, of course, not in a place of honor. Such gentlemen o accommodating temper and dependent position, who can tell a story, tak a hand at cards, and who have a distinct aversion for any duties tha may be forced upon them, are usually solitary creatures, eithe bachelors or widowers. Sometimes they have children, but if so, th children are always being brought up at a distance, at some aunt's, t whom these gentlemen never allude in good society, seeming ashamed o the relationship. They gradually lose sight of their childre altogether, though at intervals they receive a birthday or Christma letter from them and sometimes even answer it."},
{"text":"The countenance of the unexpected visitor was not so much good-natured as accommodating and ready to assume any amiable expression as occasio might arise. He had no watch, but he had a tortoiseshell lorgnette on  black ribbon. On the middle finger of his right hand was a massive gol ring with a cheap opal stone in it."},
{"text":"Ivan was angrily silent and would not begin the conversation. Th visitor waited and sat exactly like a poor relation who had come dow from his room to keep his host company at tea, and was discreetl silent, seeing that his host was frowning and preoccupied. But he wa ready for any affable conversation as soon as his host should begin it All at once his face expressed a sudden solicitude."},
{"text":"\"I say,\" he began to Ivan, \"excuse me, I only mention it to remind you You went to Smerdyakov's to find out about Katerina Ivanovna, but yo came away without finding out anything about her, you probabl forgot--\""},
{"text":"\"Ah, yes,\" broke from Ivan and his face grew gloomy with uneasiness \"Yes, I'd forgotten ... but it doesn't matter now, never mind, til tomorrow,\" he muttered to himself, \"and you,\" he added, addressing hi visitor, \"I should have remembered that myself in a minute, for tha was just what was tormenting me! Why do you interfere, as if I shoul believe that you prompted me, and that I didn't remember it of myself?\""},
{"text":"\"Don't believe it then,\" said the gentleman, smiling amicably, \"what' the good of believing against your will? Besides, proofs are no help t believing, especially material proofs. Thomas believed, not because h saw Christ risen, but because he wanted to believe, before he saw. Loo at the spiritualists, for instance. ... I am very fond of them .. only fancy, they imagine that they are serving the cause of religion because the devils show them their horns from the other world. That they say, is a material proof, so to speak, of the existence of anothe world. The other world and material proofs, what next! And if you com to that, does proving there's a devil prove that there's a God? I wan to join an idealist society, I'll lead the opposition in it, I'll say  am a realist, but not a materialist, he he!\""},
{"text":"\"Listen,\" Ivan suddenly got up from the table. \"I seem to b delirious. ... I am delirious, in fact, talk any nonsense you like,  don't care! You won't drive me to fury, as you did last time. But  feel somehow ashamed. ... I want to walk about the room. ...  sometimes don't see you and don't even hear your voice as I did las time, but I always guess what you are prating, for it's I, I mysel speaking, not you. Only I don't know whether I was dreaming last tim or whether I really saw you. I'll wet a towel and put it on my head an perhaps you'll vanish into air.\""},
{"text":"Ivan went into the corner, took a towel, and did as he said, and with  wet towel on his head began walking up and down the room."},
{"text":"\"I am so glad you treat me so familiarly,\" the visitor began."},
{"text":"\"Fool,\" laughed Ivan, \"do you suppose I should stand on ceremony wit you? I am in good spirits now, though I've a pain in my forehead .. and in the top of my head ... only please don't talk philosophy, a you did last time. If you can't take yourself off, talk of somethin amusing. Talk gossip, you are a poor relation, you ought to tal gossip. What a nightmare to have! But I am not afraid of you. I'll ge the better of you. I won't be taken to a madhouse!\""},
{"text":"\"C'est charmant, poor relation. Yes, I am in my natural shape. For wha am I on earth but a poor relation? By the way, I am listening to yo and am rather surprised to find you are actually beginning to take m for something real, not simply your fancy, as you persisted i declaring last time--\""},
{"text":"\"Never for one minute have I taken you for reality,\" Ivan cried with  sort of fury. \"You are a lie, you are my illness, you are a phantom It's only that I don't know how to destroy you and I see I must suffe for a time. You are my hallucination. You are the incarnation o myself, but only of one side of me ... of my thoughts and feelings but only the nastiest and stupidest of them. From that point of vie you might be of interest to me, if only I had time to waste on you--\""},
{"text":"\"Excuse me, excuse me, I'll catch you. When you flew out at Alyosh under the lamppost this evening and shouted to him, `You learnt it fro him! How do you know that he visits me?' you were thinking of me then So for one brief moment you did believe that I really exist,\" th gentleman laughed blandly."},
{"text":"\"Yes, that was a moment of weakness ... but I couldn't believe i you. I don't know whether I was asleep or awake last time. Perhaps  was only dreaming then and didn't see you really at all--\""},
{"text":"\"And why were you so surly with Alyosha just now? He is a dear; I'v treated him badly over Father Zossima.\""},
{"text":"\"Don't talk of Alyosha! How dare you, you flunkey!\" Ivan laughed again."},
{"text":"\"You scold me, but you laugh--that's a good sign. But you are ever s much more polite than you were last time and I know why: that grea resolution of yours--\""},
{"text":"\"Don't speak of my resolution,\" cried Ivan, savagely."},
{"text":"\"I understand, I understand, c'est noble, c'est charmant, you are goin to defend your brother and to sacrifice yourself ... C'es chevaleresque.\""},
{"text":"\"Hold your tongue, I'll kick you!\""},
{"text":"\"I shan't be altogether sorry, for then my object will be attained. I you kick me, you must believe in my reality, for people don't kic ghosts. Joking apart, it doesn't matter to me, scold if you like though it's better to be a trifle more polite even to me. `Fool flunkey!' what words!\""},
{"text":"\"Scolding you, I scold myself,\" Ivan laughed again, \"you are myself myself, only with a different face. You just say what I am thinking ... and are incapable of saying anything new!\""},
{"text":"\"If I am like you in my way of thinking, it's all to my credit,\" th gentleman declared, with delicacy and dignity."},
{"text":"\"You choose out only my worst thoughts, and what's more, the stupi ones. You are stupid and vulgar. You are awfully stupid. No, I can' put up with you! What am I to do, what am I to do?\" Ivan said throug his clenched teeth."},
{"text":"\"My dear friend, above all things I want to behave like a gentleman an to be recognized as such,\" the visitor began in an excess o deprecating and simple-hearted pride, typical of a poor relation. \"I a poor, but ... I won't say very honest, but ... it's an axio generally accepted in society that I am a fallen angel. I certainl can't conceive how I can ever have been an angel. If I ever was, i must have been so long ago that there's no harm in forgetting it. Now  only prize the reputation of being a gentlemanly person and live as  can, trying to make myself agreeable. I love men genuinely, I've bee greatly calumniated! Here when I stay with you from time to time, m life gains a kind of reality and that's what I like most of all. Yo see, like you, I suffer from the fantastic and so I love the realism o earth. Here, with you, everything is circumscribed, here all i formulated and geometrical, while we have nothing but indeterminat equations! I wander about here dreaming. I like dreaming. Besides, o earth I become superstitious. Please don't laugh, that's just what  like, to become superstitious. I adopt all your habits here: I've grow fond of going to the public baths, would you believe it? and I go an steam myself with merchants and priests. What I dream of is becomin incarnate once for all and irrevocably in the form of some merchant' wife weighing eighteen stone, and of believing all she believes. M ideal is to go to church and offer a candle in simple-hearted faith upon my word it is. Then there would be an end to my sufferings. I lik being doctored too; in the spring there was an outbreak of smallpox an I went and was vaccinated in a foundling hospital--if only you kne how I enjoyed myself that day. I subscribed ten roubles in the cause o the Slavs! ... But you are not listening. Do you know, you are not a all well this evening? I know you went yesterday to that doctor .. well, what about your health? What did the doctor say?\""},
{"text":"\"Fool!\" Ivan snapped out."},
{"text":"\"But you are clever, anyway. You are scolding again? I didn't ask ou of sympathy. You needn't answer. Now rheumatism has come in again--\""},
{"text":"\"Fool!\" repeated Ivan."},
{"text":"\"You keep saying the same thing; but I had such an attack of rheumatis last year that I remember it to this day.\""},
{"text":"\"The devil have rheumatism!\""},
{"text":"\"Why not, if I sometimes put on fleshly form? I put on fleshly form an I take the consequences. Satan sum et nihil humanum a me alienum puto.\""},
{"text":"\"What, what, Satan sum et nihil humanum ... that's not bad for th devil!\""},
{"text":"\"I am glad I've pleased you at last.\""},
{"text":"\"But you didn't get that from me.\" Ivan stopped suddenly, seemin struck. \"That never entered my head, that's strange.\""},
{"text":"\"C'est du nouveau, n'est-ce pas? This time I'll act honestly an explain to you. Listen, in dreams and especially in nightmares, fro indigestion or anything, a man sees sometimes such artistic visions such complex and real actuality, such events, even a whole world o events, woven into such a plot, with such unexpected details from th most exalted matters to the last button on a cuff, as I swear Le Tolstoy has never invented. Yet such dreams are sometimes seen not b writers, but by the most ordinary people, officials, journalists priests. ... The subject is a complete enigma. A statesman confesse to me, indeed, that all his best ideas came to him when he was asleep Well, that's how it is now, though I am your hallucination, yet just a in a nightmare, I say original things which had not entered your hea before. So I don't repeat your ideas, yet I am only your nightmare nothing more.\""},
{"text":"\"You are lying, your aim is to convince me you exist apart and are no my nightmare, and now you are asserting you are a dream.\""},
{"text":"\"My dear fellow, I've adopted a special method today, I'll explain i to you afterwards. Stay, where did I break off? Oh, yes! I caught col then, only not here but yonder.\""},
{"text":"\"Where is yonder? Tell me, will you be here long? Can't you go away?\"Ivan exclaimed almost in despair. He ceased walking to and fro, sa down on the sofa, leaned his elbows on the table again and held hi head tight in both hands. He pulled the wet towel off and flung it awa in vexation. It was evidently of no use."},
{"text":"\"Your nerves are out of order,\" observed the gentleman, with  carelessly easy, though perfectly polite, air. \"You are angry with m even for being able to catch cold, though it happened in a most natura way. I was hurrying then to a diplomatic soire at the house of a lad of high rank in Petersburg, who was aiming at influence in th Ministry. Well, an evening suit, white tie, gloves, though I was Go knows where and had to fly through space to reach your earth. ... O course, it took only an instant, but you know a ray of light from th sun takes full eight minutes, and fancy in an evening suit and ope waistcoat. Spirits don't freeze, but when one's in fleshly form, well ... in brief, I didn't think, and set off, and you know in thos ethereal spaces, in the water that is above the firmament, there's suc a frost ... at least one can't call it frost, you can fancy, 150 below zero! You know the game the village girls play--they invite th unwary to lick an ax in thirty degrees of frost, the tongue instantl freezes to it and the dupe tears the skin off, so it bleeds. But that' only in 30, in 150 I imagine it would be enough to put your finger o the ax and it would be the end of it ... if only there could be an a there.\""},
{"text":"\"And can there be an ax there?\" Ivan interrupted, carelessly an disdainfully. He was exerting himself to the utmost not to believe i the delusion and not to sink into complete insanity."},
{"text":"\"An ax?\" the guest interrupted in surprise."},
{"text":"\"Yes, what would become of an ax there?\" Ivan cried suddenly, with  sort of savage and insistent obstinacy."},
{"text":"\"What would become of an ax in space? Quelle ide! If it were to fal to any distance, it would begin, I think, flying round the eart without knowing why, like a satellite. The astronomers would calculat the rising and the setting of the ax, Gatzuk would put it in hi calendar, that's all.\""},
{"text":"\"You are stupid, awfully stupid,\" said Ivan peevishly. \"Fib mor cleverly or I won't listen. You want to get the better of me b realism, to convince me that you exist, but I don't want to believe yo exist! I won't believe it!\""},
{"text":"\"But I am not fibbing, it's all the truth; the truth is unhappil hardly ever amusing. I see you persist in expecting something big o me, and perhaps something fine. That's a great pity, for I only giv what I can--\""},
{"text":"\"Don't talk philosophy, you ass!\""},
{"text":"\"Philosophy, indeed, when all my right side is numb and I am moanin and groaning. I've tried all the medical faculty: they can diagnos beautifully, they have the whole of your disease at their fingertips but they've no idea how to cure you. There was an enthusiastic littl student here, `You may die,' said he, `but you'll know perfectly wha disease you are dying of!' And then what a way they have sending peopl to specialists! `We only diagnose,' they say, `but go to such-and-suc a specialist, he'll cure you.' The old doctor who used to cure al sorts of disease has completely disappeared, I assure you, now ther are only specialists and they all advertise in the newspapers. I anything is wrong with your nose, they send you to Paris: there, the say, is a European specialist who cures noses. If you go to Paris he'll look at your nose; I can only cure your right nostril, he'll tel you, for I don't cure the left nostril, that's not my speciality, bu go to Vienna, there there's a specialist who will cure your lef nostril. What are you to do? I fell back on popular remedies, a Germa doctor advised me to rub myself with honey and salt in the bathhouse Solely to get an extra bath I went, smeared myself all over and it di me no good at all. In despair I wrote to Count Mattei in Milan. He sen me a book and some drops, bless him, and, only fancy, Hoff's mal extract cured me! I bought it by accident, drank a bottle and a half o it, and I was ready to dance, it took it away completely. I made up m mind to write to the papers to thank him, I was prompted by a feelin of gratitude, and only fancy, it led to no end of a bother: not  single paper would take my letter. `It would be very reactionary,' the said, `no one will believe it. Le diable n'existe point. You'd bette remain anonymous,' they advised me. What use is a letter of thanks i it's anonymous? I laughed with the men at the newspaper office; `It' reactionary to believe in God in our days,' I said, `but I am th devil, so I may be believed in.' `We quite understand that,' they said `Who doesn't believe in the devil? Yet it won't do, it might injure ou reputation. As a joke, if you like.' But I thought as a joke i wouldn't be very witty. So it wasn't printed. And do you know, I hav felt sore about it to this day. My best feelings, gratitude, fo instance, are literally denied me simply from my social position.\""},
{"text":"\"Philosophical reflections again?\" Ivan snarled malignantly."},
{"text":"\"God preserve me from it, but one can't help complaining sometimes.  am a slandered man. You upbraid me every moment with being stupid. On can see you are young. My dear fellow, intelligence isn't the onl thing! I have naturally a kind and merry heart. `I also writ vaudevilles of all sorts.' You seem to take me for Hlestakov grown old but my fate is a far more serious one. Before time was, by some decre which I could never make out, I was predestined `to deny' and yet I a genuinely good-hearted and not at all inclined to negation. `No, yo must go and deny, without denial there's no criticism and what would  journal be without a column of criticism?' Without criticism it woul be nothing but one `hosannah.' But nothing but hosannah is not enoug for life, the hosannah must be tried in the crucible of doubt and s on, in the same style. But I don't meddle in that, I didn't create it I am not answerable for it. Well, they've chosen their scapegoat they've made me write the column of criticism and so life was mad possible. We understand that comedy; I, for instance, simply ask fo annihilation. No, live, I am told, for there'd be nothing without you If everything in the universe were sensible, nothing would happen There would be no events without you, and there must be events. S against the grain I serve to produce events and do what's irrationa because I am commanded to. For all their indisputable intelligence, me take this farce as something serious, and that is their tragedy. The suffer, of course ... but then they live, they live a real life, no a fantastic one, for suffering is life. Without suffering what would b the pleasure of it? It would be transformed into an endless churc service; it would be holy, but tedious. But what about me? I suffer but still, I don't live. I am x in an indeterminate equation. I am  sort of phantom in life who has lost all beginning and end, and who ha even forgotten his own name. You are laughing--no, you are no laughing, you are angry again. You are forever angry, all you car about is intelligence, but I repeat again that I would give away al this super-stellar life, all the ranks and honors, simply to b transformed into the soul of a merchant's wife weighing eighteen ston and set candles at God's shrine.\""},
{"text":"\"Then even you don't believe in God?\" said Ivan, with a smile o hatred."},
{"text":"\"What can I say?--that is, if you are in earnest--\""},
{"text":"\"Is there a God or not?\" Ivan cried with the same savage intensity."},
{"text":"\"Ah, then you are in earnest! My dear fellow, upon my word I don' know. There! I've said it now!\""},
{"text":"\"You don't know, but you see God? No, you are not someone apart, yo are myself, you are I and nothing more! You are rubbish, you are m fancy!\""},
{"text":"\"Well, if you like, I have the same philosophy as you, that would b true. Je pense, donc je suis, I know that for a fact; all the rest, al these worlds, God and even Satan--all that is not proved, to my mind Does all that exist of itself, or is it only an emanation of myself,  logical development of my ego which alone has existed forever: but  make haste to stop, for I believe you will be jumping up to beat m directly.\""},
{"text":"\"You'd better tell me some anecdote!\" said Ivan miserably."},
{"text":"\"There is an anecdote precisely on our subject, or rather a legend, no an anecdote. You reproach me with unbelief, you see, you say, yet yo don't believe. But, my dear fellow, I am not the only one like that. W are all in a muddle over there now and all through your science. Onc there used to be atoms, five senses, four elements, and then everythin hung together somehow. There were atoms in the ancient world even, bu since we've learned that you've discovered the chemical molecule an protoplasm and the devil knows what, we had to lower our crest. There' a regular muddle, and, above all, superstition, scandal; there's a much scandal among us as among you, you know; a little more in fact and spying, indeed, for we have our secret police department wher private information is received. Well, this wild legend belongs to ou middle ages--not yours, but ours--and no one believes it even amon us, except the old ladies of eighteen stone, not your old ladies  mean, but ours. We've everything you have, I am revealing one of ou secrets out of friendship for you; though it's forbidden. This legen is about Paradise. There was, they say, here on earth a thinker an philosopher. He rejected everything, `laws, conscience, faith,' and above all, the future life. He died; he expected to go straight t darkness and death and he found a future life before him. He wa astounded and indignant. `This is against my principles!' he said. An he was punished for that ... that is, you must excuse me, I am jus repeating what I heard myself, it's only a legend ... he wa sentenced to walk a quadrillion kilometers in the dark (we've adopte the metric system, you know) and when he has finished that quadrillion the gates of heaven would be opened to him and he'll be forgiven--\""},
{"text":"\"And what tortures have you in the other world besides the quadrillio kilometers?\" asked Ivan, with a strange eagerness."},
{"text":"\"What tortures? Ah, don't ask. In old days we had all sorts, but no they have taken chiefly to moral punishments--`the stings o conscience' and all that nonsense. We got that, too, from you, from th softening of your manners. And who's the better for it? Only those wh have got no conscience, for how can they be tortured by conscience whe they have none? But decent people who have conscience and a sense o honor suffer for it. Reforms, when the ground has not been prepared fo them, especially if they are institutions copied from abroad, d nothing but mischief! The ancient fire was better. Well, this man, wh was condemned to the quadrillion kilometers, stood still, looked roun and lay down across the road. `I won't go, I refuse on principle!' Tak the soul of an enlightened Russian atheist and mix it with the soul o the prophet Jonah, who sulked for three days and nights in the belly o the whale, and you get the character of that thinker who lay across th road.\""},
{"text":"\"What did he lie on there?\""},
{"text":"\"Well, I suppose there was something to lie on. You are not laughing?\""},
{"text":"\"Bravo!\" cried Ivan, still with the same strange eagerness. Now he wa listening with an unexpected curiosity. \"Well, is he lying there now?\""},
{"text":"\"That's the point, that he isn't. He lay there almost a thousand year and then he got up and went on.\""},
{"text":"\"What an ass!\" cried Ivan, laughing nervously and still seeming to b pondering something intently. \"Does it make any difference whether h lies there forever or walks the quadrillion kilometers? It would take  billion years to walk it?\""},
{"text":"\"Much more than that. I haven't got a pencil and paper or I could wor it out. But he got there long ago, and that's where the story begins.\""},
{"text":"\"What, he got there? But how did he get the billion years to do it?\""},
{"text":"\"Why, you keep thinking of our present earth! But our present earth ma have been repeated a billion times. Why, it's become extinct, bee frozen; cracked, broken to bits, disintegrated into its elements, agai `the water above the firmament,' then again a comet, again a sun, agai from the sun it becomes earth--and the same sequence may have bee repeated endlessly and exactly the same to every detail, most unseeml and insufferably tedious--\""},
{"text":"\"Well, well, what happened when he arrived?\""},
{"text":"\"Why, the moment the gates of Paradise were open and he walked in before he had been there two seconds, by his watch (though to m thinking his watch must have long dissolved into its elements on th way), he cried out that those two seconds were worth walking not  quadrillion kilometers but a quadrillion of quadrillions, raised to th quadrillionth power! In fact, he sang `hosannah' and overdid it so that some persons there of lofty ideas wouldn't shake hands with him a first--he'd become too rapidly reactionary, they said. The Russia temperament. I repeat, it's a legend. I give it for what it's worth. S that's the sort of ideas we have on such subjects even now.\""},
{"text":"\"I've caught you!\" Ivan cried, with an almost childish delight, a though he had succeeded in remembering something at last. \"Tha anecdote about the quadrillion years, I made up myself! I was seventee then, I was at the high school. I made up that anecdote and told it t a schoolfellow called Korovkin, it was at Moscow. ... The anecdote i so characteristic that I couldn't have taken it from anywhere.  thought I'd forgotten it ... but I've unconsciously recalled it-- recalled it myself--it was not you telling it! Thousands of things ar unconsciously remembered like that even when people are being taken t execution ... it's come back to me in a dream. You are that dream You are a dream, not a living creature!\""},
{"text":"\"From the vehemence with which you deny my existence,\" laughed th gentleman, \"I am convinced that you believe in me.\""},
{"text":"\"Not in the slightest! I haven't a hundredth part of a grain of fait in you!\""},
{"text":"\"But you have the thousandth of a grain. Homeopathic doses perhaps ar the strongest. Confess that you have faith even to the ten-thousandt of a grain.\""},
{"text":"\"Not for one minute,\" cried Ivan furiously. \"But I should like t believe in you,\" he added strangely."},
{"text":"\"Aha! There's an admission! But I am good-natured. I'll come to you assistance again. Listen, it was I caught you, not you me. I told yo your anecdote you'd forgotten, on purpose, so as to destroy your fait in me completely.\""},
{"text":"\"You are lying. The object of your visit is to convince me of you existence!\""},
{"text":"\"Just so. But hesitation, suspense, conflict between belief an disbelief--is sometimes such torture to a conscientious man, such a you are, that it's better to hang oneself at once. Knowing that you ar inclined to believe in me, I administered some disbelief by telling yo that anecdote. I lead you to belief and disbelief by turns, and I hav my motive in it. It's the new method. As soon as you disbelieve in m completely, you'll begin assuring me to my face that I am not a drea but a reality. I know you. Then I shall have attained my object, whic is an honorable one. I shall sow in you only a tiny grain of faith an it will grow into an oak-tree--and such an oak-tree that, sitting o it, you will long to enter the ranks of `the hermits in the wildernes and the saintly women,' for that is what you are secretly longing for You'll dine on locusts, you'll wander into the wilderness to save you soul!\""},
{"text":"\"Then it's for the salvation of my soul you are working, is it, yo scoundrel?\""},
{"text":"\"One must do a good work sometimes. How ill-humored you are!\""},
{"text":"\"Fool! did you ever tempt those holy men who ate locusts and praye seventeen years in the wilderness till they were overgrown with moss?\""},
{"text":"\"My dear fellow, I've done nothing else. One forgets the whole worl and all the worlds, and sticks to one such saint, because he is a ver precious diamond. One such soul, you know, is sometimes worth a whol constellation. We have our system of reckoning, you know. The conques is priceless! And some of them, on my word, are not inferior to you i culture, though you won't believe it. They can contemplate such depth of belief and disbelief at the same moment that sometimes it reall seems that they are within a hair's-breadth of being `turned upsid down,' as the actor Gorbunov says.\""},
{"text":"\"Well, did you get your nose pulled?\"[136]8"},
{"text":"\"My dear fellow,\" observed the visitor sententiously, \"it's better t get off with your nose pulled than without a nose at all. As a afflicted marquis observed not long ago (he must have been treated by  specialist) in confession to his spiritual father--a Jesuit. I wa present, it was simply charming. `Give me back my nose!' he said, an he beat his breast. `My son,' said the priest evasively, `all thing are accomplished in accordance with the inscrutable decrees o Providence, and what seems a misfortune sometimes leads t extraordinary, though unapparent, benefits. If stern destiny ha deprived you of your nose, it's to your advantage that no one can eve pull you by your nose.' `Holy father, that's no comfort,' cried th despairing marquis. `I'd be delighted to have my nose pulled every da of my life, if it were only in its proper place.' `My son,' sighs th priest, `you can't expect every blessing at once. This is murmurin against Providence, who even in this has not forgotten you, for if yo repine as you repined just now, declaring you'd be glad to have you nose pulled for the rest of your life, your desire has already bee fulfilled indirectly, for when you lost your nose, you were led by th nose.' \""},
{"text":"\"Fool, how stupid!\" cried Ivan."},
{"text":"\"My dear friend, I only wanted to amuse you. But I swear that's th genuine Jesuit casuistry and I swear that it all happened word for wor as I've told you. It happened lately and gave me a great deal o trouble. The unhappy young man shot himself that very night when he go home. I was by his side till the very last moment. Those Jesui confessionals are really my most delightful diversion at melanchol moments. Here's another incident that happened only the other day.  little blonde Norman girl of twenty--a buxom, unsophisticated beaut that would make your mouth water--comes to an old priest. She bend down and whispers her sin into the grating. `Why, my daughter, have yo fallen again already?' cries the priest. `O Sancta Maria, what do  hear! Not the same man this time, how long is this going on? Aren't yo ashamed!' `Ah, mon pre,' answers the sinner with tears of penitence `a lui fait tant de plaisir, et  moi si peu de peine!' Fancy, such a answer! I drew back. It was the cry of nature, better than innocenc itself, if you like. I absolved her sin on the spot and was turning t go, but I was forced to turn back. I heard the priest at the gratin making an appointment with her for the evening--though he was an ol man hard as flint, he fell in an instant! It was nature, the truth o nature asserted its rights! What, you are turning up your nose again Angry again? I don't know how to please you--\""},
{"text":"\"Leave me alone, you are beating on my brain like a hauntin nightmare,\" Ivan moaned miserably, helpless before his apparition. \" am bored with you, agonizingly and insufferably. I would give anythin to be able to shake you off!\""},
{"text":"\"I repeat, moderate your expectations, don't demand of me `everythin great and noble' and you'll see how well we shall get on,\" said th gentleman impressively. \"You are really angry with me for not havin appeared to you in a red glow, with thunder and lightning, wit scorched wings, but have shown myself in such a modest form. You ar wounded, in the first place, in your esthetic feelings, and, secondly in your pride. How could such a vulgar devil visit such a great man a you! Yes, there is that romantic strain in you, that was so derided b Byelinsky. I can't help it, young man, as I got ready to come to you  did think as a joke of appearing in the figure of a retired general wh had served in the Caucasus, with a star of the Lion and the Sun on m coat. But I was positively afraid of doing it, for you'd have thrashe me for daring to pin the Lion and the Sun on my coat, instead of, a least, the Polar Star or the Sirius. And you keep on saying I a stupid, but, mercy on us! I make no claim to be equal to you i intelligence. Mephistopheles declared to Faust that he desired evil but did only good. Well, he can say what he likes, it's quite th opposite with me. I am perhaps the one man in all creation who love the truth and genuinely desires good. I was there when the Word, Wh died on the Cross, rose up into heaven bearing on His bosom the soul o the penitent thief. I heard the glad shrieks of the cherubim singin and shouting hosannah and the thunderous rapture of the seraphim whic shook heaven and all creation, and I swear to you by all that's sacred I longed to join the choir and shout hosannah with them all. The wor had almost escaped me, had almost broken from my lips ... you kno how susceptible and esthetically impressionable I am. But commo sense--oh, a most unhappy trait in my character--kept me in du bounds and I let the moment pass! For what would have happened,  reflected, what would have happened after my hosannah? Everything o earth would have been extinguished at once and no events could hav occurred. And so, solely from a sense of duty and my social position,  was forced to suppress the good moment and to stick to my nasty task Somebody takes all the credit of what's good for Himself, and nothin but nastiness is left for me. But I don't envy the honor of a life o idle imposture, I am not ambitious. Why am I, of all creatures in th world, doomed to be cursed by all decent people and even to be kicked for if I put on mortal form I am bound to take such consequence sometimes? I know, of course, there's a secret in it, but they won' tell me the secret for anything, for then perhaps, seeing the meanin of it, I might bawl hosannah, and the indispensable minus woul disappear at once, and good sense would reign supreme throughout th whole world. And that, of course, would mean the end of everything even of magazines and newspapers, for who would take them in? I kno that at the end of all things I shall be reconciled. I, too, shall wal my quadrillion and learn the secret. But till that happens I am sulkin and fulfill my destiny though it's against the grain--that is, to rui thousands for the sake of saving one. How many souls have had to b ruined and how many honorable reputations destroyed for the sake o that one righteous man, Job, over whom they made such a fool of me i old days! Yes, till the secret is revealed, there are two sorts o truths for me--one, their truth, yonder, which I know nothing about s far, and the other my own. And there's no knowing which will turn ou the better. ... Are you asleep?\""},
{"text":"\"I might well be,\" Ivan groaned angrily. \"All my stupi ideas--outgrown, thrashed out long ago, and flung aside like a dea carcass--you present to me as something new!\""},
{"text":"\"There's no pleasing you! And I thought I should fascinate you by m literary style. That hosannah in the skies really wasn't bad, was it And then that ironical tone  la Heine, eh?\""},
{"text":"\"No, I was never such a flunkey! How then could my soul beget a flunke like you?\""},
{"text":"\"My dear fellow, I know a most charming and attractive young Russia gentleman, a young thinker and a great lover of literature and art, th author of a promising poem entitled The Grand Inquisitor. I was onl thinking of him!\""},
{"text":"\"I forbid you to speak of The Grand Inquisitor,\" cried Ivan, crimso with shame."},
{"text":"\"And the Geological Cataclysm. Do you remember? That was a poem, now!\""},
{"text":"\"Hold your tongue, or I'll kill you!\""},
{"text":"\"You'll kill me? No, excuse me, I will speak. I came to treat myself t that pleasure. Oh, I love the dreams of my ardent young friends quivering with eagerness for life! `There are new men,' you decide last spring, when you were meaning to come here, `they propose t destroy everything and begin with cannibalism. Stupid fellows! the didn't ask my advice! I maintain that nothing need be destroyed, tha we only need to destroy the idea of God in man, that's how we have t set to work. It's that, that we must begin with. Oh, blind race of me who have no understanding! As soon as men have all of them denie God--and I believe that period, analogous with geological periods will come to pass--the old conception of the universe will fall o itself without cannibalism, and, what's more, the old morality, an everything will begin anew. Men will unite to take from life all it ca give, but only for joy and happiness in the present world. Man will b lifted up with a spirit of divine Titanic pride and the man-god wil appear. From hour to hour extending his conquest of nature infinitel by his will and his science, man will feel such lofty joy from hour t hour in doing it that it will make up for all his old dreams of th joys of heaven. Everyone will know that he is mortal and will accep death proudly and serenely like a god. His pride will teach him tha it's useless for him to repine at life's being a moment, and he wil love his brother without need of reward. Love will be sufficient onl for a moment of life, but the very consciousness of its momentarines will intensify its fire, which now is dissipated in dreams of eterna love beyond the grave' ... and so on and so on in the same style Charming!\""},
{"text":"Ivan sat with his eyes on the floor, and his hands pressed to his ears but he began trembling all over. The voice continued."},
{"text":"\"The question now is, my young thinker reflected, is it possible tha such a period will ever come? If it does, everything is determined an humanity is settled forever. But as, owing to man's inveterat stupidity, this cannot come about for at least a thousand years everyone who recognizes the truth even now may legitimately order hi life as he pleases, on the new principles. In that sense, `all thing are lawful' for him. What's more, even if this period never comes t pass, since there is anyway no God and no immortality, the new man ma well become the man-god, even if he is the only one in the whole world and promoted to his new position, he may lightheartedly overstep al the barriers of the old morality of the old slave-man, if necessary There is no law for God. Where God stands, the place is holy. Where  stand will be at once the foremost place ... `all things are lawful and that's the end of it! That's all very charming; but if you want t swindle why do you want a moral sanction for doing it? But that's ou modern Russian all over. He can't bring himself to swindle without  moral sanction. He is so in love with truth--\""},
{"text":"The visitor talked, obviously carried away by his own eloquence speaking louder and louder and looking ironically at his host. But h did not succeed in finishing; Ivan suddenly snatched a glass from th table and flung it at the orator."},
{"text":"\"Ah, mais c'est bte enfin,\" cried the latter, jumping up from the sof and shaking the drops of tea off himself. \"He remembers Luther' inkstand! He takes me for a dream and throws glasses at a dream! It' like a woman! I suspected you were only pretending to stop up you ears.\""},
{"text":"A loud, persistent knocking was suddenly heard at the window. Iva jumped up from the sofa."},
{"text":"\"Do you hear? You'd better open,\" cried the visitor; \"it's your brothe Alyosha with the most interesting and surprising news, I'll be bound!\""},
{"text":"\"Be silent, deceiver, I knew it was Alyosha, I felt he was coming, an of course he has not come for nothing; of course he brings `news,' \"Ivan exclaimed frantically."},
{"text":"\"Open, open to him. There's a snowstorm and he is your brother Monsieur sait-il le temps qu'il fait? C'est  ne pas mettre un chie dehors.\""},
{"text":"The knocking continued. Ivan wanted to rush to the window, bu something seemed to fetter his arms and legs. He strained every effor to break his chains, but in vain. The knocking at the window gre louder and louder. At last the chains were broken and Ivan leapt u from the sofa. He looked round him wildly. Both candles had almos burnt out, the glass he had just thrown at his visitor stood before hi on the table, and there was no one on the sofa opposite. The knockin on the window frame went on persistently, but it was by no means s loud as it had seemed in his dream; on the contrary, it was quit subdued."},
{"text":"\"It was not a dream! No, I swear it was not a dream, it all happene just now!\" cried Ivan. He rushed to the window and opened the movabl pane."},
{"text":"\"Alyosha, I told you not to come,\" he cried fiercely to his brother \"In two words, what do you want? In two words, do you hear?\""},
{"text":"\"An hour ago Smerdyakov hanged himself,\" Alyosha answered from th yard."},
{"text":"\"Come round to the steps, I'll open at once,\" said Ivan, going to ope the door to Alyosha."},
{"text":" X"},
{"text":"\"It Was He Who Said That\""},
{"text":"Alyosha coming in told Ivan that a little over an hour ago Mary Kondratyevna had run to his rooms and informed him Smerdyakov had take his own life. \"I went in to clear away the samovar and he was hangin on a nail in the wall.\" On Alyosha's inquiring whether she had informe the police, she answered that she had told no one, \"but I flew straigh to you, I've run all the way.\" She seemed perfectly crazy, Alyosh reported, and was shaking like a leaf. When Alyosha ran with her to th cottage, he found Smerdyakov still hanging. On the table lay a note: \" destroy my life of my own will and desire, so as to throw no blame o anyone.\" Alyosha left the note on the table and went straight to th police captain and told him all about it. \"And from him I've com straight to you,\" said Alyosha, in conclusion, looking intently int Ivan's face. He had not taken his eyes off him while he told his story as though struck by something in his expression."},
{"text":"\"Brother,\" he cried suddenly, \"you must be terribly ill. You look an don't seem to understand what I tell you.\""},
{"text":"\"It's a good thing you came,\" said Ivan, as though brooding, and no hearing Alyosha's exclamation. \"I knew he had hanged himself.\""},
{"text":"\"From whom?\""},
{"text":"\"I don't know. But I knew. Did I know? Yes, he told me. He told me s just now.\""},
{"text":"Ivan stood in the middle of the room, and still spoke in the sam brooding tone, looking at the ground."},
{"text":"\"Who is he?\" asked Alyosha, involuntarily looking round."},
{"text":"\"He's slipped away.\""},
{"text":"Ivan raised his head and smiled softly."},
{"text":"\"He was afraid of you, of a dove like you. You are a `pure cherub. Dmitri calls you a cherub. Cherub! ... the thunderous rapture of th seraphim. What are seraphim? Perhaps a whole constellation. But perhap that constellation is only a chemical molecule. There's a constellatio of the Lion and the Sun. Don't you know it?\""},
{"text":"\"Brother, sit down,\" said Alyosha in alarm. \"For goodness' sake, si down on the sofa! You are delirious; put your head on the pillow that's right. Would you like a wet towel on your head? Perhaps it wil do you good.\""},
{"text":"\"Give me the towel: it's here on the chair. I just threw it dow there.\""},
{"text":"\"It's not here. Don't worry yourself. I know where it is--here,\" sai Alyosha, finding a clean towel, folded up and unused, by Ivan' dressing-table in the other corner of the room. Ivan looked strangel at the towel: recollection seemed to come back to him for an instant."},
{"text":"\"Stay\"--he got up from the sofa--\"an hour ago I took that new towe from there and wetted it. I wrapped it round my head and threw it dow here ... How is it it's dry? There was no other.\""},
{"text":"\"You put that towel on your head?\" asked Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"Yes, and walked up and down the room an hour ago ... Why have th candles burnt down so? What's the time?\""},
{"text":"\"Nearly twelve.\""},
{"text":"\"No, no, no!\" Ivan cried suddenly. \"It was not a dream. He was here; h was sitting here, on that sofa. When you knocked at the window, I thre a glass at him ... this one. Wait a minute. I was asleep last time but this dream was not a dream. It has happened before. I have dream now, Alyosha ... yet they are not dreams, but reality. I walk about talk and see ... though I am asleep. But he was sitting here, on tha sofa there. ... He is frightfully stupid, Alyosha, frightfull stupid.\" Ivan laughed suddenly and began pacing about the room."},
{"text":"\"Who is stupid? Of whom are you talking, brother?\" Alyosha aske anxiously again."},
{"text":"\"The devil! He's taken to visiting me. He's been here twice, almos three times. He taunted me with being angry at his being a simple devi and not Satan, with scorched wings, in thunder and lightning. But he i not Satan: that's a lie. He is an impostor. He is simply a devil-- paltry, trivial devil. He goes to the baths. If you undressed him you'd be sure to find he had a tail, long and smooth like a Danis dog's, a yard long, dun color. ... Alyosha, you are cold. You've bee in the snow. Would you like some tea? What? Is it cold? Shall I tel her to bring some? C'est  ne pas mettre un chien dehors. ...\""},
{"text":"Alyosha ran to the washing-stand, wetted the towel, persuaded Ivan t sit down again, and put the wet towel round his head. He sat dow beside him."},
{"text":"\"What were you telling me just now about Lise?\" Ivan began again. (H was becoming very talkative.) \"I like Lise. I said something nast about her. It was a lie. I like her ... I am afraid for Katy tomorrow. I am more afraid of her than of anything. On account of th future. She will cast me off tomorrow and trample me under foot. Sh thinks that I am ruining Mitya from jealousy on her account! Yes, sh thinks that! But it's not so. Tomorrow the cross, but not the gallows No, I shan't hang myself. Do you know, I can never commit suicide Alyosha. Is it because I am base? I am not a coward. Is it from love o life? How did I know that Smerdyakov had hanged himself? Yes, it was h told me so.\""},
{"text":"\"And you are quite convinced that there has been someone here?\" aske Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"Yes, on that sofa in the corner. You would have driven him away. Yo did drive him away: he disappeared when you arrived. I love your face Alyosha. Did you know that I loved your face? And he is myself Alyosha. All that's base in me, all that's mean and contemptible. Yes I am a romantic. He guessed it ... though it's a libel. He i frightfully stupid; but it's to his advantage. He has cunning, anima cunning--he knew how to infuriate me. He kept taunting me wit believing in him, and that was how he made me listen to him. He foole me like a boy. He told me a great deal that was true about myself though. I should never have owned it to myself. Do you know, Alyosha,\"Ivan added in an intensely earnest and confidential tone, \"I should b awfully glad to think that it was he and not I.\""},
{"text":"\"He has worn you out,\" said Alyosha, looking compassionately at hi brother."},
{"text":"\"He's been teasing me. And you know he does it so cleverly, s cleverly. `Conscience! What is conscience? I make it up for myself. Wh am I tormented by it? From habit. From the universal habit of mankin for the seven thousand years. So let us give it up, and we shall b gods.' It was he said that, it was he said that!\""},
{"text":"\"And not you, not you?\" Alyosha could not help crying, looking frankl at his brother. \"Never mind him, anyway; have done with him and forge him. And let him take with him all that you curse now, and never com back!\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, but he is spiteful. He laughed at me. He was impudent, Alyosha,\"Ivan said, with a shudder of offense. \"But he was unfair to me, unfai to me about lots of things. He told lies about me to my face. `Oh, yo are going to perform an act of heroic virtue: to confess you murdere your father, that the valet murdered him at your instigation.' \""},
{"text":"\"Brother,\" Alyosha interposed, \"restrain yourself. It was not yo murdered him. It's not true!\""},
{"text":"\"That's what he says, he, and he knows it. `You are going to perform a act of heroic virtue, and you don't believe in virtue; that's wha tortures you and makes you angry, that's why you are so vindictive.' H said that to me about me and he knows what he says.\""},
{"text":"\"It's you say that, not he,\" exclaimed Alyosha mournfully, \"and you sa it because you are ill and delirious, tormenting yourself.\""},
{"text":"\"No, he knows what he says. `You are going from pride,' he says `You'll stand up and say it was I killed him, and why do you writh with horror? You are lying! I despise your opinion, I despise you horror!' He said that about me. `And do you know you are longing fo their praise--\"he is a criminal, a murderer, but what a generous soul he wanted to save his brother and he confessed.\" ' That's a lie Alyosha!\" Ivan cried suddenly, with flashing eyes. \"I don't want th low rabble to praise me, I swear I don't! That's a lie! That's why  threw the glass at him and it broke against his ugly face.\""},
{"text":"\"Brother, calm yourself, stop!\" Alyosha entreated him."},
{"text":"\"Yes, he knows how to torment one. He's cruel,\" Ivan went on unheeding. \"I had an inkling from the first what he came for. `Grantin that you go through pride, still you had a hope that Smerdyakov migh be convicted and sent to Siberia, and Mitya would be acquitted, whil you would only be punished with moral condemnation' (`Do you hear?' h laughed then)--`and some people will praise you. But now Smerdyakov' dead, he has hanged himself, and who'll believe you alone? But yet yo are going, you are going, you'll go all the same, you've decided to go What are you going for now?' That's awful, Alyosha. I can't endure suc questions. Who dare ask me such questions?\""},
{"text":"\"Brother,\" interposed Alyosha--his heart sank with terror, but h still seemed to hope to bring Ivan to reason--\"how could he have tol you of Smerdyakov's death before I came, when no one knew of it an there was no time for anyone to know of it?\""},
{"text":"\"He told me,\" said Ivan firmly, refusing to admit a doubt. \"It was al he did talk about, if you come to that. `And it would be all right i you believed in virtue,' he said. `No matter if they disbelieve you you are going for the sake of principle. But you are a little pig lik Fyodor Pavlovitch, and what do you want with virtue? Why do you want t go meddling if your sacrifice is of no use to anyone? Because you don' know yourself why you go! Oh, you'd give a great deal to know yoursel why you go! And can you have made up your mind? You've not made up you mind. You'll sit all night deliberating whether to go or not. But yo will go; you know you'll go. You know that whichever way you decide the decision does not depend on you. You'll go because you won't dar not to go. Why won't you dare? You must guess that for yourself. That' a riddle for you!' He got up and went away. You came and he went. H called me a coward, Alyosha! Le mot de l'nigme is that I am a coward `It is not for such eagles to soar above the earth.' It was he adde that--he! And Smerdyakov said the same. He must be killed! Katy despises me. I've seen that for a month past. Even Lise will begin t despise me! `You are going in order to be praised.' That's a bruta lie! And you despise me too, Alyosha. Now I am going to hate you again And I hate the monster, too! I hate the monster! I don't want to sav the monster. Let him rot in Siberia! He's begun singing a hymn! Oh tomorrow I'll go, stand before them, and spit in their faces!\""},
{"text":"He jumped up in a frenzy, flung off the towel, and fell to pacing u and down the room again. Alyosha recalled what he had just said. \" seem to be sleeping awake. ... I walk, I speak, I see, but I a asleep.\" It seemed to be just like that now. Alyosha did not leave him The thought passed through his mind to run for a doctor, but he wa afraid to leave his brother alone: there was no one to whom he coul leave him. By degrees Ivan lost consciousness completely at last. H still went on talking, talking incessantly, but quite incoherently, an even articulated his words with difficulty. Suddenly he staggere violently; but Alyosha was in time to support him. Ivan let him lea him to his bed. Alyosha undressed him somehow and put him to bed. H sat watching over him for another two hours. The sick man slep soundly, without stirring, breathing softly and evenly. Alyosha took  pillow and lay down on the sofa, without undressing."},
{"text":"As he fell asleep he prayed for Mitya and Ivan. He began to understan Ivan's illness. \"The anguish of a proud determination. An earnes conscience!\" God, in Whom he disbelieved, and His truth were gainin mastery over his heart, which still refused to submit. \"Yes,\" th thought floated through Alyosha's head as it lay on the pillow, \"yes if Smerdyakov is dead, no one will believe Ivan's evidence; but he wil go and give it.\" Alyosha smiled softly. \"God will conquer!\" he thought \"He will either rise up in the light of truth, or ... he'll perish i hate, revenging on himself and on everyone his having served the caus he does not believe in,\" Alyosha added bitterly, and again he praye for Ivan."},
{"text":"ook XII"},
{"text":"A Judicial Error"},
{"text":" I"},
{"text":"The Fatal Day"},
{"text":"At ten o'clock in the morning of the day following the events I hav described, the trial of Dmitri Karamazov began in our district court."},
{"text":"I hasten to emphasize the fact that I am far from esteeming mysel capable of reporting all that took place at the trial in full detail or even in the actual order of events. I imagine that to mentio everything with full explanation would fill a volume, even a very larg one. And so I trust I may not be reproached, for confining myself t what struck me. I may have selected as of most interest what was o secondary importance, and may have omitted the most prominent an essential details. But I see I shall do better not to apologize. I wil do my best and the reader will see for himself that I have done all  can."},
{"text":"And, to begin with, before entering the court, I will mention wha surprised me most on that day. Indeed, as it appeared later, everyon was surprised at it, too. We all knew that the affair had aroused grea interest, that everyone was burning with impatience for the trial t begin, that it had been a subject of talk, conjecture, exclamation an surmise for the last two months in local society. Everyone knew, too that the case had become known throughout Russia, but yet we had no imagined that it had aroused such burning, such intense, interest i everyone, not only among ourselves, but all over Russia. This becam evident at the trial this day."},
{"text":"Visitors had arrived not only from the chief town of our province, bu from several other Russian towns, as well as from Moscow an Petersburg. Among them were lawyers, ladies, and even severa distinguished personages. Every ticket of admission had been snatche up. A special place behind the table at which the three judges sat wa set apart for the most distinguished and important of the men visitors a row of armchairs had been placed there--something exceptional, whic had never been allowed before. A large proportion--not less than hal of the public--were ladies. There was such a large number of lawyer from all parts that they did not know where to seat them, for ever ticket had long since been eagerly sought for and distributed. I saw a the end of the room, behind the platform, a special partition hurriedl put up, behind which all these lawyers were admitted, and they though themselves lucky to have standing room there, for all chairs had bee removed for the sake of space, and the crowd behind the partition stoo throughout the case closely packed, shoulder to shoulder."},
{"text":"Some of the ladies, especially those who came from a distance, mad their appearance in the gallery very smartly dressed, but the majorit of the ladies were oblivious even of dress. Their faces betraye hysterical, intense, almost morbid, curiosity. A peculia fact--established afterwards by many observations--was that almos all the ladies, or, at least the vast majority of them, were on Mitya' side and in favor of his being acquitted. This was perhaps chiefl owing to his reputation as a conqueror of female hearts. It was know that two women rivals were to appear in the case. One o them--Katerina Ivanovna--was an object of general interest. All sort of extraordinary tales were told about her, amazing anecdotes of he passion for Mitya, in spite of his crime. Her pride and \"aristocrati connections\" were particularly insisted upon (she had called upo scarcely anyone in the town). People said she intended to petition th Government for leave to accompany the criminal to Siberia and to b married to him somewhere in the mines. The appearance of Grushenka i court was awaited with no less impatience. The public was lookin forward with anxious curiosity to the meeting of the two rivals--th proud aristocratic girl and \"the hetaira.\" But Grushenka was a mor familiar figure to the ladies of the district than Katerina Ivanovna They had already seen \"the woman who had ruined Fyodor Pavlovitch an his unhappy son,\" and all, almost without exception, wondered ho father and son could be so in love with \"such a very common, ordinar Russian girl, who was not even pretty.\""},
{"text":"In brief, there was a great deal of talk. I know for a fact that ther were several serious family quarrels on Mitya's account in our town Many ladies quarreled violently with their husbands over differences o opinion about the dreadful case, and it was only natural that th husbands of these ladies, far from being favorably disposed to th prisoner, should enter the court bitterly prejudiced against him. I fact, one may say pretty certainly that the masculine, as distinguishe from the feminine, part of the audience were biased against th prisoner. There were numbers of severe, frowning, even vindictiv faces. Mitya, indeed, had managed to offend many people during his sta in the town. Some of the visitors were, of course, in excellent spirit and quite unconcerned as to the fate of Mitya personally. But all wer interested in the trial, and the majority of the men were certainl hoping for the conviction of the criminal, except perhaps the lawyers who were more interested in the legal than in the moral aspect of th case."},
{"text":"Everybody was excited at the presence of the celebrated lawyer Fetyukovitch. His talent was well known, and this was not the firs time he had defended notorious criminal cases in the provinces. And i he defended them, such cases became celebrated and long remembered al over Russia. There were stories, too, about our prosecutor and abou the President of the Court. It was said that Ippolit Kirillovitch wa in a tremor at meeting Fetyukovitch, and that they had been enemie from the beginning of their careers in Petersburg, that though ou sensitive prosecutor, who always considered that he had been aggrieve by someone in Petersburg because his talents had not been properl appreciated, was keenly excited over the Karamazov case, and was eve dreaming of rebuilding his flagging fortunes by means of it Fetyukovitch, they said, was his one anxiety. But these rumors were no quite just. Our prosecutor was not one of those men who lose heart i face of danger. On the contrary, his self-confidence increased with th increase of danger. It must be noted that our prosecutor was in genera too hasty and morbidly impressionable. He would put his whole soul int some case and work at it as though his whole fate and his whole fortun depended on its result. This was the subject of some ridicule in th legal world, for just by this characteristic our prosecutor had gaine a wider notoriety than could have been expected from his modes position. People laughed particularly at his passion for psychology. I my opinion, they were wrong, and our prosecutor was, I believe,  character of greater depth than was generally supposed. But with hi delicate health he had failed to make his mark at the outset of hi career and had never made up for it later."},
{"text":"As for the President of our Court, I can only say that he was a human and cultured man, who had a practical knowledge of his work an progressive views. He was rather ambitious, but did not concern himsel greatly about his future career. The great aim of his life was to be  man of advanced ideas. He was, too, a man of connections and property He felt, as we learnt afterwards, rather strongly about the Karamazo case, but from a social, not from a personal standpoint. He wa interested in it as a social phenomenon, in its classification and it character as a product of our social conditions, as typical of th national character, and so on, and so on. His attitude to the persona aspect of the case, to its tragic significance and the persons involve in it, including the prisoner, was rather indifferent and abstract, a was perhaps fitting, indeed."},
{"text":"The court was packed and overflowing long before the judges made thei appearance. Our court is the best hall in the town--spacious, lofty and good for sound. On the right of the judges, who were on a raise platform, a table and two rows of chairs had been put ready for th jury. On the left was the place for the prisoner and the counsel fo the defense. In the middle of the court, near the judges, was a tabl with the \"material proofs.\" On it lay Fyodor Pavlovitch's white sil dressing-gown, stained with blood; the fatal brass pestle with whic the supposed murder had been committed; Mitya's shirt, with  bloodstained sleeve; his coat, stained with blood in patches over th pocket in which he had put his handkerchief; the handkerchief itself stiff with blood and by now quite yellow; the pistol loaded by Mitya a Perhotin's with a view to suicide, and taken from him on the sly a Mokroe by Trifon Borissovitch; the envelope in which the three thousan roubles had been put ready for Grushenka, the narrow pink ribbon wit which it had been tied, and many other articles I don't remember. I the body of the hall, at some distance, came the seats for the public But in front of the balustrade a few chairs had been placed fo witnesses who remained in the court after giving their evidence."},
{"text":"At ten o'clock the three judges arrived--the President, one honorar justice of the peace, and one other. The prosecutor, of course, entere immediately after. The President was a short, stout, thickset man o fifty, with a dyspeptic complexion, dark hair turning gray and cu short, and a red ribbon, of what Order I don't remember. The prosecuto struck me and the others, too, as looking particularly pale, almos green. His face seemed to have grown suddenly thinner, perhaps in  single night, for I had seen him looking as usual only two days before The President began with asking the court whether all the jury wer present."},
{"text":"But I see I can't go on like this, partly because some things I did no hear, others I did not notice, and others I have forgotten, but most o all because, as I have said before, I have literally no time or spac to mention everything that was said and done. I only know that neithe side objected to very many of the jurymen. I remember the twelv jurymen--four were petty officials of the town, two were merchants and six peasants and artisans of the town. I remember, long before th trial, questions were continually asked with some surprise, especiall by ladies: \"Can such a delicate, complex and psychological case b submitted for decision to petty officials and even peasants?\" and \"Wha can an official, still more a peasant, understand in such an affair?\"All the four officials in the jury were, in fact, men of no consequenc and of low rank. Except one who was rather younger, they wer gray-headed men, little known in society, who had vegetated on  pitiful salary, and who probably had elderly, unpresentable wives an crowds of children, perhaps even without shoes and stockings. At most they spent their leisure over cards and, of course, had never read  single book. The two merchants looked respectable, but were strangel silent and stolid. One of them was close-shaven, and was dressed i European style; the other had a small, gray beard, and wore a re ribbon with some sort of a medal upon it on his neck. There is no nee to speak of the artisans and the peasants. The artisans o Skotoprigonyevsk are almost peasants, and even work on the land. Two o them also wore European dress, and, perhaps for that reason, wer dirtier and more uninviting-looking than the others. So that one migh well wonder, as I did as soon as I had looked at them, \"what men lik that could possibly make of such a case?\" Yet their faces made  strangely imposing, almost menacing, impression; they were stern an frowning."},
{"text":"At last the President opened the case of the murder of Fyodo Pavlovitch Karamazov. I don't quite remember how he described him. Th court usher was told to bring in the prisoner, and Mitya made hi appearance. There was a hush through the court. One could have heard  fly. I don't know how it was with others, but Mitya made a mos unfavorable impression on me. He looked an awful dandy in a brand-ne frock-coat. I heard afterwards that he had ordered it in Mosco expressly for the occasion from his own tailor, who had his measure. H wore immaculate black kid gloves and exquisite linen. He walked in wit his yard-long strides, looking stiffly straight in front of him, an sat down in his place with a most unperturbed air."},
{"text":"At the same moment the counsel for defense, the celebrate Fetyukovitch, entered, and a sort of subdued hum passed through th court. He was a tall, spare man, with long thin legs, with extremel long, thin, pale fingers, clean-shaven face, demurely brushed, rathe short hair, and thin lips that were at times curved into somethin between a sneer and a smile. He looked about forty. His face would hav been pleasant, if it had not been for his eyes, which, in themselve small and inexpressive, were set remarkably close together, with onl the thin, long nose as a dividing line between them. In fact, there wa something strikingly birdlike about his face. He was in evening dres and white tie."},
{"text":"I remember the President's first questions to Mitya, about his name his calling, and so on. Mitya answered sharply, and his voice was s unexpectedly loud that it made the President start and look at th prisoner with surprise. Then followed a list of persons who were t take part in the proceedings--that is, of the witnesses and experts It was a long list. Four of the witnesses were not present--Misov who had given evidence at the preliminary inquiry, but was now i Paris; Madame Hohlakov and Maximov, who were absent through illness and Smerdyakov, through his sudden death, of which an officia statement from the police was presented. The news of Smerdyakov's deat produced a sudden stir and whisper in the court. Many of the audience of course, had not heard of the sudden suicide. What struck people mos was Mitya's sudden outburst As soon as the statement of Smerdyakov' death was made, he cried out aloud from his place:"},
{"text":"\"He was a dog and died like a dog!\""},
{"text":"I remember how his counsel rushed to him, and how the Presiden addressed him, threatening to take stern measures, if such a irregularity were repeated. Mitya nodded and in a subdued voic repeated several times abruptly to his counsel, with no show of regret:"},
{"text":"\"I won't again, I won't. It escaped me. I won't do it again.\""},
{"text":"And, of course, this brief episode did him no good with the jury or th public. His character was displayed, and it spoke for itself. It wa under the influence of this incident that the opening statement wa read. It was rather short, but circumstantial. It only stated the chie reasons why he had been arrested, why he must be tried, and so on. Ye it made a great impression on me. The clerk read it loudly an distinctly. The whole tragedy was suddenly unfolded before us concentrated, in bold relief, in a fatal and pitiless light. I remembe how, immediately after it had been read, the President asked Mitya in  loud impressive voice:"},
{"text":"\"Prisoner, do you plead guilty?\""},
{"text":"Mitya suddenly rose from his seat."},
{"text":"\"I plead guilty to drunkenness and dissipation,\" he exclaimed, again i a startling, almost frenzied, voice, \"to idleness and debauchery.  meant to become an honest man for good, just at the moment when I wa struck down by fate. But I am not guilty of the death of that old man my enemy and my father. No, no, I am not guilty of robbing him! I coul not be. Dmitri Karamazov is a scoundrel, but not a thief.\""},
{"text":"He sat down again, visibly trembling all over. The President agai briefly, but impressively, admonished him to answer only what wa asked, and not to go off into irrelevant exclamations. Then he ordere the case to proceed. All the witnesses were led up to take the oath Then I saw them all together. The brothers of the prisoner were however, allowed to give evidence without taking the oath. After a exhortation from the priest and the President, the witnesses were le away and were made to sit as far as possible apart from one another Then they began calling them up one by one."},
{"text":" II"},
{"text":"Dangerous Witnesses"},
{"text":"I do not know whether the witnesses for the defense and for th prosecution were separated into groups by the President, and whether i was arranged to call them in a certain order. But no doubt it was so.  only know that the witnesses for the prosecution were called first.  repeat I don't intend to describe all the questions step by step Besides, my account would be to some extent superfluous, because in th speeches for the prosecution and for the defense the whole course o the evidence was brought together and set in a strong and significan light, and I took down parts of those two remarkable speeches in full and will quote them in due course, together with one extraordinary an quite unexpected episode, which occurred before the final speeches, an undoubtedly influenced the sinister and fatal outcome of the trial."},
{"text":"I will only observe that from the first moments of the trial on peculiar characteristic of the case was conspicuous and observed b all, that is, the overwhelming strength of the prosecution as compare with the arguments the defense had to rely upon. Everyone realized i from the first moment that the facts began to group themselves round  single point, and the whole horrible and bloody crime was graduall revealed. Everyone, perhaps, felt from the first that the case wa beyond dispute, that there was no doubt about it, that there could b really no discussion, and that the defense was only a matter of form and that the prisoner was guilty, obviously and conclusively guilty.  imagine that even the ladies, who were so impatiently longing for th acquittal of the interesting prisoner, were at the same time, withou exception, convinced of his guilt. What's more, I believe they woul have been mortified if his guilt had not been so firmly established, a that would have lessened the effect of the closing scene of th criminal's acquittal. That he would be acquitted, all the ladies strange to say, were firmly persuaded up to the very last moment. \"H is guilty, but he will be acquitted, from motives of humanity, i accordance with the new ideas, the new sentiments that had come int fashion,\" and so on, and so on. And that was why they had crowded int the court so impatiently. The men were more interested in the contes between the prosecutor and the famous Fetyukovitch. All were wonderin and asking themselves what could even a talent like Fetyukovitch's mak of such a desperate case; and so they followed his achievements, ste by step, with concentrated attention."},
{"text":"But Fetyukovitch remained an enigma to all up to the very end, up t his speech. Persons of experience suspected that he had some design that he was working towards some object, but it was almost impossibl to guess what it was. His confidence and self-reliance wer unmistakable, however. Everyone noticed with pleasure, moreover, tha he, after so short a stay, not more than three days, perhaps, among us had so wonderfully succeeded in mastering the case and \"had studied i to a nicety.\" People described with relish, afterwards, how cleverly h had \"taken down\" all the witnesses for the prosecution, and as far a possible perplexed them and, what's more, had aspersed their reputatio and so depreciated the value of their evidence. But it was suppose that he did this rather by way of sport, so to speak, for professiona glory, to show nothing had been omitted of the accepted methods, fo all were convinced that he could do no real good by such disparagemen of the witnesses, and probably was more aware of this than anyone having some idea of his own in the background, some concealed weapon o defense, which he would suddenly reveal when the time came. Bu meanwhile, conscious of his strength, he seemed to be divertin himself."},
{"text":"So, for instance, when Grigory, Fyodor Pavlovitch's old servant, wh had given the most damning piece of evidence about the open door, wa examined, the counsel for the defense positively fastened upon him whe his turn came to question him. It must be noted that Grigory entere the hall with a composed and almost stately air, not the leas disconcerted by the majesty of the court or the vast audience listenin to him. He gave evidence with as much confidence as though he had bee talking with his Marfa, only perhaps more respectfully. It wa impossible to make him contradict himself. The prosecutor questione him first in detail about the family life of the Karamazovs. The famil picture stood out in lurid colors. It was plain to ear and eye that th witness was guileless and impartial. In spite of his profound reverenc for the memory of his deceased master, he yet bore witness that he ha been unjust to Mitya and \"hadn't brought up his children as he should He'd have been devoured by lice when he was little, if it hadn't bee for me,\" he added, describing Mitya's early childhood. \"It wasn't fai either of the father to wrong his son over his mother's property, whic was by right his.\""},
{"text":"In reply to the prosecutor's question what grounds he had for assertin that Fyodor Pavlovitch had wronged his son in their money relations Grigory, to the surprise of everyone, had no proof at all to brin forward, but he still persisted that the arrangement with the son wa \"unfair,\" and that he ought \"to have paid him several thousand rouble more.\" I must note, by the way, that the prosecutor asked this questio whether Fyodor Pavlovitch had really kept back part of Mitya' inheritance with marked persistence of all the witnesses who could b asked it, not excepting Alyosha and Ivan, but he obtained no exac information from anyone; all alleged that it was so, but were unable t bring forward any distinct proof. Grigory's description of the scene a the dinner-table, when Dmitri had burst in and beaten his father threatening to come back to kill him, made a sinister impression on th court, especially as the old servant's composure in telling it, hi parsimony of words and peculiar phraseology, were as effective a eloquence. He observed that he was not angry with Mitya for havin knocked him down and struck him on the face; he had forgiven him lon ago, he said. Of the deceased Smerdyakov he observed, crossing himself that he was a lad of ability, but stupid and afflicted, and, wors still, an infidel, and that it was Fyodor Pavlovitch and his elder so who had taught him to be so. But he defended Smerdyakov's honest almost with warmth, and related how Smerdyakov had once found th master's money in the yard, and, instead of concealing it, had taken i to his master, who had rewarded him with a \"gold piece\" for it, an trusted him implicitly from that time forward. He maintaine obstinately that the door into the garden had been open. But he wa asked so many questions that I can't recall them all."},
{"text":"At last the counsel for the defense began to cross-examine him, and th first question he asked was about the envelope in which Fyodo Pavlovitch was supposed to have put three thousand roubles for \" certain person.\" \"Have you ever seen it, you, who were for so man years in close attendance on your master?\" Grigory answered that he ha not seen it and had never heard of the money from anyone \"til everybody was talking about it.\" This question about the envelop Fetyukovitch put to everyone who could conceivably have known of it, a persistently as the prosecutor asked his question about Dmitri' inheritance, and got the same answer from all, that no one had seen th envelope, though many had heard of it. From the beginning everyon noticed Fetyukovitch's persistence on this subject."},
{"text":"\"Now, with your permission I'll ask you a question,\" Fetyukovitch said suddenly and unexpectedly. \"Of what was that balsam, or, rather decoction, made, which, as we learn from the preliminary inquiry, yo used on that evening to rub your lumbago, in the hope of curing it?\""},
{"text":"Grigory looked blankly at the questioner, and after a brief silenc muttered, \"There was saffron in it.\""},
{"text":"\"Nothing but saffron? Don't you remember any other ingredient?\""},
{"text":"\"There was milfoil in it, too.\""},
{"text":"\"And pepper perhaps?\" Fetyukovitch queried."},
{"text":"\"Yes, there was pepper, too.\""},
{"text":"\"Etcetera. And all dissolved in vodka?\""},
{"text":"\"In spirit.\""},
{"text":"There was a faint sound of laughter in the court."},
{"text":"\"You see, in spirit. After rubbing your back, I believe, you drank wha was left in the bottle with a certain pious prayer, only known to you wife?\""},
{"text":"\"I did.\""},
{"text":"\"Did you drink much? Roughly speaking, a wineglass or two?\""},
{"text":"\"It might have been a tumbler-full.\""},
{"text":"\"A tumbler-full, even. Perhaps a tumbler and a half?\""},
{"text":"Grigory did not answer. He seemed to see what was meant."},
{"text":"\"A glass and a half of neat spirit--is not at all bad, don't yo think? You might see the gates of heaven open, not only the door int the garden?\""},
{"text":"Grigory remained silent. There was another laugh in the court. Th President made a movement."},
{"text":"\"Do you know for a fact,\" Fetyukovitch persisted, \"whether you wer awake or not when you saw the open door?\""},
{"text":"\"I was on my legs.\""},
{"text":"\"That's not a proof that you were awake.\" (There was again laughter i the court.) \"Could you have answered at that moment, if anyone ha asked you a question--for instance, what year it is?\""},
{"text":"\"I don't know.\""},
{"text":"\"And what year is it, Anno Domini, do you know?\""},
{"text":"Grigory stood with a perplexed face, looking straight at his tormentor Strange to say, it appeared he really did not know what year it was."},
{"text":"\"But perhaps you can tell me how many fingers you have on your hands?\""},
{"text":"\"I am a servant,\" Grigory said suddenly, in a loud and distinct voice \"If my betters think fit to make game of me, it is my duty to suffe it.\""},
{"text":"Fetyukovitch was a little taken aback, and the President intervened reminding him that he must ask more relevant questions. Fetyukovitc bowed with dignity and said that he had no more questions to ask of th witness. The public and the jury, of course, were left with a grain o doubt in their minds as to the evidence of a man who might, whil undergoing a certain cure, have seen \"the gates of heaven,\" and who di not even know what year he was living in. But before Grigory left th box another episode occurred. The President, turning to the prisoner asked him whether he had any comment to make on the evidence of th last witness."},
{"text":"\"Except about the door, all he has said is true,\" cried Mitya, in  loud voice. \"For combing the lice off me, I thank him; for forgiving m blows, I thank him. The old man has been honest all his life and a faithful to my father as seven hundred poodles.\""},
{"text":"\"Prisoner, be careful in your language,\" the President admonished him."},
{"text":"\"I am not a poodle,\" Grigory muttered."},
{"text":"\"All right, it's I am a poodle myself,\" cried Mitya. \"If it's a insult, I take it to myself and I beg his pardon. I was a beast an cruel to him. I was cruel to Aesop too.\""},
{"text":"\"What Aesop?\" the President asked sternly again."},
{"text":"\"Oh, Pierrot ... my father, Fyodor Pavlovitch.\""},
{"text":"The President again and again warned Mitya impressively and ver sternly to be more careful in his language."},
{"text":"\"You are injuring yourself in the opinion of your judges.\""},
{"text":"The counsel for the defense was equally clever in dealing with th evidence of Rakitin. I may remark that Rakitin was one of the leadin witnesses and one to whom the prosecutor attached great significance It appeared that he knew everything; his knowledge was amazing, he ha been everywhere, seen everything, talked to everybody, knew ever detail of the biography of Fyodor Pavlovitch and all the Karamazovs. O the envelope, it is true, he had only heard from Mitya himself. But h described minutely Mitya's exploits in the Metropolis, all hi compromising doings and sayings, and told the story of Captai Snegiryov's \"wisp of tow.\" But even Rakitin could say nothing positiv about Mitya's inheritance, and confined himself to contemptuou generalities."},
{"text":"\"Who could tell which of them was to blame, and which was in debt t the other, with their crazy Karamazov way of muddling things so that n one could make head or tail of it?\" He attributed the tragic crime t the habits that had become ingrained by ages of serfdom and th distressed condition of Russia, due to the lack of appropriat institutions. He was, in fact, allowed some latitude of speech. Thi was the first occasion on which Rakitin showed what he could do, an attracted notice. The prosecutor knew that the witness was preparing  magazine article on the case, and afterwards in his speech, as we shal see later, quoted some ideas from the article, showing that he had see it already. The picture drawn by the witness was a gloomy and siniste one, and greatly strengthened the case for the prosecution. Altogether Rakitin's discourse fascinated the public by its independence and th extraordinary nobility of its ideas. There were even two or thre outbreaks of applause when he spoke of serfdom and the distresse condition of Russia."},
{"text":"But Rakitin, in his youthful ardor, made a slight blunder, of which th counsel for the defense at once adroitly took advantage. Answerin certain questions about Grushenka, and carried away by the loftiness o his own sentiments and his success, of which he was, of course conscious, he went so far as to speak somewhat contemptuously o Agrafena Alexandrovna as \"the kept mistress of Samsonov.\" He would hav given a good deal to take back his words afterwards, for Fetyukovitc caught him out over it at once. And it was all because Rakitin had no reckoned on the lawyer having been able to become so intimatel acquainted with every detail in so short a time."},
{"text":"\"Allow me to ask,\" began the counsel for the defense, with the mos affable and even respectful smile, \"you are, of course, the sam Mr. Rakitin whose pamphlet, The Life of the Deceased Elder, Fathe Zossima, published by the diocesan authorities, full of profound an religious reflections and preceded by an excellent and devou dedication to the bishop, I have just read with such pleasure?\""},
{"text":"\"I did not write it for publication ... it was published afterwards,\"muttered Rakitin, for some reason fearfully disconcerted and almos ashamed."},
{"text":"\"Oh, that's excellent! A thinker like you can, and indeed ought to take the widest view of every social question. Your most instructiv pamphlet has been widely circulated through the patronage of th bishop, and has been of appreciable service. ... But this is th chief thing I should like to learn from you. You stated just now tha you were very intimately acquainted with Madame Svyetlov.\" (It must b noted that Grushenka's surname was Svyetlov. I heard it for the firs time that day, during the case.)"},
{"text":"\"I cannot answer for all my acquaintances. ... I am a young man .. and who can be responsible for everyone he meets?\" cried Rakitin flushing all over."},
{"text":"\"I understand, I quite understand,\" cried Fetyukovitch, as though he too, were embarrassed and in haste to excuse himself. \"You, like an other, might well be interested in an acquaintance with a young an beautiful woman who would readily entertain the lite of the youth o the neighborhood, but ... I only wanted to know ... It has come t my knowledge that Madame Svyetlov was particularly anxious a couple o months ago to make the acquaintance of the younger Karamazov, Alexe Fyodorovitch, and promised you twenty-five roubles, if you would brin him to her in his monastic dress. And that actually took place on th evening of the day on which the terrible crime, which is the subject o the present investigation, was committed. You brought Alexey Karamazo to Madame Svyetlov, and did you receive the twenty-five roubles fro Madame Svyetlov as a reward, that's what I wanted to hear from you?\""},
{"text":"\"It was a joke. ... I don't see of what interest that can be to you. ... I took it for a joke ... meaning to give it back later. ...\""},
{"text":"\"Then you did take--But you have not given it back yet ... or hav you?\""},
{"text":"\"That's of no consequence,\" muttered Rakitin, \"I refuse to answer suc questions. ... Of course I shall give it back.\""},
{"text":"The President intervened, but Fetyukovitch declared he had no mor questions to ask of the witness. Mr. Rakitin left the witness-box no absolutely without a stain upon his character. The effect left by th lofty idealism of his speech was somewhat marred, and Fetyukovitch' expression, as he watched him walk away, seemed to suggest to th public \"this is a specimen of the lofty-minded persons who accuse him.\"I remember that this incident, too, did not pass off without a outbreak from Mitya. Enraged by the tone in which Rakitin had referre to Grushenka, he suddenly shouted \"Bernard!\" When, after Rakitin' cross-examination, the President asked the prisoner if he had anythin to say, Mitya cried loudly:"},
{"text":"\"Since I've been arrested, he has borrowed money from me! He is  contemptible Bernard and opportunist, and he doesn't believe in God; h took the bishop in!\""},
{"text":"Mitya, of course, was pulled up again for the intemperance of hi language, but Rakitin was done for. Captain Snegiryov's evidence was  failure, too, but from quite a different reason. He appeared in ragge and dirty clothes, muddy boots, and in spite of the vigilance an expert observation of the police officers, he turned out to b hopelessly drunk. On being asked about Mitya's attack upon him, h refused to answer."},
{"text":"\"God bless him. Ilusha told me not to. God will make it up to m yonder.\""},
{"text":"\"Who told you not to tell? Of whom are you talking?\""},
{"text":"\"Ilusha, my little son. `Father, father, how he insulted you!' He sai that at the stone. Now he is dying. ...\""},
{"text":"The captain suddenly began sobbing, and plumped down on his knee before the President. He was hurriedly led away amidst the laughter o the public. The effect prepared by the prosecutor did not come off a all."},
{"text":"Fetyukovitch went on making the most of every opportunity, and amaze people more and more by his minute knowledge of the case. Thus, fo example, Trifon Borissovitch made a great impression, of course, ver prejudicial to Mitya. He calculated almost on his fingers that on hi first visit to Mokroe, Mitya must have spent three thousand roubles \"or very little less. Just think what he squandered on those gyps girls alone! And as for our lousy peasants, it wasn't a case o flinging half a rouble in the street, he made them presents o twenty-five roubles each, at least, he didn't give them less. And wha a lot of money was simply stolen from him! And if anyone did steal, h did not leave a receipt. How could one catch the thief when he wa flinging his money away all the time? Our peasants are robbers, yo know; they have no care for their souls. And the way he went on wit the girls, our village girls! They're completely set up since then,  tell you, they used to be poor.\" He recalled, in fact, every item o expense and added it all up. So the theory that only fifteen hundre had been spent and the rest had been put aside in a little bag seeme inconceivable."},
{"text":"\"I saw three thousand as clear as a penny in his hands, I saw it wit my own eyes; I should think I ought to know how to reckon money,\" crie Trifon Borissovitch, doing his best to satisfy \"his betters.\""},
{"text":"When Fetyukovitch had to cross-examine him, he scarcely tried to refut his evidence, but began asking him about an incident at the firs carousal at Mokroe, a month before the arrest, when Timofey and anothe peasant called Akim had picked up on the floor in the passage a hundre roubles dropped by Mitya when he was drunk, and had given them t Trifon Borissovitch and received a rouble each from him for doing so \"Well,\" asked the lawyer, \"did you give that hundred roubles back t Mr. Karamazov?\" Trifon Borissovitch shuffled in vain. ... He wa obliged, after the peasants had been examined, to admit the finding o the hundred roubles, only adding that he had religiously returned i all to Dmitri Fyodorovitch \"in perfect honesty, and it's only becaus his honor was in liquor at the time, he wouldn't remember it.\" But, a he had denied the incident of the hundred roubles till the peasants ha been called to prove it, his evidence as to returning the money t Mitya was naturally regarded with great suspicion. So one of the mos dangerous witnesses brought forward by the prosecution was agai discredited."},
{"text":"The same thing happened with the Poles. They took up an attitude o pride and independence; they vociferated loudly that they had both bee in the service of the Crown, and that \"Pan Mitya\" had offered the three thousand \"to buy their honor,\" and that they had seen a large su of money in his hands. Pan Mussyalovitch introduced a terrible numbe of Polish words into his sentences, and seeing that this only increase his consequence in the eyes of the President and the prosecutor, gre more and more pompous, and ended by talking in Polish altogether. Bu Fetyukovitch caught them, too, in his snares. Trifon Borissovitch recalled, was forced, in spite of his evasions, to admit that Pa Vrublevsky had substituted another pack of cards for the one he ha provided, and that Pan Mussyalovitch had cheated during the game Kalganov confirmed this, and both the Poles left the witness-box wit damaged reputations, amidst laughter from the public."},
{"text":"Then exactly the same thing happened with almost all the most dangerou witnesses. Fetyukovitch succeeded in casting a slur on all of them, an dismissing them with a certain derision. The lawyers and experts wer lost in admiration, and were only at a loss to understand what goo purpose could be served by it, for all, I repeat, felt that the cas for the prosecution could not be refuted, but was growing more and mor tragically overwhelming. But from the confidence of the \"grea magician\" they saw that he was serene, and they waited, feeling tha \"such a man\" had not come from Petersburg for nothing, and that he wa not a man to return unsuccessful."},
{"text":" III"},
{"text":"The Medical Experts and a Pound of Nuts"},
{"text":"The evidence of the medical experts, too, was of little use to th prisoner. And it appeared later that Fetyukovitch had not reckoned muc upon it. The medical line of defense had only been taken up through th insistence of Katerina Ivanovna, who had sent for a celebrated docto from Moscow on purpose. The case for the defense could, of course, los nothing by it and might, with luck, gain something from it. There was however, an element of comedy about it, through the difference o opinion of the doctors. The medical experts were the famous doctor fro Moscow, our doctor, Herzenstube, and the young doctor, Varvinsky. Th two latter appeared also as witnesses for the prosecution."},
{"text":"The first to be called in the capacity of expert was Docto Herzenstube. He was a gray and bald old man of seventy, of middl height and sturdy build. He was much esteemed and respected by everyon in the town. He was a conscientious doctor and an excellent and piou man, a Hernguter or Moravian brother, I am not quite sure which. He ha been living amongst us for many years and behaved with wonderfu dignity. He was a kindhearted and humane man. He treated the sick poo and peasants for nothing, visited them in their slums and huts, an left money for medicine, but he was as obstinate as a mule. If once h had taken an idea into his head, there was no shaking it. Almos everyone in the town was aware, by the way, that the famous doctor had within the first two or three days of his presence among us, uttere some extremely offensive allusions to Doctor Herzenstube' qualifications. Though the Moscow doctor asked twenty-five roubles fo a visit, several people in the town were glad to take advantage of hi arrival, and rushed to consult him regardless of expense. All thes had, of course, been previously patients of Doctor Herzenstube, and th celebrated doctor had criticized his treatment with extreme harshness Finally, he had asked the patients as soon as he saw them, \"Well, wh has been cramming you with nostrums? Herzenstube? He, he!\" Docto Herzenstube, of course, heard all this, and now all the three doctor made their appearance, one after another, to be examined."},
{"text":"Doctor Herzenstube roundly declared that the abnormality of th prisoner's mental faculties was self-evident. Then giving his ground for this opinion, which I omit here, he added that the abnormality wa not only evident in many of the prisoner's actions in the past, but wa apparent even now at this very moment. When he was asked to explain ho it was apparent now at this moment, the old doctor, with simple-hearte directness, pointed out that the prisoner on entering the court had \"a extraordinary air, remarkable in the circumstances\"; that he ha \"marched in like a soldier, looking straight before him, though i would have been more natural for him to look to the left where, amon the public, the ladies were sitting, seeing that he was a great admire of the fair sex and must be thinking much of what the ladies are sayin of him now,\" the old man concluded in his peculiar language."},
{"text":"I must add that he spoke Russian readily, but every phrase was forme in German style, which did not, however, trouble him, for it had alway been a weakness of his to believe that he spoke Russian perfectly better indeed than Russians. And he was very fond of using Russia proverbs, always declaring that the Russian proverbs were the best an most expressive sayings in the whole world. I may remark, too, that i conversation, through absentmindedness he often forgot the mos ordinary words, which sometimes went out of his head, though he kne them perfectly. The same thing happened, though, when he spoke German and at such times he always waved his hand before his face as thoug trying to catch the lost word, and no one could induce him to go o speaking till he had found the missing word. His remark that th prisoner ought to have looked at the ladies on entering roused  whisper of amusement in the audience. All our ladies were very fond o our old doctor; they knew, too, that having been all his life  bachelor and a religious man of exemplary conduct, he looked upon wome as lofty creatures. And so his unexpected observation struck everyon as very queer."},
{"text":"The Moscow doctor, being questioned in his turn, definitely an emphatically repeated that he considered the prisoner's menta condition abnormal in the highest degree. He talked at length and wit erudition of \"aberration\" and \"mania,\" and argued that, from all th facts collected, the prisoner had undoubtedly been in a condition o aberration for several days before his arrest, and, if the crime ha been committed by him, it must, even if he were conscious of it, hav been almost involuntary, as he had not the power to control the morbi impulse that possessed him."},
{"text":"But apart from temporary aberration, the doctor diagnosed mania, whic premised, in his words, to lead to complete insanity in the future. (I must be noted that I report this in my own words, the doctor made us of very learned and professional language.) \"All his actions are i contravention of common sense and logic,\" he continued. \"Not to refe to what I have not seen, that is, the crime itself and the whol catastrophe, the day before yesterday, while he was talking to me, h had an unaccountably fixed look in his eye. He laughed unexpectedl when there was nothing to laugh at. He showed continual an inexplicable irritability, using strange words, `Bernard!' `Ethics! and others equally inappropriate.\" But the doctor detected mania, abov all, in the fact that the prisoner could not even speak of the thre thousand roubles, of which he considered himself to have been cheated without extraordinary irritation, though he could speak comparativel lightly of other misfortunes and grievances. According to all accounts he had even in the past, whenever the subject of the three thousan roubles was touched on, flown into a perfect frenzy, and yet he wa reported to be a disinterested and not grasping man."},
{"text":"\"As to the opinion of my learned colleague,\" the Moscow doctor adde ironically in conclusion, \"that the prisoner would, on entering th court, have naturally looked at the ladies and not straight before him I will only say that, apart from the playfulness of this theory, it i radically unsound. For though I fully agree that the prisoner, o entering the court where his fate will be decided, would not naturall look straight before him in that fixed way, and that that may really b a sign of his abnormal mental condition, at the same time I maintai that he would naturally not look to the left at the ladies, but, on th contrary, to the right to find his legal adviser, on whose help all hi hopes rest and on whose defense all his future depends.\" The docto expressed his opinion positively and emphatically."},
{"text":"But the unexpected pronouncement of Doctor Varvinsky gave the las touch of comedy to the difference of opinion between the experts. I his opinion the prisoner was now, and had been all along, in  perfectly normal condition, and, although he certainly must have bee in a nervous and exceedingly excited state before his arrest, thi might have been due to several perfectly obvious causes, jealousy anger, continual drunkenness, and so on. But this nervous conditio would not involve the mental aberration of which mention had just bee made. As to the question whether the prisoner should have looked to th left or to the right on entering the court, \"in his modest opinion,\"the prisoner would naturally look straight before him on entering th court, as he had in fact done, as that was where the judges, on who his fate depended, were sitting. So that it was just by lookin straight before him that he showed his perfectly normal state of min at the present. The young doctor concluded his \"modest\" testimony wit some heat."},
{"text":"\"Bravo, doctor!\" cried Mitya, from his seat, \"just so!\""},
{"text":"Mitya, of course, was checked, but the young doctor's opinion had  decisive influence on the judges and on the public, and, as appeare afterwards, everyone agreed with him. But Doctor Herzenstube, whe called as a witness, was quite unexpectedly of use to Mitya. As an ol resident in the town who had known the Karamazov family for years, h furnished some facts of great value for the prosecution, and suddenly as though recalling something, he added:"},
{"text":"\"But the poor young man might have had a very different life, for h had a good heart both in childhood and after childhood, that I know But the Russian proverb says, `If a man has one head, it's good, but i another clever man comes to visit him, it would be better still, fo then there will be two heads and not only one.' \""},
{"text":"\"One head is good, but two are better,\" the prosecutor put i impatiently. He knew the old man's habit of talking slowly an deliberately, regardless of the impression he was making and of th delay he was causing, and highly prizing his flat, dull and alway gleefully complacent German wit. The old man was fond of making jokes."},
{"text":"\"Oh, yes, that's what I say,\" he went on stubbornly. \"One head is good but two are much better, but he did not meet another head with wits and his wits went. Where did they go? I've forgotten the word.\" He wen on, passing his hand before his eyes, \"Oh, yes, spazieren.\""},
{"text":"\"Wandering?\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, yes, wandering, that's what I say. Well, his wits went wanderin and fell in such a deep hole that he lost himself. And yet he was  grateful and sensitive boy. Oh, I remember him very well, a little cha so high, left neglected by his father in the back yard, when he ra about without boots on his feet, and his little breeches hanging by on button.\""},
{"text":"A note of feeling and tenderness suddenly came into the honest ol man's voice. Fetyukovitch positively started, as though scentin something, and caught at it instantly."},
{"text":"\"Oh, yes, I was a young man then. ... I was ... well, I wa forty-five then, and had only just come here. And I was so sorry fo the boy then; I asked myself why shouldn't I buy him a pound of ...  pound of what? I've forgotten what it's called. A pound of wha children are very fond of, what is it, what is it?\" The doctor bega waving his hands again. \"It grows on a tree and is gathered and give to everyone. ...\""},
{"text":"\"Apples?\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, no, no. You have a dozen of apples, not a pound. ... No, ther are a lot of them, and all little. You put them in the mouth an crack.\""},
{"text":"\"Nuts?\""},
{"text":"\"Quite so, nuts, I say so.\" The doctor repeated in the calmest way a though he had been at no loss for a word. \"And I bought him a pound o nuts, for no one had ever bought the boy a pound of nuts before. And  lifted my finger and said to him, `Boy, Gott der Vater.' He laughed an said, `Gott der Vater.' ... `Gott der Sohn.' He laughed again an lisped, `Gott der Sohn.' `Gott der heilige Geist.' Then he laughed an said as best he could, `Gott der heilige Geist.' I went away, and tw days after I happened to be passing, and he shouted to me of himself `Uncle, Gott der Vater, Gott der Sohn,' and he had only forgotten `Got der heilige Geist.' But I reminded him of it and I felt very sorry fo him again. But he was taken away, and I did not see him again Twenty-three years passed. I am sitting one morning in my study,  white-haired old man, when there walks into the room a blooming youn man, whom I should never have recognized, but he held up his finger an said, laughing, `Gott der Vater, Gott der Sohn, and Gott der heilig Geist. I have just arrived and have come to thank you for that pound o nuts, for no one else ever bought me a pound of nuts; you are the onl one that ever did.' And then I remembered my happy youth and the poo child in the yard, without boots on his feet, and my heart was touche and I said, `You are a grateful young man, for you have remembered al your life the pound of nuts I bought you in your childhood.' And  embraced him and blessed him. And I shed tears. He laughed, but he she tears, too ... for the Russian often laughs when he ought to b weeping. But he did weep; I saw it. And now, alas! ...\""},
{"text":"\"And I am weeping now, German, I am weeping now, too, you saintly man,\"Mitya cried suddenly."},
{"text":"In any case the anecdote made a certain favorable impression on th public. But the chief sensation in Mitya's favor was created by th evidence of Katerina Ivanovna, which I will describe directly. Indeed when the witnesses  dcharge, that is, called by the defense, bega giving evidence, fortune seemed all at once markedly more favorable t Mitya, and what was particularly striking, this was a surprise even t the counsel for the defense. But before Katerina Ivanovna was called Alyosha was examined, and he recalled a fact which seemed to furnis positive evidence against one important point made by the prosecution."},
{"text":" IV"},
{"text":"Fortune Smiles on Mitya"},
{"text":"It came quite as a surprise even to Alyosha himself. He was no required to take the oath, and I remember that both sides addressed hi very gently and sympathetically. It was evident that his reputation fo goodness had preceded him. Alyosha gave his evidence modestly and wit restraint, but his warm sympathy for his unhappy brother wa unmistakable. In answer to one question, he sketched his brother' character as that of a man, violent-tempered perhaps and carried awa by his passions, but at the same time honorable, proud and generous capable of self-sacrifice, if necessary. He admitted, however, that through his passion for Grushenka and his rivalry with his father, hi brother had been of late in an intolerable position. But he repelle with indignation the suggestion that his brother might have committed  murder for the sake of gain, though he recognized that the thre thousand roubles had become almost an obsession with Mitya; that h looked upon them as part of the inheritance he had been cheated of b his father, and that, indifferent as he was to money as a rule, h could not even speak of that three thousand without fury. As for th rivalry of the two \"ladies,\" as the prosecutor expressed it--that is of Grushenka and Katya--he answered evasively and was even unwillin to answer one or two questions altogether."},
{"text":"\"Did your brother tell you, anyway, that he intended to kill you father?\" asked the prosecutor. \"You can refuse to answer if you thin necessary,\" he added."},
{"text":"\"He did not tell me so directly,\" answered Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"How so? Did he indirectly?\""},
{"text":"\"He spoke to me once of his hatred for our father and his fear that a an extreme moment ... at a moment of fury, he might perhaps murde him.\""},
{"text":"\"And you believed him?\""},
{"text":"\"I am afraid to say that I did. But I never doubted that some highe feeling would always save him at the fatal moment, as it has indee saved him, for it was not he killed my father,\" Alyosha said firmly, i a loud voice that was heard throughout the court."},
{"text":"The prosecutor started like a warhorse at the sound of a trumpet."},
{"text":"\"Let me assure you that I fully believe in the complete sincerity o your conviction and do not explain it by or identify it with you affection for your unhappy brother. Your peculiar view of the whol tragic episode is known to us already from the preliminar investigation. I won't attempt to conceal from you that it is highl individual and contradicts all the other evidence collected by th prosecution. And so I think it essential to press you to tell me wha facts have led you to this conviction of your brother's innocence an of the guilt of another person against whom you gave evidence at th preliminary inquiry?\""},
{"text":"\"I only answered the questions asked me at the preliminary inquiry,\"replied Alyosha, slowly and calmly. \"I made no accusation agains Smerdyakov of myself.\""},
{"text":"\"Yet you gave evidence against him?\""},
{"text":"\"I was led to do so by my brother Dmitri's words. I was told what too place at his arrest and how he had pointed to Smerdyakov before I wa examined. I believe absolutely that my brother is innocent, and if h didn't commit the murder, then--\""},
{"text":"\"Then Smerdyakov? Why Smerdyakov? And why are you so completel persuaded of your brother's innocence?\""},
{"text":"\"I cannot help believing my brother. I know he wouldn't lie to me.  saw from his face he wasn't lying.\""},
{"text":"\"Only from his face? Is that all the proof you have?\""},
{"text":"\"I have no other proof.\""},
{"text":"\"And of Smerdyakov's guilt you have no proof whatever but you brother's word and the expression of his face?\""},
{"text":"\"No, I have no other proof.\""},
{"text":"The prosecutor dropped the examination at this point. The impressio left by Alyosha's evidence on the public was most disappointing. Ther had been talk about Smerdyakov before the trial; someone had hear something, someone had pointed out something else, it was said tha Alyosha had gathered together some extraordinary proofs of hi brother's innocence and Smerdyakov's guilt, and after all there wa nothing, no evidence except certain moral convictions so natural in  brother."},
{"text":"But Fetyukovitch began his cross-examination. On his asking Alyosh when it was that the prisoner had told him of his hatred for his fathe and that he might kill him, and whether he had heard it, for instance at their last meeting before the catastrophe, Alyosha started as h answered, as though only just recollecting and understanding something."},
{"text":"\"I remember one circumstance now which I'd quite forgotten myself. I wasn't clear to me at the time, but now--\""},
{"text":"And, obviously only now for the first time struck by an idea, h recounted eagerly how, at his last interview with Mitya that evenin under the tree, on the road to the monastery, Mitya had struck himsel on the breast, \"the upper part of the breast,\" and had repeated severa times that he had a means of regaining his honor, that that means wa here, here on his breast. \"I thought, when he struck himself on th breast, he meant that it was in his heart,\" Alyosha continued, \"that h might find in his heart strength to save himself from some awfu disgrace which was awaiting him and which he did not dare confess eve to me. I must confess I did think at the time that he was speaking o our father, and that the disgrace he was shuddering at was the though of going to our father and doing some violence to him. Yet it was jus then that he pointed to something on his breast, so that I remember th idea struck me at the time that the heart is not on that part of th breast, but below, and that he struck himself much too high, just belo the neck, and kept pointing to that place. My idea seemed silly to m at the time, but he was perhaps pointing then to that little bag i which he had fifteen hundred roubles!\""},
{"text":"\"Just so,\" Mitya cried from his place. \"That's right, Alyosha, it wa the little bag I struck with my fist.\""},
{"text":"Fetyukovitch flew to him in hot haste entreating him to keep quiet, an at the same instant pounced on Alyosha. Alyosha, carried away himsel by his recollection, warmly expressed his theory that this disgrace wa probably just that fifteen hundred roubles on him, which he might hav returned to Katerina Ivanovna as half of what he owed her, but which h had yet determined not to repay her and to use for anothe purpose--namely, to enable him to elope with Grushenka, if sh consented."},
{"text":"\"It is so, it must be so,\" exclaimed Alyosha, in sudden excitement. \"M brother cried several times that half of the disgrace, half of it (h said half several times) he could free himself from at once, but tha he was so unhappy in his weakness of will that he wouldn't do it .. that he knew beforehand he was incapable of doing it!\""},
{"text":"\"And you clearly, confidently remember that he struck himself just o this part of the breast?\" Fetyukovitch asked eagerly."},
{"text":"\"Clearly and confidently, for I thought at the time, `Why does h strike himself up there when the heart is lower down?' and the though seemed stupid to me at the time ... I remember its seeming stupid ... it flashed through my mind. That's what brought it back to me jus now. How could I have forgotten it till now? It was that little bag h meant when he said he had the means but wouldn't give back that fiftee hundred. And when he was arrested at Mokroe he cried out--I know,  was told it--that he considered it the most disgraceful act of hi life that when he had the means of repaying Katerina Ivanovna hal (half, note!) what he owed her, he yet could not bring himself to repa the money and preferred to remain a thief in her eyes rather than par with it. And what torture, what torture that debt has been to him!\"Alyosha exclaimed in conclusion."},
{"text":"The prosecutor, of course, intervened. He asked Alyosha to describ once more how it had all happened, and several times insisted on th question, \"Had the prisoner seemed to point to anything? Perhaps he ha simply struck himself with his fist on the breast?\""},
{"text":"\"But it was not with his fist,\" cried Alyosha; \"he pointed with hi fingers and pointed here, very high up. ... How could I have s completely forgotten it till this moment?\""},
{"text":"The President asked Mitya what he had to say to the last witness' evidence. Mitya confirmed it, saying that he had been pointing to th fifteen hundred roubles which were on his breast, just below the neck and that that was, of course, the disgrace, \"A disgrace I cannot deny the most shameful act of my whole life,\" cried Mitya. \"I might hav repaid it and didn't repay it. I preferred to remain a thief in he eyes rather than give it back. And the most shameful part of it wa that I knew beforehand I shouldn't give it back! You are right Alyosha! Thanks, Alyosha!\""},
{"text":"So Alyosha's cross-examination ended. What was important and strikin about it was that one fact at least had been found, and even thoug this were only one tiny bit of evidence, a mere hint at evidence, i did go some little way towards proving that the bag had existed and ha contained fifteen hundred roubles and that the prisoner had not bee lying at the preliminary inquiry when he alleged at Mokroe that thos fifteen hundred roubles were \"his own.\" Alyosha was glad. With  flushed face he moved away to the seat assigned to him. He kep repeating to himself: \"How was it I forgot? How could I have forgotte it? And what made it come back to me now?\""},
{"text":"Katerina Ivanovna was called to the witness-box. As she entere something extraordinary happened in the court. The ladies clutche their lorgnettes and opera-glasses. There was a stir among the men some stood up to get a better view. Everybody alleged afterwards tha Mitya had turned \"white as a sheet\" on her entrance. All in black, sh advanced modestly, almost timidly. It was impossible to tell from he face that she was agitated; but there was a resolute gleam in her dar and gloomy eyes. I may remark that many people mentioned that sh looked particularly handsome at that moment. She spoke softly bu clearly, so that she was heard all over the court. She expresse herself with composure, or at least tried to appear composed. Th President began his examination discreetly and very respectfully, a though afraid to touch on \"certain chords,\" and showing consideratio for her great unhappiness. But in answer to one of the first question Katerina Ivanovna replied firmly that she had been formerly betrothe to the prisoner, \"until he left me of his own accord ...\" she adde quietly. When they asked her about the three thousand she had entruste to Mitya to post to her relations, she said firmly, \"I didn't give hi the money simply to send it off. I felt at the time that he was i great need of money. ... I gave him the three thousand on th understanding that he should post it within the month if he cared to There was no need for him to worry himself about that debt afterwards.\""},
{"text":"I will not repeat all the questions asked her and all her answers i detail. I will only give the substance of her evidence."},
{"text":"\"I was firmly convinced that he would send off that sum as soon as h got money from his father,\" she went on. \"I have never doubted hi disinterestedness and his honesty ... his scrupulous honesty ... i money matters. He felt quite certain that he would receive the mone from his father, and spoke to me several times about it. I knew he ha a feud with his father and have always believed that he had bee unfairly treated by his father. I don't remember any threat uttered b him against his father. He certainly never uttered any such threa before me. If he had come to me at that time, I should have at onc relieved his anxiety about that unlucky three thousand roubles, but h had given up coming to see me ... and I myself was put in such  position ... that I could not invite him. ... And I had no right indeed, to be exacting as to that money,\" she added suddenly, and ther was a ring of resolution in her voice. \"I was once indebted to him fo assistance in money for more than three thousand, and I took it although I could not at that time foresee that I should ever be in  position to repay my debt.\""},
{"text":"There was a note of defiance in her voice. It was then Fetyukovitc began his cross-examination."},
{"text":"\"Did that take place not here, but at the beginning of you acquaintance?\" Fetyukovitch suggested cautiously, feeling his way instantly scenting something favorable. I must mention in parenthesi that, though Fetyukovitch had been brought from Petersburg partly a the instance of Katerina Ivanovna herself, he knew nothing about th episode of the four thousand roubles given her by Mitya, and of he \"bowing to the ground to him.\" She concealed this from him and sai nothing about it, and that was strange. It may be pretty certainl assumed that she herself did not know till the very last minute whethe she would speak of that episode in the court, and waited for th inspiration of the moment."},
{"text":"No, I can never forget those moments. She began telling her story. Sh told everything, the whole episode that Mitya had told Alyosha, and he bowing to the ground, and her reason. She told about her father and he going to Mitya, and did not in one word, in a single hint, suggest tha Mitya had himself, through her sister, proposed they should \"send hi Katerina Ivanovna\" to fetch the money. She generously concealed tha and was not ashamed to make it appear as though she had of her ow impulse run to the young officer, relying on something ... to beg hi for the money. It was something tremendous! I turned cold and tremble as I listened. The court was hushed, trying to catch each word. It wa something unexampled. Even from such a self-willed and contemptuousl proud girl as she was, such an extremely frank avowal, such sacrifice such self-immolation, seemed incredible. And for what, for whom? T save the man who had deceived and insulted her and to help, in howeve small a degree, in saving him, by creating a strong impression in hi favor. And, indeed, the figure of the young officer who, with  respectful bow to the innocent girl, handed her his last four thousan roubles--all he had in the world--was thrown into a very sympatheti and attractive light, but ... I had a painful misgiving at heart!  felt that calumny might come of it later (and it did, in fact, it did) It was repeated all over the town afterwards with spiteful laughte that the story was perhaps not quite complete--that is, in th statement that the officer had let the young lady depart \"with nothin but a respectful bow.\" It was hinted that something was here omitted."},
{"text":"\"And even if nothing had been omitted, if this were the whole story,\"the most highly respected of our ladies maintained, \"even then it' very doubtful whether it was creditable for a young girl to behave i that way, even for the sake of saving her father.\""},
{"text":"And can Katerina Ivanovna, with her intelligence, her morbi sensitiveness, have failed to understand that people would talk lik that? She must have understood it, yet she made up her mind to tel everything. Of course, all these nasty little suspicions as to th truth of her story only arose afterwards and at the first moment al were deeply impressed by it. As for the judges and the lawyers, the listened in reverent, almost shamefaced silence to Katerina Ivanovna The prosecutor did not venture upon even one question on the subject Fetyukovitch made a low bow to her. Oh, he was almost triumphant! Muc ground had been gained. For a man to give his last four thousand on  generous impulse and then for the same man to murder his father for th sake of robbing him of three thousand--the idea seemed to incongruous. Fetyukovitch felt that now the charge of theft, at least was as good as disproved. \"The case\" was thrown into quite a differen light. There was a wave of sympathy for Mitya. As for him. ... I wa told that once or twice, while Katerina Ivanovna was giving he evidence, he jumped up from his seat, sank back again, and hid his fac in his hands. But when she had finished, he suddenly cried in a sobbin voice:"},
{"text":"\"Katya, why have you ruined me?\" and his sobs were audible all over th court. But he instantly restrained himself, and cried again:"},
{"text":"\"Now I am condemned!\""},
{"text":"Then he sat rigid in his place, with his teeth clenched and his arm across his chest. Katerina Ivanovna remained in the court and sat dow in her place. She was pale and sat with her eyes cast down. Those wh were sitting near her declared that for a long time she shivered al over as though in a fever. Grushenka was called."},
{"text":"I am approaching the sudden catastrophe which was perhaps the fina cause of Mitya's ruin. For I am convinced, so is everyone--all th lawyers said the same afterwards--that if the episode had no occurred, the prisoner would at least have been recommended to mercy But of that later. A few words first about Grushenka."},
{"text":"She, too, was dressed entirely in black, with her magnificent blac shawl on her shoulders. She walked to the witness-box with her smooth noiseless tread, with the slightly swaying gait common in women of ful figure. She looked steadily at the President, turning her eyes neithe to the right nor to the left. To my thinking she looked very handsom at that moment, and not at all pale, as the ladies alleged afterwards They declared, too, that she had a concentrated and spitefu expression. I believe that she was simply irritated and painfull conscious of the contemptuous and inquisitive eyes of ou scandal-loving public. She was proud and could not stand contempt. Sh was one of those people who flare up, angry and eager to retaliate, a the mere suggestion of contempt. There was an element of timidity, too of course, and inward shame at her own timidity, so it was not strang that her tone kept changing. At one moment it was angry, contemptuou and rough, and at another there was a sincere note o self-condemnation. Sometimes she spoke as though she were taking  desperate plunge; as though she felt, \"I don't care what happens, I'l say it. ...\" Apropos of her acquaintance with Fyodor Pavlovitch, sh remarked curtly, \"That's all nonsense, and was it my fault that h would pester me?\" But a minute later she added, \"It was all my fault.  was laughing at them both--at the old man and at him, too--and  brought both of them to this. It was all on account of me it happened.\""},
{"text":"Samsonov's name came up somehow. \"That's nobody's business,\" sh snapped at once, with a sort of insolent defiance. \"He was m benefactor; he took me when I hadn't a shoe to my foot, when my famil had turned me out.\" The President reminded her, though very politely that she must answer the questions directly, without going off int irrelevant details. Grushenka crimsoned and her eyes flashed."},
{"text":"The envelope with the notes in it she had not seen, but had only hear from \"that wicked wretch\" that Fyodor Pavlovitch had an envelope wit notes for three thousand in it. \"But that was all foolishness. I wa only laughing. I wouldn't have gone to him for anything.\""},
{"text":"\"To whom are you referring as `that wicked wretch'?\" inquired th prosecutor."},
{"text":"\"The lackey, Smerdyakov, who murdered his master and hanged himsel last night.\""},
{"text":"She was, of course, at once asked what ground she had for such  definite accusation; but it appeared that she, too, had no grounds fo it."},
{"text":"\"Dmitri Fyodorovitch told me so himself; you can believe him. The woma who came between us has ruined him; she is the cause of it all, let m tell you,\" Grushenka added. She seemed to be quivering with hatred, an there was a vindictive note in her voice."},
{"text":"She was again asked to whom she was referring."},
{"text":"\"The young lady, Katerina Ivanovna there. She sent for me, offered m chocolate, tried to fascinate me. There's not much true shame abou her, I can tell you that. ...\""},
{"text":"At this point the President checked her sternly, begging her t moderate her language. But the jealous woman's heart was burning, an she did not care what she did."},
{"text":"\"When the prisoner was arrested at Mokroe,\" the prosecutor asked \"everyone saw and heard you run out of the next room and cry out: `It' all my fault. We'll go to Siberia together!' So you already believe him to have murdered his father?\""},
{"text":"\"I don't remember what I felt at the time,\" answered Grushenka \"Everyone was crying out that he had killed his father, and I felt tha it was my fault, that it was on my account he had murdered him. Bu when he said he wasn't guilty, I believed him at once, and I believ him now and always shall believe him. He is not the man to tell a lie.\""},
{"text":"Fetyukovitch began his cross-examination. I remember that among othe things he asked about Rakitin and the twenty-five roubles \"you paid hi for bringing Alexey Fyodorovitch Karamazov to see you.\""},
{"text":"\"There was nothing strange about his taking the money,\" sneere Grushenka, with angry contempt. \"He was always coming to me for money he used to get thirty roubles a month at least out of me, chiefly fo luxuries: he had enough to keep him without my help.\""},
{"text":"\"What led you to be so liberal to Mr. Rakitin?\" Fetyukovitch asked, i spite of an uneasy movement on the part of the President."},
{"text":"\"Why, he is my cousin. His mother was my mother's sister. But he' always besought me not to tell anyone here of it, he is so dreadfull ashamed of me.\""},
{"text":"This fact was a complete surprise to everyone; no one in the town no in the monastery, not even Mitya, knew of it. I was told that Rakiti turned purple with shame where he sat. Grushenka had somehow hear before she came into the court that he had given evidence agains Mitya, and so she was angry. The whole effect on the public, o Rakitin's speech, of his noble sentiments, of his attacks upon serfdo and the political disorder of Russia, was this time finally ruined Fetyukovitch was satisfied: it was another godsend. Grushenka' cross-examination did not last long and, of course, there could b nothing particularly new in her evidence. She left a very disagreeabl impression on the public; hundreds of contemptuous eyes were fixed upo her, as she finished giving her evidence and sat down again in th court, at a good distance from Katerina Ivanovna. Mitya was silen throughout her evidence. He sat as though turned to stone, with hi eyes fixed on the ground."},
{"text":"Ivan was called to give evidence."},
{"text":" V"},
{"text":"A Sudden Catastrophe"},
{"text":"I may note that he had been called before Alyosha. But the usher of th court announced to the President that, owing to an attack of illness o some sort of fit, the witness could not appear at the moment, but wa ready to give his evidence as soon as he recovered. But no one seeme to have heard it and it only came out later."},
{"text":"His entrance was for the first moment almost unnoticed. The principa witnesses, especially the two rival ladies, had already bee questioned. Curiosity was satisfied for the time; the public wa feeling almost fatigued. Several more witnesses were still to be heard who probably had little information to give after all that had bee given. Time was passing. Ivan walked up with extraordinary slowness looking at no one, and with his head bowed, as though plunged in gloom thought. He was irreproachably dressed, but his face made a painfu impression, on me at least: there was an earthy look in it, a look lik a dying man's. His eyes were lusterless; he raised them and looke slowly round the court. Alyosha jumped up from his seat and moane \"Ah!\" I remember that, but it was hardly noticed."},
{"text":"The President began by informing him that he was a witness not on oath that he might answer or refuse to answer, but that, of course, he mus bear witness according to his conscience, and so on, and so on. Iva listened and looked at him blankly, but his face gradually relaxed int a smile, and as soon as the President, looking at him in astonishment finished, he laughed outright."},
{"text":"\"Well, and what else?\" he asked in a loud voice."},
{"text":"There was a hush in the court; there was a feeling of somethin strange. The President showed signs of uneasiness."},
{"text":"\"You ... are perhaps still unwell?\" he began, looking everywhere fo the usher."},
{"text":"\"Don't trouble yourself, your excellency, I am well enough and can tel you something interesting,\" Ivan answered with sudden calmness an respectfulness."},
{"text":"\"You have some special communication to make?\" the President went on still mistrustfully."},
{"text":"Ivan looked down, waited a few seconds and, raising his head, answered almost stammering:"},
{"text":"\"No ... I haven't. I have nothing particular.\""},
{"text":"They began asking him questions. He answered, as it were, reluctantly with extreme brevity, with a sort of disgust which grew more and mor marked, though he answered rationally. To many questions he answere that he did not know. He knew nothing of his father's money relation with Dmitri. \"I wasn't interested in the subject,\" he added. Threats t murder his father he had heard from the prisoner. Of the money in th envelope he had heard from Smerdyakov."},
{"text":"\"The same thing over and over again,\" he interrupted suddenly, with  look of weariness. \"I have nothing particular to tell the court.\""},
{"text":"\"I see you are unwell and understand your feelings,\" the Presiden began."},
{"text":"He turned to the prosecutor and the counsel for the defense to invit them to examine the witness, if necessary, when Ivan suddenly asked i an exhausted voice:"},
{"text":"\"Let me go, your excellency, I feel very ill.\""},
{"text":"And with these words, without waiting for permission, he turned to wal out of the court. But after taking four steps he stood still, as thoug he had reached a decision, smiled slowly, and went back."},
{"text":"\"I am like the peasant girl, your excellency ... you know. How doe it go? `I'll stand up if I like, and I won't if I don't.' They wer trying to put on her sarafan to take her to church to be married, an she said, `I'll stand up if I like, and I won't if I don't.' ... It' in some book about the peasantry.\""},
{"text":"\"What do you mean by that?\" the President asked severely."},
{"text":"\"Why, this,\" Ivan suddenly pulled out a roll of notes. \"Here's th money ... the notes that lay in that envelope\" (he nodded towards th table on which lay the material evidence), \"for the sake of which ou father was murdered. Where shall I put them? Mr. Superintendent, tak them.\""},
{"text":"The usher of the court took the whole roll and handed it to th President."},
{"text":"\"How could this money have come into your possession if it is the sam money?\" the President asked wonderingly."},
{"text":"\"I got them from Smerdyakov, from the murderer, yesterday. ... I wa with him just before he hanged himself. It was he, not my brother killed our father. He murdered him and I incited him to do it ... Wh doesn't desire his father's death?\""},
{"text":"\"Are you in your right mind?\" broke involuntarily from the President."},
{"text":"\"I should think I am in my right mind ... in the same nasty mind a all of you ... as all these ... ugly faces.\" He turned suddenly t the audience. \"My father has been murdered and they pretend they ar horrified,\" he snarled, with furious contempt. \"They keep up the sha with one another. Liars! They all desire the death of their fathers One reptile devours another. ... If there hadn't been a murder they'd have been angry and gone home ill-humored. It's a spectacle the want! Panem et circenses. Though I am one to talk! Have you any water Give me a drink for Christ's sake!\" He suddenly clutched his head."},
{"text":"The usher at once approached him. Alyosha jumped up and cried, \"He i ill. Don't believe him: he has brain fever.\" Katerina Ivanovna ros impulsively from her seat and, rigid with horror, gazed at Ivan. Mity stood up and greedily looked at his brother and listened to him with  wild, strange smile."},
{"text":"\"Don't disturb yourselves. I am not mad, I am only a murderer,\" Iva began again. \"You can't expect eloquence from a murderer,\" he adde suddenly for some reason and laughed a queer laugh."},
{"text":"The prosecutor bent over to the President in obvious dismay. The tw other judges communicated in agitated whispers. Fetyukovitch pricked u his ears as he listened: the hall was hushed in expectation. Th President seemed suddenly to recollect himself."},
{"text":"\"Witness, your words are incomprehensible and impossible here. Cal yourself, if you can, and tell your story ... if you really hav something to tell. How can you confirm your statement ... if indee you are not delirious?\""},
{"text":"\"That's just it. I have no proof. That cur Smerdyakov won't send yo proofs from the other world ... in an envelope. You think of nothin but envelopes--one is enough. I've no witnesses ... except one perhaps,\" he smiled thoughtfully."},
{"text":"\"Who is your witness?\""},
{"text":"\"He has a tail, your excellency, and that would be irregular! Le diabl n'existe point! Don't pay attention: he is a paltry, pitiful devil,\" h added suddenly. He ceased laughing and spoke as it were confidentially. \"He is here somewhere, no doubt--under that table wit the material evidence on it, perhaps. Where should he sit if not there You see, listen to me. I told him I don't want to keep quiet, and h talked about the geological cataclysm ... idiocy! Come, release th monster ... he's been singing a hymn. That's because his heart i light! It's like a drunken man in the street bawling how `Vanka went t Petersburg,' and I would give a quadrillion quadrillions for tw seconds of joy. You don't know me! Oh, how stupid all this business is Come, take me instead of him! I didn't come for nothing. ... Why, wh is everything so stupid? ...\""},
{"text":"And he began slowly, and as it were reflectively, looking round hi again. But the court was all excitement by now. Alyosha rushed toward him, but the court usher had already seized Ivan by the arm."},
{"text":"\"What are you about?\" he cried, staring into the man's face, an suddenly seizing him by the shoulders, he flung him violently to th floor. But the police were on the spot and he was seized. He screame furiously. And all the time he was being removed, he yelled an screamed something incoherent."},
{"text":"The whole court was thrown into confusion. I don't remember everythin as it happened. I was excited myself and could not follow. I only kno that afterwards, when everything was quiet again and everyon understood what had happened, the court usher came in for a reprimand though he very reasonably explained that the witness had been quit well, that the doctor had seen him an hour ago, when he had a sligh attack of giddiness, but that, until he had come into the court, he ha talked quite consecutively, so that nothing could have bee foreseen--that he had, in fact, insisted on giving evidence. Bu before everyone had completely regained their composure and recovere from this scene, it was followed by another. Katerina Ivanovna had a attack of hysterics. She sobbed, shrieking loudly, but refused to leav the court, struggled, and besought them not to remove her. Suddenly sh cried to the President:"},
{"text":"\"There is more evidence I must give at once ... at once! Here is  document, a letter ... take it, read it quickly, quickly! It's  letter from that monster ... that man there, there!\" she pointed t Mitya. \"It was he killed his father, you will see that directly. H wrote to me how he would kill his father! But the other one is ill, h is ill, he is delirious!\" she kept crying out, beside herself."},
{"text":"The court usher took the document she held out to the President, an she, dropping into her chair, hiding her face in her hands, bega convulsively and noiselessly sobbing, shaking all over, and stiflin every sound for fear she should be ejected from the court. The documen she had handed up was that letter Mitya had written at the Metropoli tavern, which Ivan had spoken of as a \"mathematical proof.\" Alas! it mathematical conclusiveness was recognized, and had it not been fo that letter, Mitya might have escaped his doom or, at least, that doo would have been less terrible. It was, I repeat, difficult to notic every detail. What followed is still confused to my mind. The Presiden must, I suppose, have at once passed on the document to the judges, th jury, and the lawyers on both sides. I only remember how they bega examining the witness. On being gently asked by the President whethe she had recovered sufficiently, Katerina Ivanovna exclaime impetuously:"},
{"text":"\"I am ready, I am ready! I am quite equal to answering you,\" she added evidently still afraid that she would somehow be prevented from givin evidence. She was asked to explain in detail what this letter was an under what circumstances she received it."},
{"text":"\"I received it the day before the crime was committed, but he wrote i the day before that, at the tavern--that is, two days before h committed the crime. Look, it is written on some sort of bill!\" sh cried breathlessly. \"He hated me at that time, because he had behave contemptibly and was running after that creature ... and because h owed me that three thousand. ... Oh! he was humiliated by that thre thousand on account of his own meanness! This is how it happened abou that three thousand. I beg you, I beseech you, to hear me. Three week before he murdered his father, he came to me one morning. I knew he wa in want of money, and what he wanted it for. Yes, yes--to win tha creature and carry her off. I knew then that he had been false to m and meant to abandon me, and it was I, I, who gave him that money, wh offered it to him on the pretext of his sending it to my sister i Moscow. And as I gave it him, I looked him in the face and said that h could send it when he liked, `in a month's time would do.' How, ho could he have failed to understand that I was practically telling hi to his face, `You want money to be false to me with your creature, s here's the money for you. I give it to you myself. Take it, if you hav so little honor as to take it!' I wanted to prove what he was, and wha happened? He took it, he took it, and squandered it with that creatur in one night. ... But he knew, he knew that I knew all about it.  assure you he understood, too, that I gave him that money to test him to see whether he was so lost to all sense of honor as to take it fro me. I looked into his eyes and he looked into mine, and he understoo it all and he took it--he carried off my money!\""},
{"text":"\"That's true, Katya,\" Mitya roared suddenly, \"I looked into your eye and I knew that you were dishonoring me, and yet I took your money Despise me as a scoundrel, despise me, all of you! I've deserved it!\""},
{"text":"\"Prisoner,\" cried the President, \"another word and I will order you t be removed.\""},
{"text":"\"That money was a torment to him,\" Katya went on with impulsive haste \"He wanted to repay it me. He wanted to, that's true; but he neede money for that creature, too. So he murdered his father, but he didn' repay me, and went off with her to that village where he was arrested There, again, he squandered the money he had stolen after the murder o his father. And a day before the murder he wrote me this letter. He wa drunk when he wrote it. I saw it at once, at the time. He wrote it fro spite, and feeling certain, positively certain, that I should neve show it to anyone, even if he did kill him, or else he wouldn't hav written it. For he knew I shouldn't want to revenge myself and rui him! But read it, read it attentively--more attentively, please--an you will see that he had described it all in his letter, al beforehand, how he would kill his father and where his money was kept Look, please, don't overlook that, there's one phrase there, `I shal kill him as soon as Ivan has gone away.' So he thought it all ou beforehand how he would kill him,\" Katerina Ivanovna pointed out to th court with venomous and malignant triumph. Oh! it was clear she ha studied every line of that letter and detected every meanin underlining it. \"If he hadn't been drunk, he wouldn't have written t me; but, look, everything is written there beforehand, just as h committed the murder after. A complete program of it!\" she exclaime frantically."},
{"text":"She was reckless now of all consequences to herself, though, no doubt she had foreseen them even a month ago, for even then, perhaps, shakin with anger, she had pondered whether to show it at the trial or not Now she had taken the fatal plunge. I remember that the letter was rea aloud by the clerk, directly afterwards, I believe. It made a overwhelming impression. They asked Mitya whether he admitted havin written the letter."},
{"text":"\"It's mine, mine!\" cried Mitya. \"I shouldn't have written it, if  hadn't been drunk! ... We've hated each other for many things, Katya but I swear, I swear I loved you even while I hated you, and you didn' love me!\""},
{"text":"He sank back on his seat, wringing his hands in despair. The prosecuto and counsel for the defense began cross-examining her, chiefly t ascertain what had induced her to conceal such a document and to giv her evidence in quite a different tone and spirit just before."},
{"text":"\"Yes, yes. I was telling lies just now. I was lying against my hono and my conscience, but I wanted to save him, for he has hated an despised me so!\" Katya cried madly. \"Oh, he has despised me horribly he has always despised me, and do you know, he has despised me from th very moment that I bowed down to him for that money. I saw that. .. I felt it at once at the time, but for a long time I wouldn't believ it. How often I have read it in his eyes, `You came of yourself though.' Oh, he didn't understand, he had no idea why I ran to him, h can suspect nothing but baseness, he judged me by himself, he though everyone was like himself!\" Katya hissed furiously, in a perfec frenzy. \"And he only wanted to marry me, because I'd inherited  fortune, because of that, because of that! I always suspected it wa because of that! Oh, he is a brute! He was always convinced that  should be trembling with shame all my life before him, because I wen to him then, and that he had a right to despise me forever for it, an so to be superior to me--that's why he wanted to marry me! That's so that's all so! I tried to conquer him by my love--a love that knew n bounds. I even tried to forgive his faithlessness; but he understoo nothing, nothing! How could he understand indeed? He is a monster!  only received that letter the next evening: it was brought me from th tavern--and only that morning, only that morning I wanted to forgiv him everything, everything--even his treachery!\""},
{"text":"The President and the prosecutor, of course, tried to calm her. I can' help thinking that they felt ashamed of taking advantage of he hysteria and of listening to such avowals. I remember hearing them sa to her, \"We understand how hard it is for you; be sure we are able t feel for you,\" and so on, and so on. And yet they dragged the evidenc out of the raving, hysterical woman. She described at last wit extraordinary clearness, which is so often seen, though only for  moment, in such overwrought states, how Ivan had been nearly driven ou of his mind during the last two months trying to save \"the monster an murderer,\" his brother."},
{"text":"\"He tortured himself,\" she exclaimed, \"he was always trying to minimiz his brother's guilt and confessing to me that he, too, had never love his father, and perhaps desired his death himself. Oh, he has a tender over-tender conscience! He tormented himself with his conscience! H told me everything, everything! He came every day and talked to me a his only friend. I have the honor to be his only friend!\" she crie suddenly with a sort of defiance, and her eyes flashed. \"He had bee twice to see Smerdyakov. One day he came to me and said, `If it was no my brother, but Smerdyakov committed the murder' (for the legend wa circulating everywhere that Smerdyakov had done it), `perhaps I too a guilty, for Smerdyakov knew I didn't like my father and perhap believed that I desired my father's death.' Then I brought out tha letter and showed it him. He was entirely convinced that his brothe had done it, and he was overwhelmed by it. He couldn't endure th thought that his own brother was a parricide! Only a week ago I sa that it was making him ill. During the last few days he has talke incoherently in my presence. I saw his mind was giving way. He walke about, raving; he was seen muttering in the streets. The doctor fro Moscow, at my request, examined him the day before yesterday and tol me that he was on the eve of brain fever--and all on his account, o account of this monster! And last night he learnt that Smerdyakov wa dead! It was such a shock that it drove him out of his mind ... an all through this monster, all for the sake of saving the monster!\""},
{"text":"Oh, of course, such an outpouring, such an avowal is only possible onc in a lifetime--at the hour of death, for instance, on the way to th scaffold! But it was in Katya's character, and it was such a moment i her life. It was the same impetuous Katya who had thrown herself on th mercy of a young profligate to save her father; the same Katya who ha just before, in her pride and chastity, sacrificed herself and he maidenly modesty before all these people, telling of Mitya's generou conduct, in the hope of softening his fate a little. And now, again she sacrificed herself; but this time it was for another, and perhap only now--perhaps only at this moment--she felt and knew how dea that other was to her! She had sacrificed herself in terror for him conceiving all of a sudden that he had ruined himself by his confessio that it was he who had committed the murder, not his brother, she ha sacrificed herself to save him, to save his good name, his reputation!"},
{"text":"And yet one terrible doubt occurred to one--was she lying in he description of her former relations with Mitya?--that was th question. No, she had not intentionally slandered him when she crie that Mitya despised her for her bowing down to him! She believed i herself. She had been firmly convinced, perhaps ever since that bow that the simple-hearted Mitya, who even then adored her, was laughin at her and despising her. She had loved him with an hysterical \"lacerated\" love only from pride, from wounded pride, and that love wa not like love, but more like revenge. Oh! perhaps that lacerated lov would have grown into real love, perhaps Katya longed for nothing mor than that, but Mitya's faithlessness had wounded her to the bottom o her heart, and her heart could not forgive him. The moment of reveng had come upon her suddenly, and all that had been accumulating so lon and so painfully in the offended woman's breast burst out all at onc and unexpectedly. She betrayed Mitya, but she betrayed herself, too And no sooner had she given full expression to her feelings than th tension of course was over and she was overwhelmed with shame Hysterics began again: she fell on the floor, sobbing and screaming She was carried out. At that moment Grushenka, with a wail, rushe towards Mitya before they had time to prevent her."},
{"text":"\"Mitya,\" she wailed, \"your serpent has destroyed you! There, she ha shown you what she is!\" she shouted to the judges, shaking with anger At a signal from the President they seized her and tried to remove he from the court. She wouldn't allow it. She fought and struggled to ge back to Mitya. Mitya uttered a cry and struggled to get to her. He wa overpowered."},
{"text":"Yes, I think the ladies who came to see the spectacle must have bee satisfied--the show had been a varied one. Then I remember the Mosco doctor appeared on the scene. I believe the President had previousl sent the court usher to arrange for medical aid for Ivan. The docto announced to the court that the sick man was suffering from a dangerou attack of brain fever, and that he must be at once removed. In answe to questions from the prosecutor and the counsel for the defense h said that the patient had come to him of his own accord the day befor yesterday and that he had warned him that he had such an attack comin on, but he had not consented to be looked after. \"He was certainly no in a normal state of mind: he told me himself that he saw visions whe he was awake, that he met several persons in the street, who were dead and that Satan visited him every evening,\" said the doctor, i conclusion. Having given his evidence, the celebrated doctor withdrew The letter produced by Katerina Ivanovna was added to the materia proofs. After some deliberation, the judges decided to proceed with th trial and to enter both the unexpected pieces of evidence (given b Ivan and Katerina Ivanovna) on the protocol."},
{"text":"But I will not detail the evidence of the other witnesses, who onl repeated and confirmed what had been said before, though all with thei characteristic peculiarities. I repeat, all was brought together in th prosecutor's speech, which I shall quote immediately. Everyone wa excited, everyone was electrified by the late catastrophe, and all wer awaiting the speeches for the prosecution and the defense with intens impatience. Fetyukovitch was obviously shaken by Katerina Ivanovna' evidence. But the prosecutor was triumphant. When all the evidence ha been taken, the court was adjourned for almost an hour. I believe i was just eight o'clock when the President returned to his seat and ou prosecutor, Ippolit Kirillovitch, began his speech."},
{"text":" VI"},
{"text":"The Prosecutor's Speech. Sketches of Character"},
{"text":"Ippolit Kirillovitch began his speech, trembling with nervousness, wit cold sweat on his forehead, feeling hot and cold all over by turns. H described this himself afterwards. He regarded this speech as hi chef-d'oeuvre, the chef-d'oeuvre of his whole life, as his swan-song He died, it is true, nine months later of rapid consumption, so that h had the right, as it turned out, to compare himself to a swan singin his last song. He had put his whole heart and all the brain he had int that speech. And poor Ippolit Kirillovitch unexpectedly revealed tha at least some feeling for the public welfare and \"the eternal question\"lay concealed in him. Where his speech really excelled was in it sincerity. He genuinely believed in the prisoner's guilt; he wa accusing him not as an official duty only, and in calling for vengeanc he quivered with a genuine passion \"for the security of society.\" Eve the ladies in the audience, though they remained hostile to Ippoli Kirillovitch, admitted that he made an extraordinary impression o them. He began in a breaking voice, but it soon gained strength an filled the court to the end of his speech. But as soon as he ha finished, he almost fainted."},
{"text":"\"Gentlemen of the jury,\" began the prosecutor, \"this case has made  stir throughout Russia. But what is there to wonder at, what is ther so peculiarly horrifying in it for us? We are so accustomed to suc crimes! That's what's so horrible, that such dark deeds have ceased t horrify us. What ought to horrify us is that we are so accustomed t it, and not this or that isolated crime. What are the causes of ou indifference, our lukewarm attitude to such deeds, to such signs of th times, ominous of an unenviable future? Is it our cynicism, is it th premature exhaustion of intellect and imagination in a society that i sinking into decay, in spite of its youth? Is it that our mora principles are shattered to their foundations, or is it, perhaps,  complete lack of such principles among us? I cannot answer suc questions; nevertheless they are disturbing, and every citizen not onl must, but ought to be harassed by them. Our newborn and still timi press has done good service to the public already, for without it w should never have heard of the horrors of unbridled violence and mora degradation which are continually made known by the press, not merel to those who attend the new jury courts established in the presen reign, but to everyone. And what do we read almost daily? Of thing beside which the present case grows pale, and seems almost commonplace But what is most important is that the majority of our national crime of violence bear witness to a widespread evil, now so general among u that it is difficult to contend against it."},
{"text":"\"One day we see a brilliant young officer of high society, at the ver outset of his career, in a cowardly underhand way, without a pang o conscience, murdering an official who had once been his benefactor, an the servant girl, to steal his own I.O.U. and what ready money he coul find on him; `it will come in handy for my pleasures in the fashionabl world and for my career in the future.' After murdering them, he put pillows under the head of each of his victims; he goes away. Next,  young hero `decorated for bravery' kills the mother of his chief an benefactor, like a highwayman, and to urge his companions to join hi he asserts that `she loves him like a son, and so will follow all hi directions and take no precautions.' Granted that he is a monster, ye I dare not say in these days that he is unique. Another man will no commit the murder, but will feel and think like him, and is a dishonorable in soul. In silence, alone with his conscience, he ask himself perhaps, `What is honor, and isn't the condemnation o bloodshed a prejudice?'"},
{"text":"\"Perhaps people will cry out against me that I am morbid, hysterical that it is a monstrous slander, that I am exaggerating. Let them sa so--and heavens! I should be the first to rejoice if it were so! Oh don't believe me, think of me as morbid, but remember my words; if onl a tenth, if only a twentieth part of what I say is true--even so it' awful! Look how our young people commit suicide, without askin themselves Hamlet's question what there is beyond, without a sign o such a question, as though all that relates to the soul and to wha awaits us beyond the grave had long been erased in their minds an buried under the sands. Look at our vice, at our profligates. Fyodo Pavlovitch, the luckless victim in the present case, was almost a innocent babe compared with many of them. And yet we all knew him, `h lived among us!' ..."},
{"text":"\"Yes, one day perhaps the leading intellects of Russia and of Europ will study the psychology of Russian crime, for the subject is wort it. But this study will come later, at leisure, when all the tragi topsy-turvydom of today is farther behind us, so that it's possible t examine it with more insight and more impartiality than I can do. No we are either horrified or pretend to be horrified, though we reall gloat over the spectacle, and love strong and eccentric sensation which tickle our cynical, pampered idleness. Or, like little children we brush the dreadful ghosts away and hide our heads in the pillow s as to return to our sports and merriment as soon as they have vanished But we must one day begin life in sober earnest, we must look a ourselves as a society; it's time we tried to grasp something of ou social position, or at least to make a beginning in that direction."},
{"text":"\"A great writer[137]9 of the last epoch, comparing Russia to a swif troika galloping to an unknown goal, exclaims, `Oh, troika, birdlik troika, who invented thee!' and adds, in proud ecstasy, that all th peoples of the world stand aside respectfully to make way for th recklessly galloping troika to pass. That may be, they may stand aside respectfully or no, but in my poor opinion the great writer ended hi book in this way either in an access of childish and naive optimism, o simply in fear of the censorship of the day. For if the troika wer drawn by his heroes, Sobakevitch, Nozdryov, Tchitchikov, it could reac no rational goal, whoever might be driving it. And those were th heroes of an older generation, ours are worse specimens still. ...\""},
{"text":"At this point Ippolit Kirillovitch's speech was interrupted b applause. The liberal significance of this simile was appreciated. Th applause was, it's true, of brief duration, so that the President di not think it necessary to caution the public, and only looked severel in the direction of the offenders. But Ippolit Kirillovitch wa encouraged; he had never been applauded before! He had been all hi life unable to get a hearing, and now he suddenly had an opportunity o securing the ear of all Russia."},
{"text":"\"What, after all, is this Karamazov family, which has gained such a unenviable notoriety throughout Russia?\" he continued. \"Perhaps I a exaggerating, but it seems to me that certain fundamental features o the educated class of today are reflected in this famil picture--only, of course, in miniature, `like the sun in a drop o water.' Think of that unhappy, vicious, unbridled old man, who has me with such a melancholy end, the head of a family! Beginning life o noble birth, but in a poor dependent position, through an unexpecte marriage he came into a small fortune. A petty knave, a toady an buffoon, of fairly good, though undeveloped, intelligence, he was above all, a moneylender, who grew bolder with growing prosperity. Hi abject and servile characteristics disappeared, his malicious an sarcastic cynicism was all that remained. On the spiritual side he wa undeveloped, while his vitality was excessive. He saw nothing in lif but sensual pleasure, and he brought his children up to be the same. H had no feelings for his duties as a father. He ridiculed those duties He left his little children to the servants, and was glad to be rid o them, forgot about them completely. The old man's maxim was Aprs mo le dluge. He was an example of everything that is opposed to civi duty, of the most complete and malignant individualism. `The world ma burn for aught I care, so long as I am all right,' and he was al right; he was content, he was eager to go on living in the same way fo another twenty or thirty years. He swindled his own son and spent hi money, his maternal inheritance, on trying to get his mistress fro him. No, I don't intend to leave the prisoner's defense altogether t my talented colleague from Petersburg. I will speak the truth myself,  can well understand what resentment he had heaped up in his son's hear against him."},
{"text":"\"But enough, enough of that unhappy old man; he has paid the penalty Let us remember, however, that he was a father, and one of the typica fathers of today. Am I unjust, indeed, in saying that he is typical o many modern fathers? Alas! many of them only differ in not openl professing such cynicism, for they are better educated, more cultured but their philosophy is essentially the same as his. Perhaps I am  pessimist, but you have agreed to forgive me. Let us agree beforehand you need not believe me, but let me speak. Let me say what I have t say, and remember something of my words."},
{"text":"\"Now for the children of this father, this head of a family. One o them is the prisoner before us, all the rest of my speech will dea with him. Of the other two I will speak only cursorily."},
{"text":"\"The elder is one of those modern young men of brilliant education an vigorous intellect, who has lost all faith in everything. He has denie and rejected much already, like his father. We have all heard him, h was a welcome guest in local society. He never concealed his opinions quite the contrary in fact, which justifies me in speaking rathe openly of him now, of course, not as an individual, but as a member o the Karamazov family. Another personage closely connected with the cas died here by his own hand last night. I mean an afflicted idiot formerly the servant, and possibly the illegitimate son, of Fyodo Pavlovitch, Smerdyakov. At the preliminary inquiry, he told me wit hysterical tears how the young Ivan Karamazov had horrified him by hi spiritual audacity. `Everything in the world is lawful according t him, and nothing must be forbidden in the future--that is what h always taught me.' I believe that idiot was driven out of his mind b this theory, though, of course, the epileptic attacks from which h suffered, and this terrible catastrophe, have helped to unhinge hi faculties. But he dropped one very interesting observation, which woul have done credit to a more intelligent observer, and that is, indeed why I've mentioned it: `If there is one of the sons that is like Fyodo Pavlovitch in character, it is Ivan Fyodorovitch.'"},
{"text":"\"With that remark I conclude my sketch of his character, feeling i indelicate to continue further. Oh, I don't want to draw any furthe conclusions and croak like a raven over the young man's future. We'v seen today in this court that there are still good impulses in hi young heart, that family feeling has not been destroyed in him by lac of faith and cynicism, which have come to him rather by inheritanc than by the exercise of independent thought."},
{"text":"\"Then the third son. Oh, he is a devout and modest youth, who does no share his elder brother's gloomy and destructive theory of life. He ha sought to cling to the `ideas of the people,' or to what goes by tha name in some circles of our intellectual classes. He clung to th monastery, and was within an ace of becoming a monk. He seems to me t have betrayed unconsciously, and so early, that timid despair whic leads so many in our unhappy society, who dread cynicism and it corrupting influences, and mistakenly attribute all the mischief t European enlightenment, to return to their `native soil,' as they say to the bosom, so to speak, of their mother earth, like frightene children, yearning to fall asleep on the withered bosom of thei decrepit mother, and to sleep there forever, only to escape the horror that terrify them."},
{"text":"\"For my part I wish the excellent and gifted young man every success;  trust that his youthful idealism and impulse towards the ideas of th people may never degenerate, as often happens, on the moral side int gloomy mysticism, and on the political into blind chauvinism--tw elements which are even a greater menace to Russia than the prematur decay, due to misunderstanding and gratuitous adoption of Europea ideas, from which his elder brother is suffering.\""},
{"text":"Two or three people clapped their hands at the mention of chauvinis and mysticism. Ippolit Kirillovitch had been, indeed, carried away b his own eloquence. All this had little to do with the case in hand, t say nothing of the fact of its being somewhat vague, but the sickly an consumptive man was overcome by the desire to express himself once i his life. People said afterwards that he was actuated by unworth motives in his criticism of Ivan, because the latter had on one or tw occasions got the better of him in argument, and Ippolit Kirillovitch remembering it, tried now to take his revenge. But I don't know whethe it was true. All this was only introductory, however, and the speec passed to more direct consideration of the case."},
{"text":"\"But to return to the eldest son,\" Ippolit Kirillovitch went on. \"He i the prisoner before us. We have his life and his actions, too, befor us; the fatal day has come and all has been brought to the surface While his brothers seem to stand for `Europeanism' and `the principle of the people,' he seems to represent Russia as she is. Oh, not al Russia, not all! God preserve us, if it were! Yet, here we have her our mother Russia, the very scent and sound of her. Oh, he i spontaneous, he is a marvelous mingling of good and evil, he is a love of culture and Schiller, yet he brawls in taverns and plucks out th beards of his boon companions. Oh, he, too, can be good and noble, bu only when all goes well with him. What is more, he can be carried of his feet, positively carried off his feet by noble ideals, but only i they come of themselves, if they fall from heaven for him, if they nee not be paid for. He dislikes paying for anything, but is very fond o receiving, and that's so with him in everything. Oh, give him ever possible good in life (he couldn't be content with less), and put n obstacle in his way, and he will show that he, too, can be noble. He i not greedy, no, but he must have money, a great deal of money, and yo will see how generously, with what scorn of filthy lucre, he will flin it all away in the reckless dissipation of one night. But if he has no money, he will show what he is ready to do to get it when he is i great need of it. But all this later, let us take events in thei chronological order."},
{"text":"\"First, we have before us a poor abandoned child, running about th backyard `without boots on his feet,' as our worthy and esteemed fello citizen, of foreign origin, alas! expressed it just now. I repeat i again, I yield to no one the defense of the criminal. I am here t accuse him, but to defend him also. Yes, I, too, am human; I, too, ca weigh the influence of home and childhood on the character. But the bo grows up and becomes an officer; for a duel and other reckless conduc he is exiled to one of the remote frontier towns of Russia. There h led a wild life as an officer. And, of course, he needed money, mone before all things, and so after prolonged disputes he came to  settlement with his father, and the last six thousand was sent him.  letter is in existence in which he practically gives up his claim t the rest and settles his conflict with his father over the inheritanc on the payment of this six thousand."},
{"text":"\"Then came his meeting with a young girl of lofty character an brilliant education. Oh, I do not venture to repeat the details; yo have only just heard them. Honor, self-sacrifice were shown there, an I will be silent. The figure of the young officer, frivolous an profligate, doing homage to true nobility and a lofty ideal, was show in a very sympathetic light before us. But the other side of the meda was unexpectedly turned to us immediately after in this very court Again I will not venture to conjecture why it happened so, but ther were causes. The same lady, bathed in tears of long-conceale indignation, alleged that he, he of all men, had despised her for he action, which, though incautious, reckless perhaps, was still dictate by lofty and generous motives. He, he, the girl's betrothed, looked a her with that smile of mockery, which was more insufferable from hi than from anyone. And knowing that he had already deceived her (he ha deceived her, believing that she was bound to endure everything fro him, even treachery), she intentionally offered him three thousan roubles, and clearly, too clearly, let him understand that she wa offering him money to deceive her. `Well, will you take it or not, ar you so lost to shame?' was the dumb question in her scrutinizing eyes He looked at her, saw clearly what was in her mind (he's admitted her before you that he understood it all), appropriated that three thousan unconditionally, and squandered it in two days with the new object o his affections."},
{"text":"\"What are we to believe then? The first legend of the young office sacrificing his last farthing in a noble impulse of generosity an doing reverence to virtue, or this other revolting picture? As a rule between two extremes one has to find the mean, but in the present cas this is not true. The probability is that in the first case he wa genuinely noble, and in the second as genuinely base. And why? Becaus he was of the broad Karamazov character--that's just what I am leadin up to--capable of combining the most incongruous contradictions, an capable of the greatest heights and of the greatest depths. Remembe the brilliant remark made by a young observer who has seen th Karamazov family at close quarters--Mr. Rakitin: `The sense of thei own degradation is as essential to those reckless, unbridled natures a the sense of their lofty generosity.' And that's true, they nee continually this unnatural mixture. Two extremes at the same moment, o they are miserable and dissatisfied and their existence is incomplete They are wide, wide as mother Russia; they include everything and pu up with everything."},
{"text":"\"By the way, gentlemen of the jury, we've just touched upon that thre thousand roubles, and I will venture to anticipate things a little. Ca you conceive that a man like that, on receiving that sum and in such  way, at the price of such shame, such disgrace, such utter degradation could have been capable that very day of setting apart half that sum that very day, and sewing it up in a little bag, and would have had th firmness of character to carry it about with him for a whole mont afterwards, in spite of every temptation and his extreme need of it Neither in drunken debauchery in taverns, nor when he was flying int the country, trying to get from God knows whom, the money so essentia to him to remove the object of his affections from being tempted by hi father, did he bring himself to touch that little bag! Why, if only t avoid abandoning his mistress to the rival of whom he was so jealous he would have been certain to have opened that bag and to have staye at home to keep watch over her, and to await the moment when she woul say to him at last `I am yours,' and to fly with her far from thei fatal surroundings."},
{"text":"\"But no, he did not touch his talisman, and what is the reason he give for it? The chief reason, as I have just said, was that when she woul say, `I am yours, take me where you will,' he might have th wherewithal to take her. But that first reason, in the prisoner's ow words, was of little weight beside the second. While I have that mone on me, he said, I am a scoundrel, not a thief, for I can always go t my insulted betrothed, and, laying down half the sum I hav fraudulently appropriated, I can always say to her, `You see, I'v squandered half your money, and shown I am a weak and immoral man, and if you like, a scoundrel' (I use the prisoner's own expressions), `bu though I am a scoundrel, I am not a thief, for if I had been a thief,  shouldn't have brought you back this half of the money, but should hav taken it as I did the other half!' A marvelous explanation! Thi frantic, but weak man, who could not resist the temptation of acceptin the three thousand roubles at the price of such disgrace, this very ma suddenly develops the most stoical firmness, and carries about  thousand roubles without daring to touch it. Does that fit in at al with the character we have analyzed? No, and I venture to tell you ho the real Dmitri Karamazov would have behaved in such circumstances, i he really had brought himself to put away the money."},
{"text":"\"At the first temptation--for instance, to entertain the woman wit whom he had already squandered half the money--he would have unpicke his little bag and have taken out some hundred roubles, for why shoul he have taken back precisely half the money, that is, fifteen hundre roubles? why not fourteen hundred? He could just as well have said the that he was not a thief, because he brought back fourteen hundre roubles. Then another time he would have unpicked it again and take out another hundred, and then a third, and then a fourth, and befor the end of the month he would have taken the last note but one, feelin that if he took back only a hundred it would answer the purpose, for  thief would have stolen it all. And then he would have looked at thi last note, and have said to himself, `It's really not worth while t give back one hundred; let's spend that, too!' That's how the rea Dmitri Karamazov, as we know him, would have behaved. One canno imagine anything more incongruous with the actual fact than this legen of the little bag. Nothing could be more inconceivable. But we shal return to that later.\""},
{"text":"After touching upon what had come out in the proceedings concerning th financial relations of father and son, and arguing again and again tha it was utterly impossible, from the facts known, to determine which wa in the wrong, Ippolit Kirillovitch passed to the evidence of th medical experts in reference to Mitya's fixed idea about the thre thousand owing him."},
{"text":" VII"},
{"text":"An Historical Survey"},
{"text":"\"The medical experts have striven to convince us that the prisoner i out of his mind and, in fact, a maniac. I maintain that he is in hi right mind, and that if he had not been, he would have behaved mor cleverly. As for his being a maniac, that I would agree with, but onl in one point, that is, his fixed idea about the three thousand. Yet  think one might find a much simpler cause than his tendency t insanity. For my part I agree thoroughly with the young doctor wh maintained that the prisoner's mental faculties have always bee normal, and that he has only been irritable and exasperated. The objec of the prisoner's continual and violent anger was not the sum itself there was a special motive at the bottom of it. That motive i jealousy!\""},
{"text":"Here Ippolit Kirillovitch described at length the prisoner's fata passion for Grushenka. He began from the moment when the prisoner wen to the \"young person's\" lodgings \"to beat her\"--\"I use his ow expression,\" the prosecutor explained--\"but instead of beating her, h remained there, at her feet. That was the beginning of the passion. A the same time the prisoner's father was captivated by the same youn person--a strange and fatal coincidence, for they both lost thei hearts to her simultaneously, though both had known her before. And sh inspired in both of them the most violent, characteristically Karamazo passion. We have her own confession: `I was laughing at both of them. Yes, the sudden desire to make a jest of them came over her, and sh conquered both of them at once. The old man, who worshiped money, a once set aside three thousand roubles as a reward for one visit fro her, but soon after that, he would have been happy to lay his propert and his name at her feet, if only she would become his lawful wife. W have good evidence of this. As for the prisoner, the tragedy of hi fate is evident; it is before us. But such was the young person' `game.' The enchantress gave the unhappy young man no hope until th last moment, when he knelt before her, stretching out hands that wer already stained with the blood of his father and rival. It was in tha position that he was arrested. `Send me to Siberia with him, I hav brought him to this, I am most to blame,' the woman herself cried, i genuine remorse at the moment of his arrest."},
{"text":"\"The talented young man, to whom I have referred already, Mr. Rakitin characterized this heroine in brief and impressive terms: `She wa disillusioned early in life, deceived and ruined by a betrothed, wh seduced and abandoned her. She was left in poverty, cursed by he respectable family, and taken under the protection of a wealthy ol man, whom she still, however, considers as her benefactor. There wa perhaps much that was good in her young heart, but it was embittere too early. She became prudent and saved money. She grew sarcastic an resentful against society.' After this sketch of her character it ma well be understood that she might laugh at both of them simply fro mischief, from malice."},
{"text":"\"After a month of hopeless love and moral degradation, during which h betrayed his betrothed and appropriated money entrusted to his honor the prisoner was driven almost to frenzy, almost to madness b continual jealousy--and of whom? His father! And the worst of it wa that the crazy old man was alluring and enticing the object of hi affection by means of that very three thousand roubles, which the so looked upon as his own property, part of his inheritance from hi mother, of which his father was cheating him. Yes, I admit it was har to bear! It might well drive a man to madness. It was not the money but the fact that this money was used with such revolting cynicism t ruin his happiness!\""},
{"text":"Then the prosecutor went on to describe how the idea of murdering hi father had entered the prisoner's head, and illustrated his theory wit facts."},
{"text":"\"At first he only talked about it in taverns--he was talking about i all that month. Ah, he likes being always surrounded with company, an he likes to tell his companions everything, even his most diabolica and dangerous ideas; he likes to share every thought with others, an expects, for some reason, that those he confides in will meet him wit perfect sympathy, enter into all his troubles and anxieties, take hi part and not oppose him in anything. If not, he flies into a rage an smashes up everything in the tavern. [Then followed the anecdote abou Captain Snegiryov.] Those who heard the prisoner began to think at las that he might mean more than threats, and that such a frenzy might tur threats into actions.\""},
{"text":"Here the prosecutor described the meeting of the family at th monastery, the conversations with Alyosha, and the horrible scene o violence when the prisoner had rushed into his father's house jus after dinner."},
{"text":"\"I cannot positively assert,\" the prosecutor continued, \"that th prisoner fully intended to murder his father before that incident. Ye the idea had several times presented itself to him, and he ha deliberated on it--for that we have facts, witnesses, and his ow words. I confess, gentlemen of the jury,\" he added, \"that till today  have been uncertain whether to attribute to the prisoner consciou premeditation. I was firmly convinced that he had pictured the fata moment beforehand, but had only pictured it, contemplating it as  possibility. He had not definitely considered when and how he migh commit the crime."},
{"text":"\"But I was only uncertain till today, till that fatal document wa presented to the court just now. You yourselves heard that young lady' exclamation, `It is the plan, the program of the murder!' That is ho she defined that miserable, drunken letter of the unhappy prisoner And, in fact, from that letter we see that the whole fact of the murde was premeditated. It was written two days before, and so we know no for a fact that, forty-eight hours before the perpetration of hi terrible design, the prisoner swore that, if he could not get mone next day, he would murder his father in order to take the envelope wit the notes from under his pillow, as soon as Ivan had left. `As soon a Ivan had gone away'--you hear that; so he had thought everything out weighing every circumstance, and he carried it all out just as he ha written it. The proof of premeditation is conclusive; the crime mus have been committed for the sake of the money, that is stated clearly that is written and signed. The prisoner does not deny his signature."},
{"text":"\"I shall be told he was drunk when he wrote it. But that does no diminish the value of the letter, quite the contrary; he wrote whe drunk what he had planned when sober. Had he not planned it when sober he would not have written it when drunk. I shall be asked: Then why di he talk about it in taverns? A man who premeditates such a crime i silent and keeps it to himself. Yes, but he talked about it before h had formed a plan, when he had only the desire, only the impulse to it Afterwards he talked less about it. On the evening he wrote that lette at the Metropolis tavern, contrary to his custom he was silent, thoug he had been drinking. He did not play billiards, he sat in a corner talked to no one. He did indeed turn a shopman out of his seat, bu that was done almost unconsciously, because he could never enter  tavern without making a disturbance. It is true that after he had take the final decision, he must have felt apprehensive that he had talke too much about his design beforehand, and that this might lead to hi arrest and prosecution afterwards. But there was nothing for it; h could not take his words back, but his luck had served him before, i would serve him again. He believed in his star, you know! I mus confess, too, that he did a great deal to avoid the fatal catastrophe `Tomorrow I shall try and borrow the money from everyone,' as he write in his peculiar language, `and if they won't give it to me, there wil be bloodshed.' \""},
{"text":"Here Ippolit Kirillovitch passed to a detailed description of al Mitya's efforts to borrow the money. He described his visit t Samsonov, his journey to Lyagavy. \"Harassed, jeered at, hungry, afte selling his watch to pay for the journey (though he tells us he ha fifteen hundred roubles on him--a likely story), tortured by jealous at having left the object of his affections in the town, suspectin that she would go to Fyodor Pavlovitch in his absence, he returned a last to the town, to find, to his joy, that she had not been near hi father. He accompanied her himself to her protector. (Strange to say he doesn't seem to have been jealous of Samsonov, which i psychologically interesting.) Then he hastens back to his ambush in th back gardens, and there learns that Smerdyakov is in a fit, that th other servant is ill--the coast is clear and he knows th `signals'--what a temptation! Still he resists it; he goes off to  lady who has for some time been residing in the town, and who is highl esteemed among us, Madame Hohlakov. That lady, who had long watched hi career with compassion, gave him the most judicious advice, to give u his dissipated life, his unseemly love-affair, the waste of his yout and vigor in pothouse debauchery, and to set off to Siberia to th goldmines: `that would be an outlet for your turbulent energies, you romantic character, your thirst for adventure.' \""},
{"text":"After describing the result of this conversation and the moment whe the prisoner learnt that Grushenka had not remained at Samsonov's, th sudden frenzy of the luckless man worn out with jealousy and nervou exhaustion, at the thought that she had deceived him and was now wit his father, Ippolit Kirillovitch concluded by dwelling upon the fata influence of chance. \"Had the maid told him that her mistress was a Mokroe with her former lover, nothing would have happened. But she los her head, she could only swear and protest her ignorance, and if th prisoner did not kill her on the spot, it was only because he flew i pursuit of his false mistress."},
{"text":"\"But note, frantic as he was, he took with him a brass pestle. Wh that? Why not some other weapon? But since he had been contemplatin his plan and preparing himself for it for a whole month, he woul snatch up anything like a weapon that caught his eye. He had realize for a month past that any object of the kind would serve as a weapon so he instantly, without hesitation, recognized that it would serve hi purpose. So it was by no means unconsciously, by no mean involuntarily, that he snatched up that fatal pestle. And then we fin him in his father's garden--the coast is clear, there are n witnesses, darkness and jealousy. The suspicion that she was there with him, with his rival, in his arms, and perhaps laughing at him a that moment--took his breath away. And it was not mere suspicion, th deception was open, obvious. She must be there, in that lighted room she must be behind the screen; and the unhappy man would have u believe that he stole up to the window, peeped respectfully in, an discreetly withdrew, for fear something terrible and immoral shoul happen. And he tries to persuade us of that, us, who understand hi character, who know his state of mind at the moment, and that he kne the signals by which he could at once enter the house.\" At this poin Ippolit Kirillovitch broke off to discuss exhaustively the suspecte connection of Smerdyakov with the murder. He did this ver circumstantially, and everyone realized that, although he professed t despise that suspicion, he thought the subject of great importance."},
{"text":" VIII"},
{"text":"A Treatise on Smerdyakov"},
{"text":"\"To begin with, what was the source of this suspicion?\" (Ippoli Kirillovitch began.) \"The first person who cried out that Smerdyako had committed the murder was the prisoner himself at the moment of hi arrest, yet from that time to this he had not brought forward a singl fact to confirm the charge, nor the faintest suggestion of a fact. Th charge is confirmed by three persons only--the two brothers of th prisoner and Madame Svyetlov. The elder of these brothers expressed hi suspicions only today, when he was undoubtedly suffering from brai fever. But we know that for the last two months he has completel shared our conviction of his brother's guilt and did not attempt t combat that idea. But of that later. The younger brother has admitte that he has not the slightest fact to support his notion o Smerdyakov's guilt, and has only been led to that conclusion from th prisoner's own words and the expression of his face. Yes, tha astounding piece of evidence has been brought forward twice today b him. Madame Svyetlov was even more astounding. `What the prisoner tell you, you must believe; he is not a man to tell a lie.' That is all th evidence against Smerdyakov produced by these three persons, who ar all deeply concerned in the prisoner's fate. And yet the theory o Smerdyakov's guilt has been noised about, has been and is stil maintained. Is it credible? Is it conceivable?\""},
{"text":"Here Ippolit Kirillovitch thought it necessary to describe th personality of Smerdyakov, \"who had cut short his life in a fit o insanity.\" He depicted him as a man of weak intellect, with  smattering of education, who had been thrown off his balance b philosophical ideas above his level and certain modern theories o duty, which he learnt in practice from the reckless life of his master who was also perhaps his father--Fyodor Pavlovitch; and theoretically, from various strange philosophical conversations wit his master's elder son, Ivan Fyodorovitch, who readily indulged in thi diversion, probably feeling dull or wishing to amuse himself at th valet's expense. \"He spoke to me himself of his spiritual conditio during the last few days at his father's house,\" Ippolit Kirillovitc explained; \"but others too have borne witness to it--the prisone himself, his brother, and the servant Grigory--that is, all who kne him well."},
{"text":"\"Moreover, Smerdyakov, whose health was shaken by his attacks o epilepsy, had not the courage of a chicken. `He fell at my feet an kissed them,' the prisoner himself has told us, before he realized ho damaging such a statement was to himself. `He is an epileptic chicken, he declared about him in his characteristic language. And the prisone chose him for his confidant (we have his own word for it) and h frightened him into consenting at last to act as a spy for him. In tha capacity he deceived his master, revealing to the prisoner th existence of the envelope with the notes in it and the signals by mean of which he could get into the house. How could he help telling him indeed? `He would have killed me, I could see that he would have kille me,' he said at the inquiry, trembling and shaking even before us though his tormentor was by that time arrested and could do him n harm. `He suspected me at every instant. In fear and trembling  hastened to tell him every secret to pacify him, that he might see tha I had not deceived him and let me off alive.' Those are his own words I wrote them down and I remember them. `When he began shouting at me,  would fall on my knees.'"},
{"text":"\"He was naturally very honest and enjoyed the complete confidence o his master, ever since he had restored him some money he had lost. S it may be supposed that the poor fellow suffered pangs of remorse a having deceived his master, whom he loved as his benefactor. Person severely afflicted with epilepsy are, so the most skillful doctors tel us, always prone to continual and morbid self-reproach. They worry ove their `wickedness,' they are tormented by pangs of conscience, ofte entirely without cause; they exaggerate and often invent all sorts o faults and crimes. And here we have a man of that type who had reall been driven to wrongdoing by terror and intimidation."},
{"text":"\"He had, besides, a strong presentiment that something terrible woul be the outcome of the situation that was developing before his eyes When Ivan Fyodorovitch was leaving for Moscow, just before th catastrophe, Smerdyakov besought him to remain, though he was too timi to tell him plainly what he feared. He confined himself to hints, bu his hints were not understood."},
{"text":"\"It must be observed that he looked on Ivan Fyodorovitch as  protector, whose presence in the house was a guarantee that no har would come to pass. Remember the phrase in Dmitri Karamazov's drunke letter, `I shall kill the old man, if only Ivan goes away.' So Iva Fyodorovitch's presence seemed to everyone a guarantee of peace an order in the house."},
{"text":"\"But he went away, and within an hour of his young master's departur Smerdyakov was taken with an epileptic fit. But that's perfectl intelligible. Here I must mention that Smerdyakov, oppressed by terro and despair of a sort, had felt during those last few days that one o the fits from which he had suffered before at moments of strain, migh be coming upon him again. The day and hour of such an attack cannot, o course, be foreseen, but every epileptic can feel beforehand that he i likely to have one. So the doctors tell us. And so, as soon as Iva Fyodorovitch had driven out of the yard, Smerdyakov, depressed by hi lonely and unprotected position, went to the cellar. He went down th stairs wondering if he would have a fit or not, and what if it were t come upon him at once. And that very apprehension, that very wonder brought on the spasm in his throat that always precedes such attacks and he fell unconscious into the cellar. And in this perfectly natura occurrence people try to detect a suspicion, a hint that he wa shamming an attack on purpose. But, if it were on purpose, the questio arises at once, what was his motive? What was he reckoning on? What wa he aiming at? I say nothing about medicine: science, I am told, may g astray: the doctors were not able to discriminate between th counterfeit and the real. That may be so, but answer me one question what motive had he for such a counterfeit? Could he, had he bee plotting the murder, have desired to attract the attention of th household by having a fit just before?"},
{"text":"\"You see, gentlemen of the jury, on the night of the murder, there wer five persons in Fyodor Pavlovitch's--Fyodor Pavlovitch himself (but h did not kill himself, that's evident); then his servant, Grigory, bu he was almost killed himself; the third person was Grigory's wife Marfa Ignatyevna, but it would be simply shameful to imagine he murdering her master. Two persons are left--the prisoner an Smerdyakov. But, if we are to believe the prisoner's statement that h is not the murderer, then Smerdyakov must have been, for there is n other alternative, no one else can be found. That is what accounts fo the artful, astounding accusation against the unhappy idiot wh committed suicide yesterday. Had a shadow of suspicion rested on anyon else, had there been any sixth person, I am persuaded that even th prisoner would have been ashamed to accuse Smerdyakov, and would hav accused that sixth person, for to charge Smerdyakov with that murder i perfectly absurd."},
{"text":"\"Gentlemen, let us lay aside psychology, let us lay aside medicine, le us even lay aside logic, let us turn only to the facts and see what th facts tell us. If Smerdyakov killed him, how did he do it? Alone o with the assistance of the prisoner? Let us consider the firs alternative--that he did it alone. If he had killed him it must hav been with some object, for some advantage to himself. But not having  shadow of the motive that the prisoner had for the murder--hatred jealousy, and so on--Smerdyakov could only have murdered him for th sake of gain, in order to appropriate the three thousand roubles he ha seen his master put in the envelope. And yet he tells anothe person--and a person most closely interested, that is, th prisoner--everything about the money and the signals, where th envelope lay, what was written on it, what it was tied up with, and above all, told him of those signals by which he could enter the house Did he do this simply to betray himself, or to invite to the sam enterprise one who would be anxious to get that envelope for himself `Yes,' I shall be told, `but he betrayed it from fear.' But how do yo explain this? A man who could conceive such an audacious, savage act and carry it out, tells facts which are known to no one else in th world, and which, if he held his tongue, no one would ever hav guessed!"},
{"text":"\"No, however cowardly he might be, if he had plotted such a crime nothing would have induced him to tell anyone about the envelope an the signals, for that was as good as betraying himself beforehand. H would have invented something, he would have told some lie if he ha been forced to give information, but he would have been silent abou that. For, on the other hand, if he had said nothing about the money but had committed the murder and stolen the money, no one in the worl could have charged him with murder for the sake of robbery, since n one but he had seen the money, no one but he knew of its existence i the house. Even if he had been accused of the murder, it could onl have been thought that he had committed it from some other motive. Bu since no one had observed any such motive in him beforehand, an everyone saw, on the contrary, that his master was fond of him an honored him with his confidence, he would, of course, have been th last to be suspected. People would have suspected first the man who ha a motive, a man who had himself declared he had such motives, who ha made no secret of it; they would, in fact, have suspected the son o the murdered man, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. Had Smerdyakov killed and robbe him, and the son been accused of it, that would, of course, have suite Smerdyakov. Yet are we to believe that, though plotting the murder, h told that son, Dmitri, about the money, the envelope, and the signals Is that logical? Is that clear?"},
{"text":"\"When the day of the murder planned by Smerdyakov came, we have hi falling downstairs in a feigned fit--with what object? In the firs place that Grigory, who had been intending to take his medicine, migh put it off and remain on guard, seeing there was no one to look afte the house, and, in the second place, I suppose, that his master seein that there was no one to guard him, and in terror of a visit from hi son, might redouble his vigilance and precaution. And, most of all,  suppose that he, Smerdyakov, disabled by the fit, might be carried fro the kitchen, where he always slept, apart from all the rest, and wher he could go in and out as he liked, to Grigory's room at the other en of the lodge, where he was always put, shut off by a screen three pace from their own bed. This was the immemorial custom established by hi master and the kindhearted Marfa Ignatyevna, whenever he had a fit There, lying behind the screen, he would most likely, to keep up th sham, have begun groaning, and so keeping them awake all night (a Grigory and his wife testified). And all this, we are to believe, tha he might more conveniently get up and murder his master!"},
{"text":"\"But I shall be told that he shammed illness on purpose that he migh not be suspected and that he told the prisoner of the money and th signals to tempt him to commit the murder, and when he had murdered hi and had gone away with the money, making a noise, most likely, an waking people, Smerdyakov got up, am I to believe, and went in--wha for? To murder his master a second time and carry off the money tha had already been stolen? Gentlemen, are you laughing? I am ashamed t put forward such suggestions, but, incredible as it seems, that's jus what the prisoner alleges. When he had left the house, had knocke Grigory down and raised an alarm, he tells us Smerdyakov got up, wen in and murdered his master and stole the money! I won't press the poin that Smerdyakov could hardly have reckoned on this beforehand, and hav foreseen that the furious and exasperated son would simply come to pee in respectfully, though he knew the signals, and beat a retreat leaving Smerdyakov his booty. Gentlemen of the jury, I put thi question to you in earnest; when was the moment when Smerdyakov coul have committed his crime? Name that moment, or you can't accuse him."},
{"text":"\"But, perhaps, the fit was a real one, the sick man suddenly recovered heard a shout, and went out. Well--what then? He looked about him an said, `Why not go and kill the master?' And how did he know what ha happened, since he had been lying unconscious till that moment? Bu there's a limit to these flights of fancy."},
{"text":"\" `Quite so,' some astute people will tell me, `but what if they wer in agreement? What if they murdered him together and shared th money--what then?' A weighty question, truly! And the facts to confir it are astounding. One commits the murder and takes all the troubl while his accomplice lies on one side shamming a fit, apparently t arouse suspicion in everyone, alarm in his master and alarm in Grigory It would be interesting to know what motives could have induced the tw accomplices to form such an insane plan."},
{"text":"\"But perhaps it was not a case of active complicity on Smerdyakov' part, but only of passive acquiescence; perhaps Smerdyakov wa intimidated and agreed not to prevent the murder, and foreseeing tha he would be blamed for letting his master be murdered, withou screaming for help or resisting, he may have obtained permission fro Dmitri Karamazov to get out of the way by shamming a fit--`you ma murder him as you like; it's nothing to me.' But as this attack o Smerdyakov's was bound to throw the household into confusion, Dmitr Karamazov could never have agreed to such a plan. I will waive tha point however. Supposing that he did agree, it would still follow tha Dmitri Karamazov is the murderer and the instigator, and Smerdyakov i only a passive accomplice, and not even an accomplice, but merel acquiesced against his will through terror."},
{"text":"\"But what do we see? As soon as he is arrested the prisoner instantl throws all the blame on Smerdyakov, not accusing him of being hi accomplice, but of being himself the murderer. `He did it alone,' h says. `He murdered and robbed him. It was the work of his hands. Strange sort of accomplices who begin to accuse one another at once And think of the risk for Karamazov. After committing the murder whil his accomplice lay in bed, he throws the blame on the invalid, wh might well have resented it and in self-preservation might well hav confessed the truth. For he might well have seen that the court woul at once judge how far he was responsible, and so he might well hav reckoned that if he were punished, it would be far less severely tha the real murderer. But in that case he would have been certain to mak a confession, yet he has not done so. Smerdyakov never hinted at thei complicity, though the actual murderer persisted in accusing him an declaring that he had committed the crime alone."},
{"text":"\"What's more, Smerdyakov at the inquiry volunteered the statement tha it was he who had told the prisoner of the envelope of notes and of th signals, and that, but for him, he would have known nothing about them If he had really been a guilty accomplice, would he so readily hav made this statement at the inquiry? On the contrary, he would hav tried to conceal it, to distort the facts or minimize them. But he wa far from distorting or minimizing them. No one but an innocent man, wh had no fear of being charged with complicity, could have acted as h did. And in a fit of melancholy arising from his disease and thi catastrophe he hanged himself yesterday. He left a note written in hi peculiar language, `I destroy myself of my own will and inclination s as to throw no blame on anyone.' What would it have cost him to add: ` am the murderer, not Karamazov'? But that he did not add. Did hi conscience lead him to suicide and not to avowing his guilt?"},
{"text":"\"And what followed? Notes for three thousand roubles were brought int the court just now, and we were told that they were the same that la in the envelope now on the table before us, and that the witness ha received them from Smerdyakov the day before. But I need not recall th painful scene, though I will make one or two comments, selecting suc trivial ones as might not be obvious at first sight to everyone, and s may be overlooked. In the first place, Smerdyakov must have given bac the money and hanged himself yesterday from remorse. And only yesterda he confessed his guilt to Ivan Karamazov, as the latter informs us. I it were not so, indeed, why should Ivan Fyodorovitch have kept silenc till now? And so, if he has confessed, then why, I ask again, did h not avow the whole truth in the last letter he left behind, knowin that the innocent prisoner had to face this terrible ordeal the nex day?"},
{"text":"\"The money alone is no proof. A week ago, quite by chance, the fac came to the knowledge of myself and two other persons in this cour that Ivan Fyodorovitch had sent two five percent coupons of fiv thousand each--that is, ten thousand in all--to the chief town of th province to be changed. I only mention this to point out that anyon may have money, and that it can't be proved that these notes are th same as were in Fyodor Pavlovitch's envelope."},
{"text":"\"Ivan Karamazov, after receiving yesterday a communication of suc importance from the real murderer, did not stir. Why didn't he repor it at once? Why did he put it all off till morning? I think I have  right to conjecture why. His health had been giving way for a wee past: he had admitted to a doctor and to his most intimate friends tha he was suffering from hallucinations and seeing phantoms of the dead he was on the eve of the attack of brain fever by which he has bee stricken down today. In this condition he suddenly heard o Smerdyakov's death, and at once reflected, `The man is dead, I ca throw the blame on him and save my brother. I have money. I will take  roll of notes and say that Smerdyakov gave them me before his death. You will say that was dishonorable: it's dishonorable to slander eve the dead, and even to save a brother. True, but what if he slandere him unconsciously? What if, finally unhinged by the sudden news of th valet's death, he imagined it really was so? You saw the recent scene you have seen the witness's condition. He was standing up and wa speaking, but where was his mind?"},
{"text":"\"Then followed the document, the prisoner's letter written two day before the crime, and containing a complete program of the murder. Why then, are we looking for any other program? The crime was committe precisely according to this program, and by no other than the writer o it. Yes, gentlemen of the jury, it went off without a hitch! He did no run respectfully and timidly away from his father's window, though h was firmly convinced that the object of his affections was with him No, that is absurd and unlikely! He went in and murdered him. Mos likely he killed him in anger, burning with resentment, as soon as h looked on his hated rival. But having killed him, probably with on blow of the brass pestle, and having convinced himself, after carefu search, that she was not there, he did not, however, forget to put hi hand under the pillow and take out the envelope, the torn cover o which lies now on the table before us."},
{"text":"\"I mention this fact that you may note one, to my thinking, ver characteristic circumstance. Had he been an experienced murderer an had he committed the murder for the sake of gain only, would he hav left the torn envelope on the floor as it was found, beside the corpse Had it been Smerdyakov, for instance, murdering his master to rob him he would have simply carried away the envelope with him, withou troubling himself to open it over his victim's corpse, for he woul have known for certain that the notes were in the envelope--they ha been put in and sealed up in his presence--and had he taken th envelope with him, no one would ever have known of the robbery. I as you, gentlemen, would Smerdyakov have behaved in that way? Would h have left the envelope on the floor?"},
{"text":"\"No, this was the action of a frantic murderer, a murderer who was no a thief and had never stolen before that day, who snatched the note from under the pillow, not like a thief stealing them, but as thoug seizing his own property from the thief who had stolen it. For that wa the idea which had become almost an insane obsession in Dmitr Karamazov in regard to that money. And pouncing upon the envelope which he had never seen before, he tore it open to make sure whethe the money was in it, and ran away with the money in his pocket, eve forgetting to consider that he had left an astounding piece of evidenc against himself in that torn envelope on the floor. All because it wa Karamazov, not Smerdyakov, he didn't think, he didn't reflect, and ho should he? He ran away; he heard behind him the servant cry out; th old man caught him, stopped him and was felled to the ground by th brass pestle."},
{"text":"\"The prisoner, moved by pity, leapt down to look at him. Would yo believe it, he tells us that he leapt down out of pity, out o compassion, to see whether he could do anything for him. Was that  moment to show compassion? No; he jumped down simply to make certai whether the only witness of his crime were dead or alive. Any othe feeling, any other motive would be unnatural. Note that he took troubl over Grigory, wiped his head with his handkerchief and, convincin himself he was dead, he ran to the house of his mistress, dazed an covered with blood. How was it he never thought that he was covere with blood and would be at once detected? But the prisoner himsel assures us that he did not even notice that he was covered with blood That may be believed, that is very possible, that always happens a such moments with criminals. On one point they will show diabolica cunning, while another will escape them altogether. But he was thinkin at that moment of one thing only--where was she? He wanted to find ou at once where she was, so he ran to her lodging and learnt a unexpected and astounding piece of news--she had gone off to Mokroe t meet her first lover.\""},
{"text":" IX"},
{"text":"The Galloping Troika. The End of the Prosecutor's Speech"},
{"text":"Ippolit Kirillovitch had chosen the historical method of exposition beloved by all nervous orators, who find in its limitation a check o their own eager rhetoric. At this moment in his speech he went off int a dissertation on Grushenka's \"first lover,\" and brought forwar several interesting thoughts on this theme."},
{"text":"\"Karamazov, who had been frantically jealous of everyone, collapsed, s to speak, and effaced himself at once before this first lover. Wha makes it all the more strange is that he seems to have hardly though of this formidable rival. But he had looked upon him as a remot danger, and Karamazov always lives in the present. Possibly he regarde him as a fiction. But his wounded heart grasped instantly that th woman had been concealing this new rival and deceiving him, because h was anything but a fiction to her, because he was the one hope of he life. Grasping this instantly, he resigned himself."},
{"text":"\"Gentlemen of the jury, I cannot help dwelling on this unexpected trai in the prisoner's character. He suddenly evinces an irresistible desir for justice, a respect for woman and a recognition of her right t love. And all this at the very moment when he had stained his hand with his father's blood for her sake! It is true that the blood he ha shed was already crying out for vengeance, for, after having ruined hi soul and his life in this world, he was forced to ask himself at tha same instant what he was and what he could be now to her, to tha being, dearer to him than his own soul, in comparison with that forme lover who had returned penitent, with new love, to the woman he ha once betrayed, with honorable offers, with the promise of a reforme and happy life. And he, luckless man, what could he give her now, wha could he offer her?"},
{"text":"\"Karamazov felt all this, knew that all ways were barred to him by hi crime and that he was a criminal under sentence, and not a man wit life before him! This thought crushed him. And so he instantly flew t one frantic plan, which, to a man of Karamazov's character, must hav appeared the one inevitable way out of his terrible position. That wa out was suicide. He ran for the pistols he had left in pledge with hi friend Perhotin and on the way, as he ran, he pulled out of his pocke the money, for the sake of which he had stained his hands with hi father's gore. Oh, now he needed money more than ever. Karamazov woul die, Karamazov would shoot himself and it should be remembered! To b sure, he was a poet and had burnt the candle at both ends all his life `To her, to her! and there, oh, there I will give a feast to the whol world, such as never was before, that will be remembered and talked o long after! In the midst of shouts of wild merriment, reckless gyps songs and dances I shall raise the glass and drink to the woman I ador and her newfound happiness! And then, on the spot, at her feet, I shal dash out my brains before her and punish myself! She will remembe Mitya Karamazov sometimes, she will see how Mitya loved her, she wil feel for Mitya!'"},
{"text":"\"Here we see in excess a love of effect, a romantic despair an sentimentality, and the wild recklessness of the Karamazovs. Yes, bu there is something else, gentlemen of the jury, something that crie out in the soul, throbs incessantly in the mind, and poisons the hear unto death--that something is conscience, gentlemen of the jury, it judgment, its terrible torments! The pistol will settle everything, th pistol is the only way out! But beyond--I don't know whether Karamazo wondered at that moment `What lies beyond,' and whether Karamazo could, like Hamlet, wonder `What lies beyond.' No, gentlemen of th jury, they have their Hamlets, but we still have our Karamazovs!\""},
{"text":"Here Ippolit Kirillovitch drew a minute picture of Mitya' preparations, the scene at Perhotin's, at the shop, with the drivers He quoted numerous words and actions, confirmed by witnesses, and th picture made a terrible impression on the audience. The guilt of thi harassed and desperate man stood out clear and convincing, when th facts were brought together."},
{"text":"\"What need had he of precaution? Two or three times he almos confessed, hinted at it, all but spoke out.\" (Then followed th evidence given by witnesses.) \"He even cried out to the peasant wh drove him, `Do you know, you are driving a murderer!' But it wa impossible for him to speak out, he had to get to Mokroe and there t finish his romance. But what was awaiting the luckless man? Almost fro the first minute at Mokroe he saw that his invincible rival was perhap by no means so invincible, that the toast to their newfound happines was not desired and would not be acceptable. But you know the facts gentlemen of the jury, from the preliminary inquiry. Karamazov' triumph over his rival was complete and his soul passed into quite  new phase, perhaps the most terrible phase through which his soul ha passed or will pass."},
{"text":"\"One may say with certainty, gentlemen of the jury,\" the prosecuto continued, \"that outraged nature and the criminal heart bring their ow vengeance more completely than any earthly justice. What's more justice and punishment on earth positively alleviate the punishment o nature and are, indeed, essential to the soul of the criminal at suc moments, as its salvation from despair. For I cannot imagine the horro and moral suffering of Karamazov when he learnt that she loved him that for his sake she had rejected her first lover, that she wa summoning him, Mitya, to a new life, that she was promising hi happiness--and when? When everything was over for him and nothing wa possible!"},
{"text":"\"By the way, I will note in parenthesis a point of importance for th light it throws on the prisoner's position at the moment. This woman this love of his, had been till the last moment, till the very instan of his arrest, a being unattainable, passionately desired by him bu unattainable. Yet why did he not shoot himself then, why did h relinquish his design and even forget where his pistol was? It was jus that passionate desire for love and the hope of satisfying it tha restrained him. Throughout their revels he kept close to his adore mistress, who was at the banquet with him and was more charming an fascinating to him than ever--he did not leave her side, abasin himself in his homage before her."},
{"text":"\"His passion might well, for a moment, stifle not only the fear o arrest, but even the torments of conscience. For a moment, oh, only fo a moment! I can picture the state of mind of the criminal hopelessl enslaved by these influences--first, the influence of drink, of nois and excitement, of the thud of the dance and the scream of the song and of her, flushed with wine, singing and dancing and laughing to him Secondly, the hope in the background that the fatal end might still b far off, that not till next morning, at least, they would come and tak him. So he had a few hours and that's much, very much! In a few hour one can think of many things. I imagine that he felt something lik what criminals feel when they are being taken to the scaffold. The have another long, long street to pass down and at walking pace, pas thousands of people. Then there will be a turning into another stree and only at the end of that street the dread place of execution!  fancy that at the beginning of the journey the condemned man, sittin on his shameful cart, must feel that he has infinite life still befor him. The houses recede, the cart moves on--oh, that's nothing, it' still far to the turning into the second street and he still look boldly to right and to left at those thousands of callously curiou people with their eyes fixed on him, and he still fancies that he i just such a man as they. But now the turning comes to the next street Oh, that's nothing, nothing, there's still a whole street before him and however many houses have been passed, he will still think there ar many left. And so to the very end, to the very scaffold."},
{"text":"\"This I imagine is how it was with Karamazov then. `They've not ha time yet,' he must have thought, `I may still find some way out, oh there's still time to make some plan of defense, and now, now--she i so fascinating!'"},
{"text":"\"His soul was full of confusion and dread, but he managed, however, t put aside half his money and hide it somewhere--I cannot otherwis explain the disappearance of quite half of the three thousand he ha just taken from his father's pillow. He had been in Mokroe more tha once before, he had caroused there for two days together already, h knew the old big house with all its passages and outbuildings.  imagine that part of the money was hidden in that house, not lon before the arrest, in some crevice, under some floor, in some corner under the roof. With what object? I shall be asked. Why, th catastrophe may take place at once, of course; he hadn't yet considere how to meet it, he hadn't the time, his head was throbbing and hi heart was with her, but money--money was indispensable in any case With money a man is always a man. Perhaps such foresight at such  moment may strike you as unnatural? But he assures us himself that  month before, at a critical and exciting moment, he had halved hi money and sewn it up in a little bag. And though that was not true, a we shall prove directly, it shows the idea was a familiar one t Karamazov, he had contemplated it. What's more, when he declared at th inquiry that he had put fifteen hundred roubles in a bag (which neve existed) he may have invented that little bag on the inspiration of th moment, because he had two hours before divided his money and hidde half of it at Mokroe till morning, in case of emergency, simply not t have it on himself. Two extremes, gentlemen of the jury, remember tha Karamazov can contemplate two extremes and both at once."},
{"text":"\"We have looked in the house, but we haven't found the money. It ma still be there or it may have disappeared next day and be in th prisoner's hands now. In any case he was at her side, on his knee before her, she was lying on the bed, he had his hands stretched out t her and he had so entirely forgotten everything that he did not eve hear the men coming to arrest him. He hadn't time to prepare any lin of defense in his mind. He was caught unawares and confronted with hi judges, the arbiters of his destiny."},
{"text":"\"Gentlemen of the jury, there are moments in the execution of ou duties when it is terrible for us to face a man, terrible on hi account, too! The moments of contemplating that animal fear, when th criminal sees that all is lost, but still struggles, still means t struggle, the moments when every instinct of self-preservation rises u in him at once and he looks at you with questioning and suffering eyes studies you, your face, your thoughts, uncertain on which side you wil strike, and his distracted mind frames thousands of plans in a instant, but he is still afraid to speak, afraid of giving himsel away! This purgatory of the spirit, this animal thirst fo self-preservation, these humiliating moments of the human soul, ar awful, and sometimes arouse horror and compassion for the criminal eve in the lawyer. And this was what we all witnessed then."},
{"text":"\"At first he was thunderstruck and in his terror dropped some ver compromising phrases. `Blood! I've deserved it!' But he quickl restrained himself. He had not prepared what he was to say, what answe he was to make, he had nothing but a bare denial ready. `I am no guilty of my father's death.' That was his fence for the moment an behind it he hoped to throw up a barricade of some sort. His firs compromising exclamations he hastened to explain by declaring that h was responsible for the death of the servant Grigory only. `Of tha bloodshed I am guilty, but who has killed my father, gentlemen, who ha killed him? Who can have killed him, if not I?' Do you hear, he aske us that, us, who had come to ask him that question! Do you hear tha phrase uttered with such premature haste--`if not I'--the anima cunning, the naivete, the Karamazov impatience of it? `I didn't kil him and you mustn't think I did! I wanted to kill him, gentlemen,  wanted to kill him,' he hastens to admit (he was in a hurry, in  terrible hurry), `but still I am not guilty, it is not I murdered him. He concedes to us that he wanted to murder him, as though to say, yo can see for yourselves how truthful I am, so you'll believe all th sooner that I didn't murder him. Oh, in such cases the criminal i often amazingly shallow and credulous."},
{"text":"\"At that point one of the lawyers asked him, as it were incidentally the most simple question, `Wasn't it Smerdyakov killed him?' Then, a we expected, he was horribly angry at our having anticipated him an caught him unawares, before he had time to pave the way to choose an snatch the moment when it would be most natural to bring i Smerdyakov's name. He rushed at once to the other extreme, as he alway does, and began to assure us that Smerdyakov could not have killed him was not capable of it. But don't believe him, that was only hi cunning; he didn't really give up the idea of Smerdyakov; on th contrary, he meant to bring him forward again; for, indeed, he had n one else to bring forward, but he would do that later, because for th moment that line was spoiled for him. He would bring him forwar perhaps next day, or even a few days later, choosing an opportunity t cry out to us, `You know I was more skeptical about Smerdyakov tha you, you remember that yourselves, but now I am convinced. He kille him, he must have done!' And for the present he falls back upon  gloomy and irritable denial. Impatience and anger prompted him however, to the most inept and incredible explanation of how he looke into his father's window and how he respectfully withdrew. The worst o it was that he was unaware of the position of affairs, of the evidenc given by Grigory."},
{"text":"\"We proceeded to search him. The search angered, but encouraged him the whole three thousand had not been found on him, only half of it And no doubt only at that moment of angry silence, the fiction of th little bag first occurred to him. No doubt he was conscious himself o the improbability of the story and strove painfully to make it soun more likely, to weave it into a romance that would sound plausible. I such cases the first duty, the chief task of the investigating lawyers is to prevent the criminal being prepared, to pounce upon hi unexpectedly so that he may blurt out his cherished ideas in all thei simplicity, improbability and inconsistency. The criminal can only b made to speak by the sudden and apparently incidental communication o some new fact, of some circumstance of great importance in the case, o which he had no previous idea and could not have foreseen. We had suc a fact in readiness--that was Grigory's evidence about the open doo through which the prisoner had run out. He had completely forgotte about that door and had not even suspected that Grigory could have see it."},
{"text":"\"The effect of it was amazing. He leapt up and shouted to us, `The Smerdyakov murdered him, it was Smerdyakov!' and so betrayed the basi of the defense he was keeping back, and betrayed it in its mos improbable shape, for Smerdyakov could only have committed the murde after he had knocked Grigory down and run away. When we told him tha Grigory saw the door was open before he fell down, and had hear Smerdyakov behind the screen as he came out of his bedroom--Karamazo was positively crushed. My esteemed and witty colleague, Nikola Parfenovitch, told me afterwards that he was almost moved to tears a the sight of him. And to improve matters, the prisoner hastened to tel us about the much-talked-of little bag--so be it, you shall hear thi romance!"},
{"text":"\"Gentlemen of the jury, I have told you already why I consider thi romance not only an absurdity, but the most improbable invention tha could have been brought forward in the circumstances. If one tried fo a bet to invent the most unlikely story, one could hardly find anythin more incredible. The worst of such stories is that the triumphan romancers can always be put to confusion and crushed by the ver details in which real life is so rich and which these unhappy an involuntary storytellers neglect as insignificant trifles. Oh, the have no thought to spare for such details, their minds are concentrate on their grand invention as a whole, and fancy anyone daring to pul them up for a trifle! But that's how they are caught. The prisoner wa asked the question, `Where did you get the stuff for your little ba and who made it for you?' `I made it myself.' `And where did you ge the linen?' The prisoner was positively offended, he thought it almos insulting to ask him such a trivial question, and would you believe it his resentment was genuine! But they are all like that. `I tore it of my shirt.' `Then we shall find that shirt among your linen tomorrow with a piece torn off.' And only fancy, gentlemen of the jury, if w really had found that torn shirt (and how could we have failed to fin it in his chest of drawers or trunk?) that would have been a fact,  material fact in support of his statement! But he was incapable of tha reflection. `I don't remember, it may not have been off my shirt,  sewed it up in one of my landlady's caps.' `What sort of a cap?' `I was an old cotton rag of hers lying about.' `And do you remember tha clearly?' `No, I don't.' And he was angry, very angry, and yet imagin not remembering it! At the most terrible moments of man's life, fo instance when he is being led to execution, he remembers just suc trifles. He will forget anything but some green roof that has flashe past him on the road, or a jackdaw on a cross--that he will remember He concealed the making of that little bag from his household, he mus have remembered his humiliating fear that someone might come in an find him needle in hand, how at the slightest sound he slipped behin the screen (there is a screen in his lodgings)."},
{"text":"\"But, gentlemen of the jury, why do I tell you all this, all thes details, trifles?\" cried Ippolit Kirillovitch suddenly. \"Just becaus the prisoner still persists in these absurdities to this moment. He ha not explained anything since that fatal night two months ago, he ha not added one actual illuminating fact to his former fantasti statements; all those are trivialities. `You must believe it on m honor.' Oh, we are glad to believe it, we are eager to believe it, eve if only on his word of honor! Are we jackals thirsting for human blood Show us a single fact in the prisoner's favor and we shall rejoice; bu let it be a substantial, real fact, and not a conclusion drawn from th prisoner's expression by his own brother, or that when he beat himsel on the breast he must have meant to point to the little bag, in th darkness, too. We shall rejoice at the new fact, we shall be the firs to repudiate our charge, we shall hasten to repudiate it. But no justice cries out and we persist, we cannot repudiate anything.\""},
{"text":"Ippolit Kirillovitch passed to his final peroration. He looked a though he was in a fever, he spoke of the blood that cried fo vengeance, the blood of the father murdered by his son, with the bas motive of robbery! He pointed to the tragic and glaring consistency o the facts."},
{"text":"\"And whatever you may hear from the talented and celebrated counsel fo the defense,\" Ippolit Kirillovitch could not resist adding, \"whateve eloquent and touching appeals may be made to your sensibilities remember that at this moment you are in a temple of justice. Remembe that you are the champions of our justice, the champions of our hol Russia, of her principles, her family, everything that she hold sacred! Yes, you represent Russia here at this moment, and your verdic will be heard not in this hall only but will reecho throughout th whole of Russia, and all Russia will hear you, as her champions and he judges, and she will be encouraged or disheartened by your verdict. D not disappoint Russia and her expectations. Our fatal troika dashes o in her headlong flight perhaps to destruction and in all Russia fo long past men have stretched out imploring hands and called a halt t its furious reckless course. And if other nations stand aside from tha troika that may be, not from respect, as the poet would fain believe but simply from horror. From horror, perhaps from disgust. And well i is that they stand aside, but maybe they will cease one day to do s and will form a firm wall confronting the hurrying apparition and wil check the frenzied rush of our lawlessness, for the sake of their ow safety, enlightenment and civilization. Already we have heard voices o alarm from Europe, they already begin to sound. Do not tempt them! D not heap up their growing hatred by a sentence justifying the murder o a father by his son!\""},
{"text":"Though Ippolit Kirillovitch was genuinely moved, he wound up his speec with this rhetorical appeal--and the effect produced by him wa extraordinary. When he had finished his speech, he went out hurriedl and, as I have mentioned before, almost fainted in the adjoining room There was no applause in the court, but serious persons were pleased The ladies were not so well satisfied, though even they were please with his eloquence, especially as they had no apprehensions as to th upshot of the trial and had full trust in Fetyukovitch. \"He will spea at last and of course carry all before him.\""},
{"text":"Everyone looked at Mitya; he sat silent through the whole of th prosecutor's speech, clenching his teeth, with his hands clasped, an his head bowed. Only from time to time he raised his head and listened especially when Grushenka was spoken of. When the prosecutor mentione Rakitin's opinion of her, a smile of contempt and anger passed over hi face and he murmured rather audibly, \"The Bernards!\" When Ippoli Kirillovitch described how he had questioned and tortured him a Mokroe, Mitya raised his head and listened with intense curiosity. A one point he seemed about to jump up and cry out, but controlle himself and only shrugged his shoulders disdainfully. People talke afterwards of the end of the speech, of the prosecutor's feat i examining the prisoner at Mokroe, and jeered at Ippolit Kirillovitch \"The man could not resist boasting of his cleverness,\" they said."},
{"text":"The court was adjourned, but only for a short interval, a quarter of a hour or twenty minutes at most. There was a hum of conversation an exclamations in the audience. I remember some of them."},
{"text":"\"A weighty speech,\" a gentleman in one group observed gravely."},
{"text":"\"He brought in too much psychology,\" said another voice."},
{"text":"\"But it was all true, the absolute truth!\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, he is first rate at it.\""},
{"text":"\"He summed it all up.\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, he summed us up, too,\" chimed in another voice. \"Do you remember at the beginning of his speech, making out we were all like Fyodo Pavlovitch?\""},
{"text":"\"And at the end, too. But that was all rot.\""},
{"text":"\"And obscure too.\""},
{"text":"\"He was a little too much carried away.\""},
{"text":"\"It's unjust, it's unjust.\""},
{"text":"\"No, it was smartly done, anyway. He's had long to wait, but he's ha his say, ha ha!\""},
{"text":"\"What will the counsel for the defense say?\""},
{"text":"In another group I heard:"},
{"text":"\"He had no business to make a thrust at the Petersburg man like that `appealing to your sensibilities'--do you remember?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, that was awkward of him.\""},
{"text":"\"He was in too great a hurry.\""},
{"text":"\"He is a nervous man.\""},
{"text":"\"We laugh, but what must the prisoner be feeling?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, what must it be for Mitya?\""},
{"text":"In a third group:"},
{"text":"\"What lady is that, the fat one, with the lorgnette, sitting at th end?\""},
{"text":"\"She is a general's wife, divorced, I know her.\""},
{"text":"\"That's why she has the lorgnette.\""},
{"text":"\"She is not good for much.\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, no, she is a piquante little woman.\""},
{"text":"\"Two places beyond her there is a little fair woman, she is prettier.\""},
{"text":"\"They caught him smartly at Mokroe, didn't they, eh?\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, it was smart enough. We've heard it before, how often he has tol the story at people's houses!\""},
{"text":"\"And he couldn't resist doing it now. That's vanity.\""},
{"text":"\"He is a man with a grievance, he he!\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, and quick to take offense. And there was too much rhetoric, suc long sentences.\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, he tries to alarm us, he kept trying to alarm us. Do you remembe about the troika? Something about `They have Hamlets, but we have, s far, only Karamazovs!' That was cleverly said!\""},
{"text":"\"That was to propitiate the liberals. He is afraid of them.\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, and he is afraid of the lawyer, too.\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, what will Fetyukovitch say?\""},
{"text":"\"Whatever he says, he won't get round our peasants.\""},
{"text":"\"Don't you think so?\""},
{"text":"A fourth group:"},
{"text":"\"What he said about the troika was good, that piece about the othe nations.\""},
{"text":"\"And that was true what he said about other nations not standing it.\""},
{"text":"\"What do you mean?\""},
{"text":"\"Why, in the English Parliament a Member got up last week and speakin about the Nihilists asked the Ministry whether it was not high time t intervene, to educate this barbarous people. Ippolit was thinking o him, I know he was. He was talking about that last week.\""},
{"text":"\"Not an easy job.\""},
{"text":"\"Not an easy job? Why not?\""},
{"text":"\"Why, we'd shut up Kronstadt and not let them have any corn. Wher would they get it?\""},
{"text":"\"In America. They get it from America now.\""},
{"text":"\"Nonsense!\""},
{"text":"But the bell rang, all rushed to their places. Fetyukovitch mounted th tribune."},
{"text":" X"},
{"text":"The Speech for the Defense. An Argument That Cuts Both Ways"},
{"text":"All was hushed as the first words of the famous orator rang out. Th eyes of the audience were fastened upon him. He began very simply an directly, with an air of conviction, but not the slightest trace o conceit. He made no attempt at eloquence, at pathos, or emotiona phrases. He was like a man speaking in a circle of intimate an sympathetic friends. His voice was a fine one, sonorous an sympathetic, and there was something genuine and simple in the ver sound of it. But everyone realized at once that the speaker migh suddenly rise to genuine pathos and \"pierce the heart with untol power.\" His language was perhaps more irregular than Ippoli Kirillovitch's, but he spoke without long phrases, and indeed, wit more precision. One thing did not please the ladies: he kept bendin forward, especially at the beginning of his speech, not exactly bowing but as though he were about to dart at his listeners, bending his lon spine in half, as though there were a spring in the middle that enable him to bend almost at right angles."},
{"text":"At the beginning of his speech he spoke rather disconnectedly, withou system, one may say, dealing with facts separately, though, at the end these facts formed a whole. His speech might be divided into two parts the first consisting of criticism in refutation of the charge sometimes malicious and sarcastic. But in the second half he suddenl changed his tone, and even his manner, and at once rose to pathos. Th audience seemed on the lookout for it, and quivered with enthusiasm."},
{"text":"He went straight to the point, and began by saying that although h practiced in Petersburg, he had more than once visited provincial town to defend prisoners, of whose innocence he had a conviction or at leas a preconceived idea. \"That is what has happened to me in the presen case,\" he explained. \"From the very first accounts in the newspapers  was struck by something which strongly prepossessed me in th prisoner's favor. What interested me most was a fact which often occur in legal practice, but rarely, I think, in such an extreme and peculia form as in the present case. I ought to formulate that peculiarity onl at the end of my speech, but I will do so at the very beginning, for i is my weakness to go to work directly, not keeping my effects i reserve and economizing my material. That may be imprudent on my part but at least it's sincere. What I have in my mind is this: there is a overwhelming chain of evidence against the prisoner, and at the sam time not one fact that will stand criticism, if it is examine separately. As I followed the case more closely in the papers my ide was more and more confirmed, and I suddenly received from th prisoner's relatives a request to undertake his defense. I at onc hurried here, and here I became completely convinced. It was to brea down this terrible chain of facts, and to show that each piece o evidence taken separately was unproved and fantastic, that I undertoo the case.\""},
{"text":"So Fetyukovitch began."},
{"text":"\"Gentlemen of the jury,\" he suddenly protested, \"I am new to thi district. I have no preconceived ideas. The prisoner, a man o turbulent and unbridled temper, has not insulted me. But he ha insulted perhaps hundreds of persons in this town, and so prejudice many people against him beforehand. Of course I recognize that th moral sentiment of local society is justly excited against him. Th prisoner is of turbulent and violent temper. Yet he was received i society here; he was even welcome in the family of my talented friend the prosecutor.\""},
{"text":"(N.B. At these words there were two or three laughs in the audience quickly suppressed, but noticed by all. All of us knew that th prosecutor received Mitya against his will, solely because he ha somehow interested his wife--a lady of the highest virtue and mora worth, but fanciful, capricious, and fond of opposing her husband especially in trifles. Mitya's visits, however, had not been frequent.)"},
{"text":"\"Nevertheless I venture to suggest,\" Fetyukovitch continued, \"that i spite of his independent mind and just character, my opponent may hav formed a mistaken prejudice against my unfortunate client. Oh, that i so natural; the unfortunate man has only too well deserved suc prejudice. Outraged morality, and still more outraged taste, is ofte relentless. We have, in the talented prosecutor's speech, heard a ster analysis of the prisoner's character and conduct, and his sever critical attitude to the case was evident. And, what's more, he wen into psychological subtleties into which he could not have entered, i he had the least conscious and malicious prejudice against th prisoner. But there are things which are even worse, even more fatal i such cases, than the most malicious and consciously unfair attitude. I is worse if we are carried away by the artistic instinct, by the desir to create, so to speak, a romance, especially if God has endowed u with psychological insight. Before I started on my way here, I wa warned in Petersburg, and was myself aware, that I should find here  talented opponent whose psychological insight and subtlety had gaine him peculiar renown in legal circles of recent years. But profound a psychology is, it's a knife that cuts both ways.\" (Laughter among th public.) \"You will, of course, forgive me my comparison; I can't boas of eloquence. But I will take as an example any point in th prosecutor's speech."},
{"text":"\"The prisoner, running away in the garden in the dark, climbed over th fence, was seized by the servant, and knocked him down with a bras pestle. Then he jumped back into the garden and spent five minutes ove the man, trying to discover whether he had killed him or not. And th prosecutor refuses to believe the prisoner's statement that he ran t old Grigory out of pity. `No,' he says, `such sensibility is impossibl at such a moment, that's unnatural; he ran to find out whether the onl witness of his crime was dead or alive, and so showed that he ha committed the murder, since he would not have run back for any othe reason.'"},
{"text":"\"Here you have psychology; but let us take the same method and apply i to the case the other way round, and our result will be no les probable. The murderer, we are told, leapt down to find out, as  precaution, whether the witness was alive or not, yet he had left i his murdered father's study, as the prosecutor himself argues, a amazing piece of evidence in the shape of a torn envelope, with a inscription that there had been three thousand roubles in it. `If h had carried that envelope away with him, no one in the world would hav known of that envelope and of the notes in it, and that the money ha been stolen by the prisoner.' Those are the prosecutor's own words. S on one side you see a complete absence of precaution, a man who ha lost his head and run away in a fright, leaving that clue on the floor and two minutes later, when he has killed another man, we are entitle to assume the most heartless and calculating foresight in him. But eve admitting this was so, it is psychological subtlety, I suppose, tha discerns that under certain circumstances I become as bloodthirsty an keen-sighted as a Caucasian eagle, while at the next I am as timid an blind as a mole. But if I am so bloodthirsty and cruelly calculatin that when I kill a man I only run back to find out whether he is aliv to witness against me, why should I spend five minutes looking after m victim at the risk of encountering other witnesses? Why soak m handkerchief, wiping the blood off his head so that it may be evidenc against me later? If he were so cold-hearted and calculating, why no hit the servant on the head again and again with the same pestle so a to kill him outright and relieve himself of all anxiety about th witness?"},
{"text":"\"Again, though he ran to see whether the witness was alive, he lef another witness on the path, that brass pestle which he had taken fro the two women, and which they could always recognize afterwards a theirs, and prove that he had taken it from them. And it is not a though he had forgotten it on the path, dropped it through carelessnes or haste, no, he had flung away his weapon, for it was found fiftee paces from where Grigory lay. Why did he do so? Just because he wa grieved at having killed a man, an old servant; and he flung away th pestle with a curse, as a murderous weapon. That's how it must hav been, what other reason could he have had for throwing it so far? An if he was capable of feeling grief and pity at having killed a man, i shows that he was innocent of his father's murder. Had he murdered him he would never have run to another victim out of pity; then he woul have felt differently; his thoughts would have been centered o self-preservation. He would have had none to spare for pity, that i beyond doubt. On the contrary, he would have broken his skull instea of spending five minutes looking after him. There was room for pity an good-feeling just because his conscience had been clear till then. Her we have a different psychology. I have purposely resorted to thi method, gentlemen of the jury, to show that you can prove anything b it. It all depends on who makes use of it. Psychology lures even mos serious people into romancing, and quite unconsciously. I am speakin of the abuse of psychology, gentlemen.\""},
{"text":"Sounds of approval and laughter, at the expense of the prosecutor, wer again audible in the court. I will not repeat the speech in detail;  will only quote some passages from it, some leading points."},
{"text":" XI"},
{"text":"There Was No Money. There Was No Robbery"},
{"text":"There was one point that struck everyone in Fetyukovitch's speech. H flatly denied the existence of the fatal three thousand roubles, an consequently, the possibility of their having been stolen."},
{"text":"\"Gentlemen of the jury,\" he began. \"Every new and unprejudiced observe must be struck by a characteristic peculiarity in the present case namely, the charge of robbery, and the complete impossibility o proving that there was anything to be stolen. We are told that mone was stolen--three thousand roubles--but whether those roubles eve existed, nobody knows. Consider, how have we heard of that sum, and wh has seen the notes? The only person who saw them, and stated that the had been put in the envelope, was the servant, Smerdyakov. He ha spoken of it to the prisoner and his brother, Ivan Fyodorovitch, befor the catastrophe. Madame Svyetlov, too, had been told of it. But not on of these three persons had actually seen the notes, no one bu Smerdyakov had seen them."},
{"text":"\"Here the question arises, if it's true that they did exist, and tha Smerdyakov had seen them, when did he see them for the last time? Wha if his master had taken the notes from under his bed and put them bac in his cashbox without telling him? Note, that according t Smerdyakov's story the notes were kept under the mattress; the prisone must have pulled them out, and yet the bed was absolutely unrumpled that is carefully recorded in the protocol. How could the prisoner hav found the notes without disturbing the bed? How could he have helpe soiling with his bloodstained hands the fine and spotless linen wit which the bed had been purposely made?"},
{"text":"\"But I shall be asked: What about the envelope on the floor? Yes, it' worth saying a word or two about that envelope. I was somewha surprised just now to hear the highly talented prosecutor declare o himself--of himself, observe--that but for that envelope, but for it being left on the floor, no one in the world would have known of th existence of that envelope and the notes in it, and therefore of th prisoner's having stolen it. And so that torn scrap of paper is, by th prosecutor's own admission, the sole proof on which the charge o robbery rests, `otherwise no one would have known of the robbery, no perhaps even of the money.' But is the mere fact that that scrap o paper was lying on the floor a proof that there was money in it, an that that money had been stolen? Yet, it will be objected, Smerdyako had seen the money in the envelope. But when, when had he seen it fo the last time, I ask you that? I talked to Smerdyakov, and he told m that he had seen the notes two days before the catastrophe. Then wh not imagine that old Fyodor Pavlovitch, locked up alone in impatien and hysterical expectation of the object of his adoration, may hav whiled away the time by breaking open the envelope and taking out th notes. `What's the use of the envelope?' he may have asked himself `She won't believe the notes are there, but when I show her the thirt rainbow-colored notes in one roll, it will make more impression, yo may be sure, it will make her mouth water.' And so he tears open th envelope, takes out the money, and flings the envelope on the floor conscious of being the owner and untroubled by any fears of leavin evidence."},
{"text":"\"Listen, gentlemen, could anything be more likely than this theory an such an action? Why is it out of the question? But if anything of th sort could have taken place, the charge of robbery falls to the ground if there was no money, there was no theft of it. If the envelope on th floor may be taken as evidence that there had been money in it, why ma I not maintain the opposite, that the envelope was on the floor becaus the money had been taken from it by its owner?"},
{"text":"\"But I shall be asked what became of the money if Fyodor Pavlovitc took it out of the envelope since it was not found when the polic searched the house? In the first place, part of the money was found i the cashbox, and secondly, he might have taken it out that morning o the evening before to make some other use of it, to give or send i away; he may have changed his idea, his plan of action completely without thinking it necessary to announce the fact to Smerdyako beforehand. And if there is the barest possibility of such a explanation, how can the prisoner be so positively accused of havin committed murder for the sake of robbery, and of having actuall carried out that robbery? This is encroaching on the domain of romance If it is maintained that something has been stolen, the thing must b produced, or at least its existence must be proved beyond doubt. Yet n one had ever seen these notes."},
{"text":"\"Not long ago in Petersburg a young man of eighteen, hardly more than  boy, who carried on a small business as a costermonger, went in broa daylight into a moneychanger's shop with an ax, and with extraordinary typical audacity killed the master of the shop and carried off fiftee hundred roubles. Five hours later he was arrested, and, except fiftee roubles he had already managed to spend, the whole sum was found o him. Moreover, the shopman, on his return to the shop after the murder informed the police not only of the exact sum stolen, but even of th notes and gold coins of which that sum was made up, and those ver notes and coins were found on the criminal. This was followed by a ful and genuine confession on the part of the murderer. That's what I cal evidence, gentlemen of the jury! In that case I know, I see, I touc the money, and cannot deny its existence. Is it the same in the presen case? And yet it is a question of life and death."},
{"text":"\"Yes, I shall be told, but he was carousing that night, squanderin money; he was shown to have had fifteen hundred roubles--where did h get the money? But the very fact that only fifteen hundred could b found, and the other half of the sum could nowhere be discovered, show that that money was not the same, and had never been in any envelope By strict calculation of time it was proved at the preliminary inquir that the prisoner ran straight from those women servants to Perhotin' without going home, and that he had been nowhere. So he had been al the time in company and therefore could not have divided the thre thousand in half and hidden half in the town. It's just thi consideration that has led the prosecutor to assume that the money i hidden in some crevice at Mokroe. Why not in the dungeons of the castl of Udolpho, gentlemen? Isn't this supposition really too fantastic an too romantic? And observe, if that supposition breaks down, the whol charge of robbery is scattered to the winds, for in that case wha could have become of the other fifteen hundred roubles? By what miracl could they have disappeared, since it's proved the prisoner wen nowhere else? And we are ready to ruin a man's life with such tales!"},
{"text":"\"I shall be told that he could not explain where he got the fiftee hundred that he had, and everyone knew that he was without money befor that night. Who knew it, pray? The prisoner has made a clear an unflinching statement of the source of that money, and if you will hav it so, gentlemen of the jury, nothing can be more probable than tha statement, and more consistent with the temper and spirit of th prisoner. The prosecutor is charmed with his own romance. A man of wea will, who had brought himself to take the three thousand so insultingl offered by his betrothed, could not, we are told, have set aside hal and sewn it up, but would, even if he had done so, have unpicked i every two days and taken out a hundred, and so would have spent it al in a month. All this, you will remember, was put forward in a tone tha brooked no contradiction. But what if the thing happened quit differently? What if you've been weaving a romance, and about quite  different kind of man? That's just it, you have invented quite  different man!"},
{"text":"\"I shall be told, perhaps, there are witnesses that he spent on one da all that three thousand given him by his betrothed a month before th catastrophe, so he could not have divided the sum in half. But who ar these witnesses? The value of their evidence has been shown in cour already. Besides, in another man's hand a crust always seems larger and no one of these witnesses counted that money; they all judge simply at sight. And the witness Maximov has testified that th prisoner had twenty thousand in his hand. You see, gentlemen of th jury, psychology is a two-edged weapon. Let me turn the other edge no and see what comes of it."},
{"text":"\"A month before the catastrophe the prisoner was entrusted by Katerin Ivanovna with three thousand roubles to send off by post. But th question is: is it true that they were entrusted to him in such a insulting and degrading way as was proclaimed just now? The firs statement made by the young lady on the subject was different perfectly different. In the second statement we heard only cries o resentment and revenge, cries of long-concealed hatred. And the ver fact that the witness gave her first evidence incorrectly, gives us  right to conclude that her second piece of evidence may have bee incorrect also. The prosecutor will not, dare not (his own words) touc on that story. So be it. I will not touch on it either, but will onl venture to observe that if a lofty and high-principled person, such a that highly respected young lady unquestionably is, if such a person,  say, allows herself suddenly in court to contradict her firs statement, with the obvious motive of ruining the prisoner, it is clea that this evidence has been given not impartially, not coolly. Have no we the right to assume that a revengeful woman might have exaggerate much? Yes, she may well have exaggerated, in particular, the insult an humiliation of her offering him the money. No, it was offered in such  way that it was possible to take it, especially for a man so easygoin as the prisoner, above all, as he expected to receive shortly from hi father the three thousand roubles that he reckoned was owing to him. I was unreflecting of him, but it was just his irresponsible want o reflection that made him so confident that his father would give hi the money, that he would get it, and so could always dispatch the mone entrusted to him and repay the debt."},
{"text":"\"But the prosecutor refuses to allow that he could the same day hav set aside half the money and sewn it up in a little bag. That's not hi character, he tells us, he couldn't have had such feelings. But yet h talked himself of the broad Karamazov nature; he cried out about th two extremes which a Karamazov can contemplate at once. Karamazov i just such a two-sided nature, fluctuating between two extremes, tha even when moved by the most violent craving for riotous gayety, he ca pull himself up, if something strikes him on the other side. And on th other side is love--that new love which had flamed up in his heart and for that love he needed money; oh, far more than for carousing wit his mistress. If she were to say to him, `I am yours, I won't hav Fyodor Pavlovitch,' then he must have money to take her away. That wa more important than carousing. Could a Karamazov fail to understand it That anxiety was just what he was suffering from--what is ther improbable in his laying aside that money and concealing it in case o emergency?"},
{"text":"\"But time passed, and Fyodor Pavlovitch did not give the prisoner th expected three thousand; on the contrary, the latter heard that h meant to use this sum to seduce the woman he, the prisoner, loved. `I Fyodor Pavlovitch doesn't give the money,' he thought, `I shall be pu in the position of a thief before Katerina Ivanovna.' And then the ide presented itself to him that he would go to Katerina Ivanovna, la before her the fifteen hundred roubles he still carried round his neck and say, `I am a scoundrel, but not a thief.' So here we have already  twofold reason why he should guard that sum of money as the apple o his eye, why he shouldn't unpick the little bag, and spend it a hundre at a time. Why should you deny the prisoner a sense of honor? Yes, h has a sense of honor, granted that it's misplaced, granted it's ofte mistaken, yet it exists and amounts to a passion, and he has prove that."},
{"text":"\"But now the affair becomes even more complex; his jealous torment reach a climax, and those same two questions torture his fevered brai more and more: `If I repay Katerina Ivanovna, where can I find th means to go off with Grushenka?' If he behaved wildly, drank, and mad disturbances in the taverns in the course of that month, it was perhap because he was wretched and strained beyond his powers of endurance These two questions became so acute that they drove him at last t despair. He sent his younger brother to beg for the last time for th three thousand roubles, but without waiting for a reply, burst i himself and ended by beating the old man in the presence of witnesses After that he had no prospect of getting it from anyone; his fathe would not give it him after that beating."},
{"text":"\"The same evening he struck himself on the breast, just on the uppe part of the breast where the little bag was, and swore to his brothe that he had the means of not being a scoundrel, but that still he woul remain a scoundrel, for he foresaw that he would not use that means that he wouldn't have the character, that he wouldn't have th willpower to do it. Why, why does the prosecutor refuse to believe th evidence of Alexey Karamazov, given so genuinely and sincerely, s spontaneously and convincingly? And why, on the contrary, does he forc me to believe in money hidden in a crevice, in the dungeons of th castle of Udolpho?"},
{"text":"\"The same evening, after his talk with his brother, the prisoner wrot that fatal letter, and that letter is the chief, the most stupendou proof of the prisoner having committed robbery! `I shall beg fro everyone, and if I don't get it I shall murder my father and shall tak the envelope with the pink ribbon on it from under his mattress as soo as Ivan has gone.' A full program of the murder, we are told, so i must have been he. `It has all been done as he wrote,' cries th prosecutor."},
{"text":"\"But in the first place, it's the letter of a drunken man and writte in great irritation; secondly, he writes of the envelope from what h has heard from Smerdyakov again, for he has not seen the envelop himself; and thirdly, he wrote it indeed, but how can you prove that h did it? Did the prisoner take the envelope from under the pillow, di he find the money, did that money exist indeed? And was it to get mone that the prisoner ran off, if you remember? He ran off post-haste no to steal, but to find out where she was, the woman who had crushed him He was not running to carry out a program, to carry out what he ha written, that is, not for an act of premeditated robbery, but he ra suddenly, spontaneously, in a jealous fury. Yes! I shall be told, bu when he got there and murdered him he seized the money, too. But did h murder him after all? The charge of robbery I repudiate wit indignation. A man cannot be accused of robbery, if it's impossible t state accurately what he has stolen; that's an axiom. But did he murde him without robbery, did he murder him at all? Is that proved? Isn' that, too, a romance?\""},
{"text":" XII"},
{"text":"And There Was No Murder Either"},
{"text":"\"Allow me, gentlemen of the jury, to remind you that a man's life is a stake and that you must be careful. We have heard the prosecuto himself admit that until today he hesitated to accuse the prisoner of  full and conscious premeditation of the crime; he hesitated till he sa that fatal drunken letter which was produced in court today. `All wa done as written.' But, I repeat again, he was running to her, to see her, solely to find out where she was. That's a fact that can't b disputed. Had she been at home, he would not have run away, but woul have remained at her side, and so would not have done what he promise in the letter. He ran unexpectedly and accidentally, and by that tim very likely he did not even remember his drunken letter. `He snatche up the pestle,' they say, and you will remember how a whole edifice o psychology was built on that pestle--why he was bound to look at tha pestle as a weapon, to snatch it up, and so on, and so on. A ver commonplace idea occurs to me at this point: What if that pestle ha not been in sight, had not been lying on the shelf from which it wa snatched by the prisoner, but had been put away in a cupboard? It woul not have caught the prisoner's eye, and he would have run away withou a weapon, with empty hands, and then he would certainly not have kille anyone. How then can I look upon the pestle as a proof o premeditation?"},
{"text":"\"Yes, but he talked in the taverns of murdering his father, and tw days before, on the evening when he wrote his drunken letter, he wa quiet and only quarreled with a shopman in the tavern, because  Karamazov could not help quarreling, forsooth! But my answer to tha is, that, if he was planning such a murder in accordance with hi letter, he certainly would not have quarreled even with a shopman, an probably would not have gone into the tavern at all, because a perso plotting such a crime seeks quiet and retirement, seeks to effac himself, to avoid being seen and heard, and that not from calculation but from instinct. Gentlemen of the jury, the psychological method is  two-edged weapon, and we, too, can use it. As for all this shouting i taverns throughout the month, don't we often hear children, o drunkards coming out of taverns shout, `I'll kill you'? but they don' murder anyone. And that fatal letter--isn't that simply drunke irritability, too? Isn't that simply the shout of the brawler outsid the tavern, `I'll kill you! I'll kill the lot of you!' Why not, wh could it not be that? What reason have we to call that letter `fatal rather than absurd? Because his father has been found murdered, becaus a witness saw the prisoner running out of the garden with a weapon i his hand, and was knocked down by him: therefore, we are told everything was done as he had planned in writing, and the letter wa not `absurd,' but `fatal.'"},
{"text":"\"Now, thank God! we've come to the real point: `since he was in th garden, he must have murdered him.' In those few words: `since he was then he must' lies the whole case for the prosecution. He was there, s he must have. And what if there is no must about it, even if he wa there? Oh, I admit that the chain of evidence--the coincidences--ar really suggestive. But examine all these facts separately, regardles of their connection. Why, for instance, does the prosecution refuse t admit the truth of the prisoner's statement that he ran away from hi father's window? Remember the sarcasms in which the prosecutor indulge at the expense of the respectful and `pious' sentiments which suddenl came over the murderer. But what if there were something of the sort,  feeling of religious awe, if not of filial respect? `My mother mus have been praying for me at that moment,' were the prisoner's words a the preliminary inquiry, and so he ran away as soon as he convince himself that Madame Svyetlov was not in his father's house. `But h could not convince himself by looking through the window,' th prosecutor objects. But why couldn't he? Why? The window opened at th signals given by the prisoner. Some word might have been uttered b Fyodor Pavlovitch, some exclamation which showed the prisoner that sh was not there. Why should we assume everything as we imagine it, as w make up our minds to imagine it? A thousand things may happen i reality which elude the subtlest imagination."},
{"text":"\" `Yes, but Grigory saw the door open and so the prisoner certainly wa in the house, therefore he killed him.' Now about that door, gentleme of the jury. ... Observe that we have only the statement of on witness as to that door, and he was at the time in such a condition that--But supposing the door was open; supposing the prisoner has lie in denying it, from an instinct of self-defense, natural in hi position; supposing he did go into the house--well, what then? Ho does it follow that because he was there he committed the murder? H might have dashed in, run through the rooms; might have pushed hi father away; might have struck him; but as soon as he had made sur Madame Svyetlov was not there, he may have run away rejoicing that sh was not there and that he had not killed his father. And it was perhap just because he had escaped from the temptation to kill his father because he had a clear conscience and was rejoicing at not havin killed him, that he was capable of a pure feeling, the feeling of pit and compassion, and leapt off the fence a minute later to th assistance of Grigory after he had, in his excitement, knocked hi down."},
{"text":"\"With terrible eloquence the prosecutor has described to us th dreadful state of the prisoner's mind at Mokroe when love again la before him calling him to new life, while love was impossible for hi because he had his father's bloodstained corpse behind him and beyon that corpse--retribution. And yet the prosecutor allowed him love which he explained, according to his method, talking about his drunke condition, about a criminal being taken to execution, about it bein still far off, and so on and so on. But again I ask, Mr. Prosecutor have you not invented a new personality? Is the prisoner so coarse an heartless as to be able to think at that moment of love and of dodge to escape punishment, if his hands were really stained with hi father's blood? No, no, no! As soon as it was made plain to him tha she loved him and called him to her side, promising him new happiness oh! then, I protest he must have felt the impulse to suicide doubled trebled, and must have killed himself, if he had his father's murder o his conscience. Oh, no! he would not have forgotten where his pistol lay! I know the prisoner: the savage, stony heartlessness ascribed t him by the prosecutor is inconsistent with his character. He would hav killed himself, that's certain. He did not kill himself just becaus `his mother's prayers had saved him,' and he was innocent of hi father's blood. He was troubled, he was grieving that night at Mokro only about old Grigory and praying to God that the old man woul recover, that his blow had not been fatal, and that he would not hav to suffer for it. Why not accept such an interpretation of the facts What trustworthy proof have we that the prisoner is lying?"},
{"text":"\"But we shall be told at once again, `There is his father's corpse! I he ran away without murdering him, who did murder him?' Here, I repeat you have the whole logic of the prosecution. Who murdered him, if no he? There's no one to put in his place."},
{"text":"\"Gentlemen of the jury, is that really so? Is it positively, actuall true that there is no one else at all? We've heard the prosecutor coun on his fingers all the persons who were in that house that night. The were five in number; three of them, I agree, could not have bee responsible--the murdered man himself, old Grigory, and his wife There are left then the prisoner and Smerdyakov, and the prosecuto dramatically exclaims that the prisoner pointed to Smerdyakov becaus he had no one else to fix on, that had there been a sixth person, eve a phantom of a sixth person, he would have abandoned the charge agains Smerdyakov at once in shame and have accused that other. But, gentleme of the jury, why may I not draw the very opposite conclusion? There ar two persons--the prisoner and Smerdyakov. Why can I not say that yo accuse my client, simply because you have no one else to accuse? An you have no one else only because you have determined to exclud Smerdyakov from all suspicion."},
{"text":"\"It's true, indeed, Smerdyakov is accused only by the prisoner, his tw brothers, and Madame Svyetlov. But there are others who accuse him there are vague rumors of a question, of a suspicion, an obscur report, a feeling of expectation. Finally, we have the evidence of  combination of facts very suggestive, though, I admit, inconclusive. I the first place we have precisely on the day of the catastrophe tha fit, for the genuineness of which the prosecutor, for some reason, ha felt obliged to make a careful defense. Then Smerdyakov's sudde suicide on the eve of the trial. Then the equally startling evidenc given in court today by the elder of the prisoner's brothers, who ha believed in his guilt, but has today produced a bundle of notes an proclaimed Smerdyakov as the murderer. Oh, I fully share the court' and the prosecutor's conviction that Ivan Karamazov is suffering fro brain fever, that his statement may really be a desperate effort planned in delirium, to save his brother by throwing the guilt on th dead man. But again Smerdyakov's name is pronounced, again there is  suggestion of mystery. There is something unexplained, incomplete. An perhaps it may one day be explained. But we won't go into that now. O that later."},
{"text":"\"The court has resolved to go on with the trial, but, meantime, I migh make a few remarks about the character-sketch of Smerdyakov drawn wit subtlety and talent by the prosecutor. But while I admire his talent  cannot agree with him. I have visited Smerdyakov, I have seen him an talked to him, and he made a very different impression on me. He wa weak in health, it is true; but in character, in spirit, he was by n means the weak man the prosecutor has made him out to be. I found i him no trace of the timidity on which the prosecutor so insisted. Ther was no simplicity about him, either. I found in him, on the contrary an extreme mistrustfulness concealed under a mask of naivete, and a intelligence of considerable range. The prosecutor was too simple i taking him for weak-minded. He made a very definite impression on me:  left him with the conviction that he was a distinctly spitefu creature, excessively ambitious, vindictive, and intensely envious.  made some inquiries: he resented his parentage, was ashamed of it, an would clench his teeth when he remembered that he was the son o `stinking Lizaveta.' He was disrespectful to the servant Grigory an his wife, who had cared for him in his childhood. He cursed and jeere at Russia. He dreamed of going to France and becoming a Frenchman. H used often to say that he hadn't the means to do so. I fancy he love no one but himself and had a strangely high opinion of himself. Hi conception of culture was limited to good clothes, clean shirtfront and polished boots. Believing himself to be the illegitimate son o Fyodor Pavlovitch (there is evidence of this), he might well hav resented his position, compared with that of his master's legitimat sons. They had everything, he nothing. They had all the rights, the had the inheritance, while he was only the cook. He told me himsel that he had helped Fyodor Pavlovitch to put the notes in the envelope The destination of that sum--a sum which would have made hi career--must have been hateful to him. Moreover, he saw three thousan roubles in new rainbow-colored notes. (I asked him about that o purpose.) Oh, beware of showing an ambitious and envious man a larg sum of money at once! And it was the first time he had seen so muc money in the hands of one man. The sight of the rainbow-colored note may have made a morbid impression on his imagination, but with n immediate results."},
{"text":"\"The talented prosecutor, with extraordinary subtlety, sketched for u all the arguments for and against the hypothesis of Smerdyakov's guilt and asked us in particular what motive he had in feigning a fit. But h may not have been feigning at all, the fit may have happened quit naturally, but it may have passed off quite naturally, and the sick ma may have recovered, not completely perhaps, but still regainin consciousness, as happens with epileptics."},
{"text":"\"The prosecutor asks at what moment could Smerdyakov have committed th murder. But it is very easy to point out that moment. He might hav waked up from deep sleep (for he was only asleep--an epileptic fit i always followed by a deep sleep) at that moment when the old Grigor shouted at the top of his voice `Parricide!' That shout in the dark an stillness may have waked Smerdyakov whose sleep may have been les sound at the moment: he might naturally have waked up an hour before."},
{"text":"\"Getting out of bed, he goes almost unconsciously and with no definit motive towards the sound to see what's the matter. His head is stil clouded with his attack, his faculties are half asleep; but, once i the garden, he walks to the lighted windows and he hears terrible new from his master, who would be, of course, glad to see him. His min sets to work at once. He hears all the details from his frightene master, and gradually in his disordered brain there shapes itself a idea--terrible, but seductive and irresistibly logical. To kill th old man, take the three thousand, and throw all the blame on to hi young master. A terrible lust of money, of booty, might seize upon hi as he realized his security from detection. Oh! these sudden an irresistible impulses come so often when there is a favorabl opportunity, and especially with murderers who have had no idea o committing a murder beforehand. And Smerdyakov may have gone in an carried out his plan. With what weapon? Why, with any stone picked u in the garden. But what for, with what object? Why, the three thousan which means a career for him. Oh, I am not contradicting myself--th money may have existed. And perhaps Smerdyakov alone knew where to fin it, where his master kept it. And the covering of the money--the tor envelope on the floor?"},
{"text":"\"Just now, when the prosecutor was explaining his subtle theory tha only an inexperienced thief like Karamazov would have left the envelop on the floor, and not one like Smerdyakov, who would have avoide leaving a piece of evidence against himself, I thought as I listene that I was hearing something very familiar, and, would you believe it I have heard that very argument, that very conjecture, of how Karamazo would have behaved, precisely two days before, from Smerdyakov himself What's more, it struck me at the time. I fancied that there was a artificial simplicity about him; that he was in a hurry to suggest thi idea to me that I might fancy it was my own. He insinuated it, as i were. Did he not insinuate the same idea at the inquiry and suggest i to the talented prosecutor?"},
{"text":"\"I shall be asked, `What about the old woman, Grigory's wife? She hear the sick man moaning close by, all night.' Yes, she heard it, but tha evidence is extremely unreliable. I knew a lady who complained bitterl that she had been kept awake all night by a dog in the yard. Yet th poor beast, it appeared, had only yelped once or twice in the night And that's natural. If anyone is asleep and hears a groan he wakes up annoyed at being waked, but instantly falls asleep again. Two hour later, again a groan, he wakes up and falls asleep again; and the sam thing again two hours later--three times altogether in the night. Nex morning the sleeper wakes up and complains that someone has bee groaning all night and keeping him awake. And it is bound to seem so t him: the intervals of two hours of sleep he does not remember, he onl remembers the moments of waking, so he feels he has been waked up al night."},
{"text":"\"But why, why, asks the prosecutor, did not Smerdyakov confess in hi last letter? Why did his conscience prompt him to one step and not t both? But, excuse me, conscience implies penitence, and the suicide ma not have felt penitence, but only despair. Despair and penitence ar two very different things. Despair may be vindictive an irreconcilable, and the suicide, laying his hands on himself, may wel have felt redoubled hatred for those whom he had envied all his life."},
{"text":"\"Gentlemen of the jury, beware of a miscarriage of justice! What i there unlikely in all I have put before you just now? Find the error i my reasoning; find the impossibility, the absurdity. And if there i but a shade of possibility, but a shade of probability in m propositions, do not condemn him. And is there only a shade? I swear b all that is sacred, I fully believe in the explanation of the murder  have just put forward. What troubles me and makes me indignant is tha of all the mass of facts heaped up by the prosecution against th prisoner, there is not a single one certain and irrefutable. And ye the unhappy man is to be ruined by the accumulation of these facts Yes, the accumulated effect is awful: the blood, the blood drippin from his fingers, the bloodstained shirt, the dark night resoundin with the shout `Parricide!' and the old man falling with a broken head And then the mass of phrases, statements, gestures, shouts! Oh! thi has so much influence, it can so bias the mind; but, gentlemen of th jury, can it bias your minds? Remember, you have been given absolut power to bind and to loose, but the greater the power, the mor terrible its responsibility."},
{"text":"\"I do not draw back one iota from what I have said just now, bu suppose for one moment I agreed with the prosecution that my luckles client had stained his hands with his father's blood. This is onl hypothesis, I repeat; I never for one instant doubt of his innocence But, so be it, I assume that my client is guilty of parricide. Even so hear what I have to say. I have it in my heart to say something more t you, for I feel that there must be a great conflict in your hearts an minds. ... Forgive my referring to your hearts and minds, gentleme of the jury, but I want to be truthful and sincere to the end. Let u all be sincere!\""},
{"text":"At this point the speech was interrupted by rather loud applause. Th last words, indeed, were pronounced with a note of such sincerity tha everyone felt that he really might have something to say, and that wha he was about to say would be of the greatest consequence. But th President, hearing the applause, in a loud voice threatened to clea the court if such an incident were repeated. Every sound was hushed an Fetyukovitch began in a voice full of feeling quite unlike the tone h had used hitherto."},
{"text":" XIII"},
{"text":"A Corrupter of Thought"},
{"text":"\"It's not only the accumulation of facts that threatens my client wit ruin, gentlemen of the jury,\" he began, \"what is really damning for m client is one fact--the dead body of his father. Had it been a ordinary case of murder you would have rejected the charge in view o the triviality, the incompleteness, and the fantastic character of th evidence, if you examine each part of it separately; or, at least, yo would have hesitated to ruin a man's life simply from the prejudic against him which he has, alas! only too well deserved. But it's not a ordinary case of murder, it's a case of parricide. That impresses men' minds, and to such a degree that the very triviality and incompletenes of the evidence becomes less trivial and less incomplete even to a unprejudiced mind. How can such a prisoner be acquitted? What if h committed the murder and gets off unpunished? That is what everyone almost involuntarily, instinctively, feels at heart."},
{"text":"\"Yes, it's a fearful thing to shed a father's blood--the father wh has begotten me, loved me, not spared his life for me, grieved over m illnesses from childhood up, troubled all his life for my happiness and has lived in my joys, in my successes. To murder such  father--that's inconceivable. Gentlemen of the jury, what is  father--a real father? What is the meaning of that great word? What i the great idea in that name? We have just indicated in part what a tru father is and what he ought to be. In the case in which we are now s deeply occupied and over which our hearts are aching--in the presen case, the father, Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov, did not correspond t that conception of a father to which we have just referred. That's th misfortune. And indeed some fathers are a misfortune. Let us examin this misfortune rather more closely: we must shrink from nothing gentlemen of the jury, considering the importance of the decision yo have to make. It's our particular duty not to shrink from any idea like children or frightened women, as the talented prosecutor happil expresses it."},
{"text":"\"But in the course of his heated speech my esteemed opponent (and h was my opponent before I opened my lips) exclaimed several times, `Oh I will not yield the defense of the prisoner to the lawyer who has com down from Petersburg. I accuse, but I defend also!' He exclaimed tha several times, but forgot to mention that if this terrible prisoner wa for twenty-three years so grateful for a mere pound of nuts given hi by the only man who had been kind to him, as a child in his father' house, might not such a man well have remembered for twenty-three year how he ran in his father's backyard, `without boots on his feet an with his little trousers hanging by one button'--to use the expressio of the kindhearted doctor, Herzenstube?"},
{"text":"\"Oh, gentlemen of the jury, why need we look more closely at thi misfortune, why repeat what we all know already? What did my clien meet with when he arrived here, at his father's house, and why depic my client as a heartless egoist and monster? He is uncontrolled, he i wild and unruly--we are trying him now for that--but who i responsible for his life? Who is responsible for his having receive such an unseemly bringing up, in spite of his excellent disposition an his grateful and sensitive heart? Did anyone train him to b reasonable? Was he enlightened by study? Did anyone love him ever s little in his childhood? My client was left to the care of Providenc like a beast of the field. He thirsted perhaps to see his father afte long years of separation. A thousand times perhaps he may, recallin his childhood, have driven away the loathsome phantoms that haunted hi childish dreams and with all his heart he may have longed to embrac and to forgive his father! And what awaited him? He was met by cynica taunts, suspicions and wrangling about money. He heard nothing bu revolting talk and vicious precepts uttered daily over the brandy, an at last he saw his father seducing his mistress from him with his ow money. Oh, gentlemen of the jury, that was cruel and revolting! An that old man was always complaining of the disrespect and cruelty o his son. He slandered him in society, injured him, calumniated him bought up his unpaid debts to get him thrown into prison."},
{"text":"\"Gentlemen of the jury, people like my client, who are fierce, unruly and uncontrolled on the surface, are sometimes, most frequently indeed exceedingly tenderhearted, only they don't express it. Don't laugh don't laugh at my idea! The talented prosecutor laughed mercilessl just now at my client for loving Schiller--loving the sublime an beautiful! I should not have laughed at that in his place. Yes, suc natures--oh, let me speak in defense of such natures, so often and s cruelly misunderstood--these natures often thirst for tenderness goodness, and justice, as it were, in contrast to themselves, thei unruliness, their ferocity--they thirst for it unconsciously Passionate and fierce on the surface, they are painfully capable o loving woman, for instance, and with a spiritual and elevated love Again do not laugh at me, this is very often the case in such natures But they cannot hide their passions--sometimes very coarse--and tha is conspicuous and is noticed, but the inner man is unseen. Thei passions are quickly exhausted; but, by the side of a noble and loft creature that seemingly coarse and rough man seeks a new life, seeks t correct himself, to be better, to become noble and honorable, `sublim and beautiful,' however much the expression has been ridiculed."},
{"text":"\"I said just now that I would not venture to touch upon my client' engagement. But I may say half a word. What we heard just now was no evidence, but only the scream of a frenzied and revengeful woman, an it was not for her--oh, not for her!--to reproach him with treachery for she has betrayed him! If she had had but a little time fo reflection she would not have given such evidence. Oh, do not believ her! No, my client is not a monster, as she called him!"},
{"text":"\"The Lover of Mankind on the eve of His Crucifixion said: `I am th Good Shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep, s that not one of them might be lost.' Let not a man's soul be los through us!"},
{"text":"\"I asked just now what does `father' mean, and exclaimed that it was  great word, a precious name. But one must use words honestly gentlemen, and I venture to call things by their right names: such  father as old Karamazov cannot be called a father and does not deserv to be. Filial love for an unworthy father is an absurdity, a impossibility. Love cannot be created from nothing: only God can creat something from nothing."},
{"text":"\" `Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath,' the apostle writes from a heart glowing with love. It's not for the sake of my client tha I quote these sacred words, I mention them for all fathers. Who ha authorized me to preach to fathers? No one. But as a man and a citize I make my appeal--vivos voco! We are not long on earth, we do man evil deeds and say many evil words. So let us all catch a favorabl moment when we are all together to say a good word to each other That's what I am doing: while I am in this place I take advantage of m opportunity. Not for nothing is this tribune given us by the highes authority--all Russia hears us! I am not speaking only for the father here present, I cry aloud to all fathers: `Fathers, provoke not you children to wrath.' Yes, let us first fulfill Christ's injunctio ourselves and only then venture to expect it of our children. Otherwis we are not fathers, but enemies of our children, and they are not ou children, but our enemies, and we have made them our enemies ourselves `What measure ye mete it shall be measured unto you again'--it's not  who say that, it's the Gospel precept, measure to others according a they measure to you. How can we blame children if they measure u according to our measure?"},
{"text":"\"Not long ago a servant girl in Finland was suspected of havin secretly given birth to a child. She was watched, and a box of which n one knew anything was found in the corner of the loft, behind som bricks. It was opened and inside was found the body of a newborn chil which she had killed. In the same box were found the skeletons of tw other babies which, according to her own confession, she had killed a the moment of their birth."},
{"text":"\"Gentlemen of the jury, was she a mother to her children? She gav birth to them, indeed; but was she a mother to them? Would anyon venture to give her the sacred name of mother? Let us be bold gentlemen, let us be audacious even: it's our duty to be so at thi moment and not to be afraid of certain words and ideas like the Mosco women in Ostrovsky's play, who are scared at the sound of certai words. No, let us prove that the progress of the last few years ha touched even us, and let us say plainly, the father is not merely h who begets the child, but he who begets it and does his duty by it."},
{"text":"\"Oh, of course, there is the other meaning, there is the othe interpretation of the word `father,' which insists that any father even though he be a monster, even though he be the enemy of hi children, still remains my father simply because he begot me. But thi is, so to say, the mystical meaning which I cannot comprehend with m intellect, but can only accept by faith, or, better to say, on faith like many other things which I do not understand, but which religio bids me believe. But in that case let it be kept outside the sphere o actual life. In the sphere of actual life, which has, indeed, its ow rights, but also lays upon us great duties and obligations, in tha sphere, if we want to be humane--Christian, in fact--we must, o ought to, act only upon convictions justified by reason and experience which have been passed through the crucible of analysis; in a word, w must act rationally, and not as though in dream and delirium, that w may not do harm, that we may not ill-treat and ruin a man. Then it wil be real Christian work, not only mystic, but rational an philanthropic. ...\""},
{"text":"There was violent applause at this passage from many parts of th court, but Fetyukovitch waved his hands as though imploring them to le him finish without interruption. The court relapsed into silence a once. The orator went on."},
{"text":"\"Do you suppose, gentlemen, that our children as they grow up and begi to reason can avoid such questions? No, they cannot, and we will no impose on them an impossible restriction. The sight of an unworth father involuntarily suggests tormenting questions to a young creature especially when he compares him with the excellent fathers of hi companions. The conventional answer to this question is: `He begot you and you are his flesh and blood, and therefore you are bound to lov him.' The youth involuntarily reflects: `But did he love me when h begot me?' he asks, wondering more and more. `Was it for my sake h begot me? He did not know me, not even my sex, at that moment, at th moment of passion, perhaps, inflamed by wine, and he has onl transmitted to me a propensity to drunkenness--that's all he's don for me. ... Why am I bound to love him simply for begetting me whe he has cared nothing for me all my life after?'"},
{"text":"\"Oh, perhaps those questions strike you as coarse and cruel, but do no expect an impossible restraint from a young mind. `Drive nature out o the door and it will fly in at the window,' and, above all, let us no be afraid of words, but decide the question according to the dictate of reason and humanity and not of mystic ideas. How shall it b decided? Why, like this. Let the son stand before his father and as him, `Father, tell me, why must I love you? Father, show me that I mus love you,' and if that father is able to answer him and show him goo reason, we have a real, normal, parental relation, not resting o mystical prejudice, but on a rational, responsible and strictl humanitarian basis. But if he does not, there's an end to the famil tie. He is not a father to him, and the son has a right to look upo him as a stranger, and even an enemy. Our tribune, gentlemen of th jury, ought to be a school of true and sound ideas.\""},
{"text":"(Here the orator was interrupted by irrepressible and almost franti applause. Of course, it was not the whole audience, but a good half o it applauded. The fathers and mothers present applauded. Shrieks an exclamations were heard from the gallery, where the ladies wer sitting. Handkerchiefs were waved. The President began ringing his bel with all his might. He was obviously irritated by the behavior of th audience, but did not venture to clear the court as he had threatened Even persons of high position, old men with stars on their breasts sitting on specially reserved seats behind the judges, applauded th orator and waved their handkerchiefs. So that when the noise died down the President confined himself to repeating his stern threat to clea the court, and Fetyukovitch, excited and triumphant, continued hi speech.)"},
{"text":"\"Gentlemen of the jury, you remember that awful night of which so muc has been said today, when the son got over the fence and stood face t face with the enemy and persecutor who had begotten him. I insist mos emphatically it was not for money he ran to his father's house: th charge of robbery is an absurdity, as I proved before. And it was no to murder him he broke into the house, oh, no! If he had had tha design he would, at least, have taken the precaution of arming himsel beforehand. The brass pestle he caught up instinctively without knowin why he did it. Granted that he deceived his father by tapping at th window, granted that he made his way in--I've said already that I d not for a moment believe that legend, but let it be so, let us suppos it for a moment. Gentlemen, I swear to you by all that's holy, if i had not been his father, but an ordinary enemy, he would, after runnin through the rooms and satisfying himself that the woman was not there have made off, post-haste, without doing any harm to his rival. H would have struck him, pushed him away perhaps, nothing more, for h had no thought and no time to spare for that. What he wanted to kno was where she was. But his father, his father! The mere sight of th father who had hated him from his childhood, had been his enemy, hi persecutor, and now his unnatural rival, was enough! A feeling o hatred came over him involuntarily, irresistibly, clouding his reason It all surged up in one moment! It was an impulse of madness an insanity, but also an impulse of nature, irresistibly and unconsciousl (like everything in nature) avenging the violation of its eternal laws."},
{"text":"\"But the prisoner even then did not murder him--I maintain that, I cr that aloud!--no, he only brandished the pestle in a burst of indignan disgust, not meaning to kill him, not knowing that he would kill him Had he not had this fatal pestle in his hand, he would have onl knocked his father down perhaps, but would not have killed him. As h ran away, he did not know whether he had killed the old man. Such  murder is not a murder. Such a murder is not a parricide. No, th murder of such a father cannot be called parricide. Such a murder ca only be reckoned parricide by prejudice."},
{"text":"\"But I appeal to you again and again from the depths of my soul; di this murder actually take place? Gentlemen of the jury, if we convic and punish him, he will say to himself: `These people have done nothin for my bringing up, for my education, nothing to improve my lot nothing to make me better, nothing to make me a man. These people hav not given me to eat and to drink, have not visited me in prison an nakedness, and here they have sent me to penal servitude. I am quits,  owe them nothing now, and owe no one anything forever. They are wicke and I will be wicked. They are cruel and I will be cruel.' That is wha he will say, gentlemen of the jury. And I swear, by finding him guilt you will only make it easier for him: you will ease his conscience, h will curse the blood he has shed and will not regret it. At the sam time you will destroy in him the possibility of becoming a new man, fo he will remain in his wickedness and blindness all his life."},
{"text":"\"But do you want to punish him fearfully, terribly, with the most awfu punishment that could be imagined, and at the same time to save him an regenerate his soul? If so, overwhelm him with your mercy! You wil see, you will hear how he will tremble and be horror-struck. `How can  endure this mercy? How can I endure so much love? Am I worthy of it? That's what he will exclaim."},
{"text":"\"Oh, I know, I know that heart, that wild but grateful heart, gentleme of the jury! It will bow before your mercy; it thirsts for a great an loving action, it will melt and mount upwards. There are souls which in their limitation, blame the whole world. But subdue such a soul wit mercy, show it love, and it will curse its past, for there are man good impulses in it. Such a heart will expand and see that God i merciful and that men are good and just. He will be horror-stricken; h will be crushed by remorse and the vast obligation laid upon hi henceforth. And he will not say then, `I am quits,' but will say, `I a guilty in the sight of all men and am more unworthy than all.' Wit tears of penitence and poignant, tender anguish, he will exclaim `Others are better than I, they wanted to save me, not to ruin me!' Oh this act of mercy is so easy for you, for in the absence of anythin like real evidence it will be too awful for you to pronounce: `Yes, h is guilty.'"},
{"text":"\"Better acquit ten guilty men than punish one innocent man! Do yo hear, do you hear that majestic voice from the past century of ou glorious history? It is not for an insignificant person like me t remind you that the Russian court does not exist for the punishmen only, but also for the salvation of the criminal! Let other nation think of retribution and the letter of the law, we will cling to th spirit and the meaning--the salvation and the reformation of the lost If this is true, if Russia and her justice are such, she may go forwar with good cheer! Do not try to scare us with your frenzied troikas fro which all the nations stand aside in disgust. Not a runaway troika, bu the stately chariot of Russia will move calmly and majestically to it goal. In your hands is the fate of my client, in your hands is the fat of Russian justice. You will defend it, you will save it, you wil prove that there are men to watch over it, that it is in good hands!\""},
{"text":" XIV"},
{"text":"The Peasants Stand Firm"},
{"text":"This was how Fetyukovitch concluded his speech, and the enthusiasm o the audience burst like an irresistible storm. It was out of th question to stop it: the women wept, many of the men wept too, even tw important personages shed tears. The President submitted, and eve postponed ringing his bell. The suppression of such an enthusiasm woul be the suppression of something sacred, as the ladies cried afterwards The orator himself was genuinely touched."},
{"text":"And it was at this moment that Ippolit Kirillovitch got up to mak certain objections. People looked at him with hatred. \"What? What's th meaning of it? He positively dares to make objections,\" the ladie babbled. But if the whole world of ladies, including his wife, ha protested he could not have been stopped at that moment. He was pale he was shaking with emotion, his first phrases were eve unintelligible, he gasped for breath, could hardly speak clearly, los the thread. But he soon recovered himself. Of this new speech of his  will quote only a few sentences."},
{"text":"\"... I am reproached with having woven a romance. But what is thi defense if not one romance on the top of another? All that was lackin was poetry. Fyodor Pavlovitch, while waiting for his mistress, tear open the envelope and throws it on the floor. We are even told what h said while engaged in this strange act. Is not this a flight of fancy And what proof have we that he had taken out the money? Who heard wha he said? The weak-minded idiot, Smerdyakov, transformed into a Byroni hero, avenging society for his illegitimate birth--isn't this  romance in the Byronic style? And the son who breaks into his father' house and murders him without murdering him is not even  romance--this is a sphinx setting us a riddle which he cannot solv himself. If he murdered him, he murdered him, and what's the meaning o his murdering him without having murdered him--who can make head o tail of this?"},
{"text":"\"Then we are admonished that our tribune is a tribune of true and soun ideas and from this tribune of `sound ideas' is heard a solem declaration that to call the murder of a father `parricide' is nothin but a prejudice! But if parricide is a prejudice, and if every child i to ask his father why he is to love him, what will become of us? Wha will become of the foundations of society? What will become of th family? Parricide, it appears, is only a bogy of Moscow merchants wives. The most precious, the most sacred guarantees for the destin and future of Russian justice are presented to us in a perverted an frivolous form, simply to attain an object--to obtain th justification of something which cannot be justified. `Oh, crush him b mercy,' cries the counsel for the defense; but that's all the crimina wants, and tomorrow it will be seen how much he is crushed. And is no the counsel for the defense too modest in asking only for the acquitta of the prisoner? Why not found a charity in the honor of the parricid to commemorate his exploit among future generations? Religion and th Gospel are corrected--that's all mysticism, we are told, and ours i the only true Christianity which has been subjected to the analysis o reason and common sense. And so they set up before us a false semblanc of Christ! `What measure ye mete so it shall be meted unto you again, cried the counsel for the defense, and instantly deduces that Chris teaches us to measure as it is measured to us--and this from th tribune of truth and sound sense! We peep into the Gospel only on th eve of making speeches, in order to dazzle the audience by ou acquaintance with what is, anyway, a rather original composition, whic may be of use to produce a certain effect--all to serve the purpose But what Christ commands us is something very different: He bids u beware of doing this, because the wicked world does this, but we ough to forgive and to turn the other cheek, and not to measure to ou persecutors as they measure to us. This is what our God has taught u and not that to forbid children to murder their fathers is a prejudice And we will not from the tribune of truth and good sense correct th Gospel of our Lord, Whom the counsel for the defense deigns to cal only `the crucified lover of humanity,' in opposition to all orthodo Russia, which calls to Him, `For Thou art our God!' \""},
{"text":"At this the President intervened and checked the overzealous speaker begging him not to exaggerate, not to overstep the bounds, and so on as presidents always do in such cases. The audience, too, was uneasy The public was restless: there were even exclamations of indignation Fetyukovitch did not so much as reply; he only mounted the tribune t lay his hand on his heart and, with an offended voice, utter a fe words full of dignity. He only touched again, lightly and ironically on \"romancing\" and \"psychology,\" and in an appropriate place quoted \"Jupiter, you are angry, therefore you are wrong,\" which provoked  burst of approving laughter in the audience, for Ippolit Kirillovitc was by no means like Jupiter. Then, apropos of the accusation that h was teaching the young generation to murder their fathers, Fetyukovitc observed, with great dignity, that he would not even answer. As for th prosecutor's charge of uttering unorthodox opinions, Fetyukovitc hinted that it was a personal insinuation and that he had expected i this court to be secure from accusations \"damaging to my reputation a a citizen and a loyal subject.\" But at these words the President pulle him up, too, and Fetyukovitch concluded his speech with a bow, amid  hum of approbation in the court. And Ippolit Kirillovitch was, in th opinion of our ladies, \"crushed for good.\""},
{"text":"Then the prisoner was allowed to speak. Mitya stood up, but said ver little. He was fearfully exhausted, physically and mentally. The loo of strength and independence with which he had entered in the mornin had almost disappeared. He seemed as though he had passed through a experience that day, which had taught him for the rest of his lif something very important he had not understood till then. His voice wa weak, he did not shout as before. In his words there was a new note o humility, defeat and submission."},
{"text":"\"What am I to say, gentlemen of the jury? The hour of judgment has com for me, I feel the hand of God upon me! The end has come to an errin man! But, before God, I repeat to you, I am innocent of my father' blood! For the last time I repeat, it wasn't I killed him! I wa erring, but I loved what is good. Every instant I strove to reform, bu I lived like a wild beast. I thank the prosecutor, he told me man things about myself that I did not know; but it's not true that  killed my father, the prosecutor is mistaken. I thank my counsel, too I cried listening to him; but it's not true that I killed my father and he needn't have supposed it. And don't believe the doctors. I a perfectly sane, only my heart is heavy. If you spare me, if you let m go, I will pray for you. I will be a better man. I give you my wor before God I will! And if you will condemn me, I'll break my sword ove my head myself and kiss the pieces. But spare me, do not rob me of m God! I know myself, I shall rebel! My heart is heavy, gentlemen .. spare me!\""},
{"text":"He almost fell back in his place: his voice broke: he could hardl articulate the last phrase. Then the judges proceeded to put th questions and began to ask both sides to formulate their conclusions."},
{"text":"But I will not describe the details. At last the jury rose to retir for consultation. The President was very tired, and so his last charg to the jury was rather feeble. \"Be impartial, don't be influenced b the eloquence of the defense, but yet weigh the arguments. Remembe that there is a great responsibility laid upon you,\" and so on and s on."},
{"text":"The jury withdrew and the court adjourned. People could get up, mov about, exchange their accumulated impressions, refresh themselves a the buffet. It was very late, almost one o'clock in the night, bu nobody went away: the strain was so great that no one could think o repose. All waited with sinking hearts; though that is, perhaps, to much to say, for the ladies were only in a state of hysterica impatience and their hearts were untroubled. An acquittal, the thought, was inevitable. They all prepared themselves for a dramati moment of general enthusiasm. I must own there were many among the men too, who were convinced that an acquittal was inevitable. Some wer pleased, others frowned, while some were simply dejected, not wantin him to be acquitted. Fetyukovitch himself was confident of his success He was surrounded by people congratulating him and fawning upon him."},
{"text":"\"There are,\" he said to one group, as I was told afterwards, \"there ar invisible threads binding the counsel for the defense with the jury One feels during one's speech if they are being formed. I was aware o them. They exist. Our cause is won. Set your mind at rest.\""},
{"text":"\"What will our peasants say now?\" said one stout, cross-looking pockmarked gentleman, a landowner of the neighborhood, approaching  group of gentlemen engaged in conversation."},
{"text":"\"But they are not all peasants. There are four government clerks amon them.\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, there are clerks,\" said a member of the district council, joinin the group."},
{"text":"\"And do you know that Nazaryev, the merchant with the medal,  juryman?\""},
{"text":"\"What of him?\""},
{"text":"\"He is a man with brains.\""},
{"text":"\"But he never speaks.\""},
{"text":"\"He is no great talker, but so much the better. There's no need for th Petersburg man to teach him: he could teach all Petersburg himself He's the father of twelve children. Think of that!\""},
{"text":"\"Upon my word, you don't suppose they won't acquit him?\" one of ou young officials exclaimed in another group."},
{"text":"\"They'll acquit him for certain,\" said a resolute voice."},
{"text":"\"It would be shameful, disgraceful, not to acquit him!\" cried th official. \"Suppose he did murder him--there are fathers and fathers And, besides, he was in such a frenzy. ... He really may have don nothing but swing the pestle in the air, and so knocked the old ma down. But it was a pity they dragged the valet in. That was simply a absurd theory! If I'd been in Fetyukovitch's place, I should simpl have said straight out: `He murdered him; but he is not guilty, hang i all!' \""},
{"text":"\"That's what he did, only without saying, `Hang it all!' \""},
{"text":"\"No, Mihail Semyonovitch, he almost said that, too,\" put in a thir voice."},
{"text":"\"Why, gentlemen, in Lent an actress was acquitted in our town who ha cut the throat of her lover's lawful wife.\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, but she did not finish cutting it.\""},
{"text":"\"That makes no difference. She began cutting it.\""},
{"text":"\"What did you think of what he said about children? Splendid, wasn' it?\""},
{"text":"\"Splendid!\""},
{"text":"\"And about mysticism, too!\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, drop mysticism, do!\" cried someone else; \"think of Ippolit and hi fate from this day forth. His wife will scratch his eyes out tomorro for Mitya's sake.\""},
{"text":"\"Is she here?\""},
{"text":"\"What an idea! If she'd been here she'd have scratched them out i court. She is at home with toothache. He he he!\""},
{"text":"\"He he he!\""},
{"text":"In a third group:"},
{"text":"\"I dare say they will acquit Mitenka, after all.\""},
{"text":"\"I should not be surprised if he turns the Metropolis upside dow tomorrow. He will be drinking for ten days!\""},
{"text":"\"Oh, the devil!\""},
{"text":"\"The devil's bound to have a hand in it. Where should he be if no here?\""},
{"text":"\"Well, gentlemen, I admit it was eloquent. But still it's not the thin to break your father's head with a pestle! Or what are we coming to?\""},
{"text":"\"The chariot! Do you remember the chariot?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes; he turned a cart into a chariot!\""},
{"text":"\"And tomorrow he will turn a chariot into a cart, just to suit hi purpose.\""},
{"text":"\"What cunning chaps there are nowadays! Is there any justice to be ha in Russia?\""},
{"text":"But the bell rang. The jury deliberated for exactly an hour, neithe more nor less. A profound silence reigned in the court as soon as th public had taken their seats. I remember how the jurymen walked int the court. At last! I won't repeat the questions in order, and, indeed I have forgotten them. I remember only the answer to the President' first and chief question: \"Did the prisoner commit the murder for th sake of robbery and with premeditation?\" (I don't remember the exac words.) There was a complete hush. The foreman of the jury, th youngest of the clerks, pronounced, in a clear, loud voice, amidst th deathlike stillness of the court:"},
{"text":"\"Yes, guilty!\""},
{"text":"And the same answer was repeated to every question: \"Yes, guilty!\" an without the slightest extenuating comment. This no one had expected almost everyone had reckoned upon a recommendation to mercy, at least The deathlike silence in the court was not broken--all seeme petrified: those who desired his conviction as well as those who ha been eager for his acquittal. But that was only for the first instant and it was followed by a fearful hubbub. Many of the men in th audience were pleased. Some were rubbing their hands with no attempt t conceal their joy. Those who disagreed with the verdict seemed crushed shrugged their shoulders, whispered, but still seemed unable to realiz this. But how shall I describe the state the ladies were in? I though they would create a riot. At first they could scarcely believe thei ears. Then suddenly the whole court rang with exclamations: \"What's th meaning of it? What next?\" They leapt up from their places. They seeme to fancy that it might be at once reconsidered and reversed. At tha instant Mitya suddenly stood up and cried in a heartrending voice stretching his hands out before him:"},
{"text":"\"I swear by God and the dreadful Day of Judgment I am not guilty of m father's blood! Katya, I forgive you! Brothers, friends, have pity o the other woman!\""},
{"text":"He could not go on, and broke into a terrible sobbing wail that wa heard all over the court in a strange, unnatural voice unlike his own From the farthest corner at the back of the gallery came a piercin shriek--it was Grushenka. She had succeeded in begging admittance t the court again before the beginning of the lawyers' speeches. Mity was taken away. The passing of the sentence was deferred till next day The whole court was in a hubbub but I did not wait to hear. I onl remember a few exclamations I heard on the steps as I went out."},
{"text":"\"He'll have a twenty years' trip to the mines!\""},
{"text":"\"Not less.\""},
{"text":"\"Well, our peasants have stood firm.\""},
{"text":"\"And have done for our Mitya.\""},
{"text":"Plans for Mitya's Escape"},
{"text":"Very early, at nine o'clock in the morning, five days after the trial Alyosha went to Katerina Ivanovna's to talk over a matter of grea importance to both of them, and to give her a message. She sat an talked to him in the very room in which she had once receive Grushenka. In the next room Ivan Fyodorovitch lay unconscious in a hig fever. Katerina Ivanovna had immediately after the scene at the tria ordered the sick and unconscious man to be carried to her house disregarding the inevitable gossip and general disapproval of th public. One of the two relations who lived with her had departed t Moscow immediately after the scene in court, the other remained. But i both had gone away, Katerina Ivanovna would have adhered to he resolution, and would have gone on nursing the sick man and sitting b him day and night. Varvinsky and Herzenstube were attending him. Th famous doctor had gone back to Moscow, refusing to give an opinion a to the probable end of the illness. Though the doctors encourage Katerina Ivanovna and Alyosha, it was evident that they could not ye give them positive hopes of recovery."},
{"text":"Alyosha came to see his sick brother twice a day. But this time he ha specially urgent business, and he foresaw how difficult it would be t approach the subject, yet he was in great haste. He had anothe engagement that could not be put off for that same morning, and ther was need of haste."},
{"text":"They had been talking for a quarter of an hour. Katerina Ivanovna wa pale and terribly fatigued, yet at the same time in a state o hysterical excitement. She had a presentiment of the reason why Alyosh had come to her."},
{"text":"\"Don't worry about his decision,\" she said, with confident emphasis t Alyosha. \"One way or another he is bound to come to it. He must escape That unhappy man, that hero of honor and principle--not he, not Dmitr Fyodorovitch, but the man lying the other side of that door, who ha sacrificed himself for his brother,\" Katya added, with flashin eyes--\"told me the whole plan of escape long ago. You know he ha already entered into negotiations. ... I've told you somethin already. ... You see, it will probably come off at the third tap from here, when the party of prisoners is being taken to Siberia. Oh it's a long way off yet. Ivan Fyodorovitch has already visited th superintendent of the third tape. But we don't know yet who will be i charge of the party, and it's impossible to find that out so lon beforehand. Tomorrow perhaps I will show you in detail the whole pla which Ivan Fyodorovitch left me on the eve of the trial in case o need. ... That was when--do you remember?--you found us quarreling He had just gone downstairs, but seeing you I made him come back; d you remember? Do you know what we were quarreling about then?\""},
{"text":"\"No, I don't,\" said Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"Of course he did not tell you. It was about that plan of escape. H had told me the main idea three days before, and we began quarrelin about it at once and quarreled for three days. We quarreled because when he told me that if Dmitri Fyodorovitch were convicted he woul escape abroad with that creature, I felt furious at once--I can't tel you why, I don't know myself why. ... Oh, of course, I was furiou then about that creature, and that she, too, should go abroad wit Dmitri!\" Katerina Ivanovna exclaimed suddenly, her lips quivering wit anger. \"As soon as Ivan Fyodorovitch saw that I was furious about tha woman, he instantly imagined I was jealous of Dmitri and that I stil loved Dmitri. That is how our first quarrel began. I would not give a explanation, I could not ask forgiveness. I could not bear to thin that such a man could suspect me of still loving that ... and when  myself had told him long before that I did not love Dmitri, that  loved no one but him! It was only resentment against that creature tha made me angry with him. Three days later, on the evening you came, h brought me a sealed envelope, which I was to open at once, if anythin happened to him. Oh, he foresaw his illness! He told me that th envelope contained the details of the escape, and that if he died o was taken dangerously ill, I was to save Mitya alone. Then he left m money, nearly ten thousand--those notes to which the prosecuto referred in his speech, having learnt from someone that he had sen them to be changed. I was tremendously impressed to find that Iva Fyodorovitch had not given up his idea of saving his brother, and wa confiding this plan of escape to me, though he was still jealous of m and still convinced that I loved Mitya. Oh, that was a sacrifice! No you cannot understand the greatness of such self-sacrifice, Alexe Fyodorovitch. I wanted to fall at his feet in reverence, but I though at once that he would take it only for my joy at the thought of Mitya' being saved (and he certainly would have imagined that!), and I was s exasperated at the mere possibility of such an unjust thought on hi part that I lost my temper again, and instead of kissing his feet, fle into a fury again! Oh, I am unhappy! It's my character, my awful unhappy character! Oh, you will see, I shall end by driving him, too to abandon me for another with whom he can get on better, like Dmitri But ... no, I could not bear it, I should kill myself. And when yo came in then, and when I called to you and told him to come back, I wa so enraged by the look of contempt and hatred he turned on me that--d you remember?--I cried out to you that it was he, he alone who ha persuaded me that his brother Dmitri was a murderer! I said tha malicious thing on purpose to wound him again. He had never, neve persuaded me that his brother was a murderer. On the contrary, it was  who persuaded him! Oh, my vile temper was the cause of everything!  paved the way to that hideous scene at the trial. He wanted to show m that he was an honorable man, and that, even if I loved his brother, h would not ruin him for revenge or jealousy. So he came to the court ... I am the cause of it all, I alone am to blame!\""},
{"text":"Katya never had made such confessions to Alyosha before, and he fel that she was now at that stage of unbearable suffering when even th proudest heart painfully crushes its pride and falls vanquished b grief. Oh, Alyosha knew another terrible reason of her present misery though she had carefully concealed it from him during those days sinc the trial; but it would have been for some reason too painful to him i she had been brought so low as to speak to him now about that. She wa suffering for her \"treachery\" at the trial, and Alyosha felt that he conscience was impelling her to confess it to him, to him, Alyosha with tears and cries and hysterical writhings on the floor. But h dreaded that moment and longed to spare her. It made the commission o which he had come even more difficult. He spoke of Mitya again."},
{"text":"\"It's all right, it's all right, don't be anxious about him!\" she bega again, sharply and stubbornly. \"All that is only momentary, I know him I know his heart only too well. You may be sure he will consent t escape. It's not as though it would be immediately; he will have tim to make up his mind to it. Ivan Fyodorovitch will be well by that tim and will manage it all himself, so that I shall have nothing to do wit it. Don't be anxious; he will consent to run away. He has agree already: do you suppose he would give up that creature? And they won' let her go to him, so he is bound to escape. It's you he's most afrai of, he is afraid you won't approve of his escape on moral grounds. Bu you must generously allow it, if your sanction is so necessary,\" Katy added viciously. She paused and smiled."},
{"text":"\"He talks about some hymn,\" she went on again, \"some cross he has t bear, some duty; I remember Ivan Fyodorovitch told me a great dea about it, and if you knew how he talked!\" Katya cried suddenly, wit feeling she could not repress, \"if you knew how he loved that wretche man at the moment he told me, and how he hated him, perhaps, at th same moment. And I heard his story and his tears with sneering disdain Brute! Yes, I am a brute. I am responsible for his fever. But that ma in prison is incapable of suffering,\" Katya concluded irritably. \"Ca such a man suffer? Men like him never suffer!\""},
{"text":"There was a note of hatred and contemptuous repulsion in her words. An yet it was she who had betrayed him. \"Perhaps because she feels ho she's wronged him she hates him at moments,\" Alyosha thought t himself. He hoped that it was only \"at moments.\" In Katya's last word he detected a challenging note, but he did not take it up."},
{"text":"\"I sent for you this morning to make you promise to persuade hi yourself. Or do you, too, consider that to escape would b dishonorable, cowardly, or something ... unchristian, perhaps?\" Katy added, even more defiantly."},
{"text":"\"Oh, no. I'll tell him everything,\" muttered Alyosha. \"He asks you t come and see him today,\" he blurted out suddenly, looking her steadil in the face. She started, and drew back a little from him on the sofa."},
{"text":"\"Me? Can that be?\" she faltered, turning pale."},
{"text":"\"It can and ought to be!\" Alyosha began emphatically, growing mor animated. \"He needs you particularly just now. I would not have opene the subject and worried you, if it were not necessary. He is ill, he i beside himself, he keeps asking for you. It is not to be reconcile with you that he wants you, but only that you would go and sho yourself at his door. So much has happened to him since that day. H realizes that he has injured you beyond all reckoning. He does not as your forgiveness--`It's impossible to forgive me,' he say himself--but only that you would show yourself in his doorway.\""},
{"text":"\"It's so sudden. ...\" faltered Katya. \"I've had a presentiment al these days that you would come with that message. I knew he would as me to come. It's impossible!\""},
{"text":"\"Let it be impossible, but do it. Only think, he realizes for the firs time how he has wounded you, the first time in his life; he had neve grasped it before so fully. He said, `If she refuses to come I shall b unhappy all my life.' Do you hear? though he is condemned to pena servitude for twenty years, he is still planning to be happy--is no that piteous? Think--you must visit him; though he is ruined, he i innocent,\" broke like a challenge from Alyosha. \"His hands are clean there is no blood on them! For the sake of his infinite sufferings i the future visit him now. Go, greet him on his way into th darkness--stand at his door, that is all. ... You ought to do it you ought to!\" Alyosha concluded, laying immense stress on the wor \"ought.\""},
{"text":"\"I ought to ... but I cannot. ...\" Katya moaned. \"He will look a me. ... I can't.\""},
{"text":"\"Your eyes ought to meet. How will you live all your life, if you don' make up your mind to do it now?\""},
{"text":"\"Better suffer all my life.\""},
{"text":"\"You ought to go, you ought to go,\" Alyosha repeated with merciles emphasis."},
{"text":"\"But why today, why at once? ... I can't leave our patient--\""},
{"text":"\"You can for a moment. It will only be a moment. If you don't come, h will be in delirium by tonight. I would not tell you a lie; have pit on him!\""},
{"text":"\"Have pity on me!\" Katya said, with bitter reproach, and she burst int tears."},
{"text":"\"Then you will come,\" said Alyosha firmly, seeing her tears. \"I'll g and tell him you will come directly.\""},
{"text":"\"No, don't tell him so on any account,\" cried Katya in alarm. \"I wil come, but don't tell him beforehand, for perhaps I may go, but not g in. ... I don't know yet--\""},
{"text":"Her voice failed her. She gasped for breath. Alyosha got up to go."},
{"text":"\"And what if I meet anyone?\" she said suddenly, in a low voice, turnin white again."},
{"text":"\"That's just why you must go now, to avoid meeting anyone. There wil be no one there, I can tell you that for certain. We will expect you,\"he concluded emphatically, and went out of the room."},
{"text":"I"},
{"text":"For a Moment the Lie Becomes Truth"},
{"text":"He hurried to the hospital where Mitya was lying now. The day after hi fate was determined, Mitya had fallen ill with nervous fever, and wa sent to the prison division of the town hospital. But at the request o several persons (Alyosha, Madame Hohlakov, Lise, etc.), Docto Varvinsky had put Mitya not with other prisoners, but in a separat little room, the one where Smerdyakov had been. It is true that ther was a sentinel at the other end of the corridor, and there was  grating over the window, so that Varvinsky could be at ease about th indulgence he had shown, which was not quite legal, indeed; but he wa a kindhearted and compassionate young man. He knew how hard it would b for a man like Mitya to pass at once so suddenly into the society o robbers and murderers, and that he must get used to it by degrees. Th visits of relations and friends were informally sanctioned by th doctor and overseer, and even by the police captain. But only Alyosh and Grushenka had visited Mitya. Rakitin had tried to force his way i twice, but Mitya persistently begged Varvinsky not to admit him."},
{"text":"Alyosha found him sitting on his bed in a hospital dressing-gown rather feverish, with a towel, soaked in vinegar and water, on hi head. He looked at Alyosha as he came in with an undefined expression but there was a shade of something like dread discernible in it. He ha become terribly preoccupied since the trial; sometimes he would b silent for half an hour together, and seemed to be pondering somethin heavily and painfully, oblivious of everything about him. If he rouse himself from his brooding and began to talk, he always spoke with  kind of abruptness and never of what he really wanted to say. He looke sometimes with a face of suffering at his brother. He seemed to be mor at ease with Grushenka than with Alyosha. It is true, he scarcely spok to her at all, but as soon as she came in, his whole face lighted u with joy."},
{"text":"Alyosha sat down beside him on the bed in silence. This time Mitya wa waiting for Alyosha in suspense, but he did not dare ask him  question. He felt it almost unthinkable that Katya would consent t come, and at the same time he felt that if she did not come, somethin inconceivable would happen. Alyosha understood his feelings."},
{"text":"\"Trifon Borissovitch,\" Mitya began nervously, \"has pulled his whole in to pieces, I am told. He's taken up the flooring, pulled apart th planks, split up all the gallery, I am told. He is seeking treasure al the time--the fifteen hundred roubles which the prosecutor said I' hidden there. He began playing these tricks, they say, as soon as h got home. Serve him right, the swindler! The guard here told m yesterday; he comes from there.\""},
{"text":"\"Listen,\" began Alyosha. \"She will come, but I don't know when. Perhap today, perhaps in a few days, that I can't tell. But she will come, sh will, that's certain.\""},
{"text":"Mitya started, would have said something, but was silent. The news ha a tremendous effect on him. It was evident that he would have like terribly to know what had been said, but he was again afraid to ask Something cruel and contemptuous from Katya would have cut him like  knife at that moment."},
{"text":"\"This was what she said among other things; that I must be sure to se your conscience at rest about escaping. If Ivan is not well by then sh will see to it all herself.\""},
{"text":"\"You've spoken of that already,\" Mitya observed musingly."},
{"text":"\"And you have repeated it to Grusha,\" observed Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"Yes,\" Mitya admitted. \"She won't come this morning.\" He looked timidl at his brother. \"She won't come till the evening. When I told he yesterday that Katya was taking measures, she was silent, but she se her mouth. She only whispered, `Let her!' She understood that it wa important. I did not dare to try her further. She understands now,  think, that Katya no longer cares for me, but loves Ivan.\""},
{"text":"\"Does she?\" broke from Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"Perhaps she does not. Only she is not coming this morning,\" Mity hastened to explain again; \"I asked her to do something for me. Yo know, Ivan is superior to all of us. He ought to live, not us. He wil recover.\""},
{"text":"\"Would you believe it, though Katya is alarmed about him, she scarcel doubts of his recovery,\" said Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"That means that she is convinced he will die. It's because she i frightened she's so sure he will get well.\""},
{"text":"\"Ivan has a strong constitution, and I, too, believe there's every hop that he will get well,\" Alyosha observed anxiously."},
{"text":"\"Yes, he will get well. But she is convinced that he will die. She ha a great deal of sorrow to bear ...\" A silence followed. A grav anxiety was fretting Mitya."},
{"text":"\"Alyosha, I love Grusha terribly,\" he said suddenly in a shaking voice full of tears."},
{"text":"\"They won't let her go out there to you,\" Alyosha put in at once."},
{"text":"\"And there is something else I wanted to tell you,\" Mitya went on, wit a sudden ring in his voice. \"If they beat me on the way or out there,  won't submit to it. I shall kill someone, and shall be shot for it. An this will be going on for twenty years! They speak to me rudely as i is. I've been lying here all night, passing judgment on myself. I a not ready! I am not able to resign myself. I wanted to sing a `hymn' but if a guard speaks rudely to me, I have not the strength to bear it For Grusha I would bear anything ... anything except blows. ... Bu she won't be allowed to come there.\""},
{"text":"Alyosha smiled gently."},
{"text":"\"Listen, brother, once for all,\" he said. \"This is what I think abou it. And you know that I would not tell you a lie. Listen: you are no ready, and such a cross is not for you. What's more, you don't nee such a martyr's cross when you are not ready for it. If you ha murdered our father, it would grieve me that you should reject you punishment. But you are innocent, and such a cross is too much for you You wanted to make yourself another man by suffering. I say, onl remember that other man always, all your life and wherever you go; an that will be enough for you. Your refusal of that great cross will onl serve to make you feel all your life an even greater duty, and tha constant feeling will do more to make you a new man, perhaps, than i you went there. For there you would not endure it and would repine, an perhaps at last would say: `I am quits.' The lawyer was right abou that. Such heavy burdens are not for all men. For some they ar impossible. These are my thoughts about it, if you want them so much If other men would have to answer for your escape, officers o soldiers, then I would not have `allowed' you,\" smiled Alyosha. \"Bu they declare--the superintendent of that tape told Iva himself--that if it's well managed there will be no great inquiry, an that they can get off easily. Of course, bribing is dishonest even i such a case, but I can't undertake to judge about it, because if Iva and Katya commissioned me to act for you, I know I should go and giv bribes. I must tell you the truth. And so I can't judge of your ow action. But let me assure you that I shall never condemn you. And i would be a strange thing if I could judge you in this. Now I think I'v gone into everything.\""},
{"text":"\"But I do condemn myself!\" cried Mitya. \"I shall escape, that wa settled apart from you; could Mitya Karamazov do anything but run away But I shall condemn myself, and I will pray for my sin forever. That' how the Jesuits talk, isn't it? Just as we are doing?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes.\" Alyosha smiled gently."},
{"text":"\"I love you for always telling the whole truth and never hidin anything,\" cried Mitya, with a joyful laugh. \"So I've caught my Alyosh being Jesuitical. I must kiss you for that. Now listen to the rest I'll open the other side of my heart to you. This is what I planned an decided. If I run away, even with money and a passport, and even t America, I should be cheered up by the thought that I am not runnin away for pleasure, not for happiness, but to another exile as bad perhaps, as Siberia. It is as bad, Alyosha, it is! I hate that America damn it, already. Even though Grusha will be with me. Just look at her is she an American? She is Russian, Russian to the marrow of her bones she will be homesick for the mother country, and I shall see every hou that she is suffering for my sake, that she has taken up that cross fo me. And what harm has she done? And how shall I, too, put up with th rabble out there, though they may be better than I, every one of them I hate that America already! And though they may be wonderful a machinery, every one of them, damn them, they are not of my soul.  love Russia, Alyosha, I love the Russian God, though I am a scoundre myself. I shall choke there!\" he exclaimed, his eyes suddenly flashing His voice was trembling with tears. \"So this is what I've decided Alyosha, listen,\" he began again, mastering his emotion. \"As soon as  arrive there with Grusha, we will set to work at once on the land, i solitude, somewhere very remote, with wild bears. There must be som remote parts even there. I am told there are still Redskins there somewhere, on the edge of the horizon. So to the country of the Last o the Mohicans, and there we'll tackle the grammar at once, Grusha and I Work and grammar--that's how we'll spend three years. And by that tim we shall speak English like any Englishman. And as soon as we've learn it--goodbye to America! We'll run here to Russia as American citizens Don't be uneasy--we would not come to this little town. We'd hid somewhere, a long way off, in the north or in the south. I shall b changed by that time, and she will, too, in America. The doctors shal make me some sort of wart on my face--what's the use of their being s mechanical!--or else I'll put out one eye, let my beard grow a yard and I shall turn gray, fretting for Russia. I dare say they won' recognize us. And if they do, let them send us to Siberia. I don' care. It will show it's our fate. We'll work on the land here, too somewhere in the wilds, and I'll make up as an American all my life But we shall die on our own soil. That's my plan, and it shan't b altered. Do you approve?\""},
{"text":"\"Yes,\" said Alyosha, not wanting to contradict him. Mitya paused for  minute and said suddenly:"},
{"text":"\"And how they worked it up at the trial! Didn't they work it up!\""},
{"text":"\"If they had not, you would have been convicted just the same,\" sai Alyosha, with a sigh."},
{"text":"\"Yes, people are sick of me here! God bless them, but it's hard,\" Mity moaned miserably. Again there was silence for a minute."},
{"text":"\"Alyosha, put me out of my misery at once!\" he exclaimed suddenly \"Tell me, is she coming now, or not? Tell me? What did she say? How di she say it?\""},
{"text":"\"She said she would come, but I don't know whether she will come today It's hard for her, you know,\" Alyosha looked timidly at his brother."},
{"text":"\"I should think it is hard for her! Alyosha, it will drive me out of m mind. Grusha keeps looking at me. She understands. My God, calm m heart: what is it I want? I want Katya! Do I understand what I want It's the headstrong, evil Karamazov spirit! No, I am not fit fo suffering. I am a scoundrel, that's all one can say.\""},
{"text":"\"Here she is!\" cried Alyosha."},
{"text":"At that instant Katya appeared in the doorway. For a moment she stoo still, gazing at Mitya with a dazed expression. He leapt impulsively t his feet, and a scared look came into his face. He turned pale, but  timid, pleading smile appeared on his lips at once, and with a irresistible impulse he held out both hands to Katya. Seeing it, sh flew impetuously to him. She seized him by the hands, and almost b force made him sit down on the bed. She sat down beside him, and stil keeping his hands pressed them violently. Several times they bot strove to speak, but stopped short and again gazed speechless with  strange smile, their eyes fastened on one another. So passed tw minutes."},
{"text":"\"Have you forgiven me?\" Mitya faltered at last, and at the same momen turning to Alyosha, his face working with joy, he cried, \"Do you hea what I am asking, do you hear?\""},
{"text":"\"That's what I loved you for, that you are generous at heart!\" brok from Katya. \"My forgiveness is no good to you, nor yours to me; whethe you forgive me or not, you will always be a sore place in my heart, an I in yours--so it must be. ...\" She stopped to take breath. \"Wha have I come for?\" she began again with nervous haste: \"to embrace you feet, to press your hands like this, till it hurts--you remember ho in Moscow I used to squeeze them--to tell you again that you are m god, my joy, to tell you that I love you madly,\" she moaned in anguish and suddenly pressed his hand greedily to her lips. Tears streamed fro her eyes. Alyosha stood speechless and confounded; he had neve expected what he was seeing."},
{"text":"\"Love is over, Mitya!\" Katya began again, \"but the past is painfull dear to me. Know that you will always be so. But now let what migh have been come true for one minute,\" she faltered, with a drawn smile looking into his face joyfully again. \"You love another woman, and  love another man, and yet I shall love you forever, and you will lov me; do you know that? Do you hear? Love me, love me all your life!\" sh cried, with a quiver almost of menace in her voice."},
{"text":"\"I shall love you, and ... do you know, Katya,\" Mitya began, drawin a deep breath at each word, \"do you know, five days ago, that sam evening, I loved you. ... When you fell down and were carried out ... All my life! So it will be, so it will always be--\""},
{"text":"So they murmured to one another frantic words, almost meaningless perhaps not even true, but at that moment it was all true, and the both believed what they said implicitly."},
{"text":"\"Katya,\" cried Mitya suddenly, \"do you believe I murdered him? I kno you don't believe it now, but then ... when you gave evidence. .. Surely, surely you did not believe it!\""},
{"text":"\"I did not believe it even then. I've never believed it. I hated you and for a moment I persuaded myself. While I was giving evidence  persuaded myself and believed it, but when I'd finished speaking I lef off believing it at once. Don't doubt that! I have forgotten that  came here to punish myself,\" she said, with a new expression in he voice, quite unlike the loving tones of a moment before."},
{"text":"\"Woman, yours is a heavy burden,\" broke, as it were, involuntarily fro Mitya."},
{"text":"\"Let me go,\" she whispered. \"I'll come again. It's more than I can bea now.\""},
{"text":"She was getting up from her place, but suddenly uttered a loud screa and staggered back. Grushenka walked suddenly and noiselessly into th room. No one had expected her. Katya moved swiftly to the door, bu when she reached Grushenka, she stopped suddenly, turned as white a chalk and moaned softly, almost in a whisper:"},
{"text":"\"Forgive me!\""},
{"text":"Grushenka stared at her and, pausing for an instant, in a vindictive venomous voice, answered:"},
{"text":"\"We are full of hatred, my girl, you and I! We are both full of hatred As though we could forgive one another! Save him, and I'll worship yo all my life.\""},
{"text":"\"You won't forgive her!\" cried Mitya, with frantic reproach."},
{"text":"\"Don't be anxious, I'll save him for you!\" Katya whispered rapidly, an she ran out of the room."},
{"text":"\"And you could refuse to forgive her when she begged your forgivenes herself?\" Mitya exclaimed bitterly again."},
{"text":"\"Mitya, don't dare to blame her; you have no right to!\" Alyosha crie hotly."},
{"text":"\"Her proud lips spoke, not her heart,\" Grushenka brought out in a ton of disgust. \"If she saves you I'll forgive her everything--\""},
{"text":"She stopped speaking, as though suppressing something. She could no yet recover herself. She had come in, as appeared afterwards accidentally, with no suspicion of what she would meet."},
{"text":"\"Alyosha, run after her!\" Mitya cried to his brother; \"tell her ...  don't know ... don't let her go away like this!\""},
{"text":"\"I'll come to you again at nightfall,\" said Alyosha, and he ran afte Katya. He overtook her outside the hospital grounds. She was walkin fast, but as soon as Alyosha caught her up she said quickly:"},
{"text":"\"No, before that woman I can't punish myself! I asked her forgivenes because I wanted to punish myself to the bitter end. She would no forgive me. ... I like her for that!\" she added, in an unnatura voice, and her eyes flashed with fierce resentment."},
{"text":"\"My brother did not expect this in the least,\" muttered Alyosha. \"H was sure she would not come--\""},
{"text":"\"No doubt. Let us leave that,\" she snapped. \"Listen: I can't go wit you to the funeral now. I've sent them flowers. I think they still hav money. If necessary, tell them I'll never abandon them. ... Now leav me, leave me, please. You are late as it is--the bells are ringing fo the service. ... Leave me, please!\""},
{"text":"II"},
{"text":"Ilusha's Funeral. The Speech at the Stone"},
{"text":"He really was late. They had waited for him and had already decided t bear the pretty flower-decked little coffin to the church without him It was the coffin of poor little Ilusha. He had died two days afte Mitya was sentenced. At the gate of the house Alyosha was met by th shouts of the boys, Ilusha's schoolfellows. They had all bee impatiently expecting him and were glad that he had come at last. Ther were about twelve of them, they all had their schoolbags or satchels o their shoulders. \"Father will cry, be with father,\" Ilusha had tol them as he lay dying, and the boys remembered it. Kolya Krassotkin wa the foremost of them."},
{"text":"\"How glad I am you've come, Karamazov!\" he cried, holding out his han to Alyosha. \"It's awful here. It's really horrible to see it. Snegiryo is not drunk, we know for a fact he's had nothing to drink today, bu he seems as if he were drunk ... I am always manly, but this i awful. Karamazov, if I am not keeping you, one question before you g in?\""},
{"text":"\"What is it, Kolya?\" said Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"Is your brother innocent or guilty? Was it he killed your father o was it the valet? As you say, so it will be. I haven't slept for th last four nights for thinking of it.\""},
{"text":"\"The valet killed him, my brother is innocent,\" answered Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"That's what I said,\" cried Smurov."},
{"text":"\"So he will perish an innocent victim!\" exclaimed Kolya; \"though he i ruined he is happy! I could envy him!\""},
{"text":"\"What do you mean? How can you? Why?\" cried Alyosha surprised."},
{"text":"\"Oh, if I, too, could sacrifice myself some day for truth!\" said Koly with enthusiasm."},
{"text":"\"But not in such a cause, not with such disgrace and such horror!\" sai Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"Of course ... I should like to die for all humanity, and as fo disgrace, I don't care about that--our names may perish. I respec your brother!\""},
{"text":"\"And so do I!\" the boy, who had once declared that he knew who ha founded Troy, cried suddenly and unexpectedly, and he blushed up to hi ears like a peony as he had done on that occasion."},
{"text":"Alyosha went into the room. Ilusha lay with his hands folded and hi eyes closed in a blue coffin with a white frill round it. His thin fac was hardly changed at all, and strange to say there was no smell o decay from the corpse. The expression of his face was serious and, a it were, thoughtful. His hands, crossed over his breast, looke particularly beautiful, as though chiseled in marble. There wer flowers in his hands and the coffin, inside and out, was decked wit flowers, which had been sent early in the morning by Lise Hohlakov. Bu there were flowers too from Katerina Ivanovna, and when Alyosha opene the door, the captain had a bunch in his trembling hands and wa strewing them again over his dear boy. He scarcely glanced at Alyosh when he came in, and he would not look at anyone, even at his craz weeping wife, \"mamma,\" who kept trying to stand on her crippled legs t get a nearer look at her dead boy. Nina had been pushed in her chair b the boys close up to the coffin. She sat with her head pressed to i and she too was no doubt quietly weeping. Snegiryov's face looke eager, yet bewildered and exasperated. There was something crazy abou his gestures and the words that broke from him. \"Old man, dear ol man!\" he exclaimed every minute, gazing at Ilusha. It was his habit t call Ilusha \"old man,\" as a term of affection when he was alive."},
{"text":"\"Father, give me a flower, too; take that white one out of his hand an give it me,\" the crazy mother begged, whimpering. Either because th little white rose in Ilusha's hand had caught her fancy or that sh wanted one from his hand to keep in memory of him, she move restlessly, stretching out her hands for the flower."},
{"text":"\"I won't give it to anyone, I won't give you anything,\" Snegiryov crie callously. \"They are his flowers, not yours! Everything is his, nothin is yours!\""},
{"text":"\"Father, give mother a flower!\" said Nina, lifting her face wet wit tears."},
{"text":"\"I won't give away anything and to her less than anyone! She didn' love Ilusha. She took away his little cannon and he gave it to her,\"the captain broke into loud sobs at the thought of how Ilusha had give up his cannon to his mother. The poor, crazy creature was bathed i noiseless tears, hiding her face in her hands."},
{"text":"The boys, seeing that the father would not leave the coffin and that i was time to carry it out, stood round it in a close circle and began t lift it up."},
{"text":"\"I don't want him to be buried in the churchyard,\" Snegiryov waile suddenly; \"I'll bury him by the stone, by our stone! Ilusha told me to I won't let him be carried out!\""},
{"text":"He had been saying for the last three days that he would bury him b the stone, but Alyosha, Krassotkin, the landlady, her sister and al the boys interfered."},
{"text":"\"What an idea, bury him by an unholy stone, as though he had hange himself!\" the old landlady said sternly. \"There in the churchyard th ground has been crossed. He'll be prayed for there. One can hear th singing in church and the deacon reads so plainly and verbally that i will reach him every time just as though it were read over his grave.\""},
{"text":"At last the captain made a gesture of despair as though to say, \"Tak him where you will.\" The boys raised the coffin, but as they passed th mother, they stopped for a moment and lowered it that she might sa goodbye to Ilusha. But on seeing that precious little face, which fo the last three days she had only looked at from a distance, sh trembled all over and her gray head began twitching spasmodically ove the coffin."},
{"text":"\"Mother, make the sign of the cross over him, give him your blessing kiss him,\" Nina cried to her. But her head still twitched like a automaton and with a face contorted with bitter grief she began without a word, beating her breast with her fist. They carried th coffin past her. Nina pressed her lips to her brother's for the las time as they bore the coffin by her. As Alyosha went out of the hous he begged the landlady to look after those who were left behind, bu she interrupted him before he had finished."},
{"text":"\"To be sure, I'll stay with them, we are Christians, too.\" The ol woman wept as she said it."},
{"text":"They had not far to carry the coffin to the church, not more than thre hundred paces. It was a still, clear day, with a slight frost. Th church bells were still ringing. Snegiryov ran fussing and distracte after the coffin, in his short old summer overcoat, with his head bar and his soft, old, wide-brimmed hat in his hand. He seemed in a stat of bewildered anxiety. At one minute he stretched out his hand t support the head of the coffin and only hindered the bearers, a another he ran alongside and tried to find a place for himself there.  flower fell on the snow and he rushed to pick it up as thoug everything in the world depended on the loss of that flower."},
{"text":"\"And the crust of bread, we've forgotten the crust!\" he cried suddenl in dismay. But the boys reminded him at once that he had taken th crust of bread already and that it was in his pocket. He instantl pulled it out and was reassured."},
{"text":"\"Ilusha told me to, Ilusha,\" he explained at once to Alyosha. \"I wa sitting by him one night and he suddenly told me: `Father, when m grave is filled up crumble a piece of bread on it so that the sparrow may fly down, I shall hear and it will cheer me up not to be lyin alone.' \""},
{"text":"\"That's a good thing,\" said Alyosha, \"we must often take some.\""},
{"text":"\"Every day, every day!\" said the captain quickly, seeming cheered a the thought."},
{"text":"They reached the church at last and set the coffin in the middle of it The boys surrounded it and remained reverently standing so, all throug the service. It was an old and rather poor church; many of the icon were without settings; but such churches are the best for praying in During the mass Snegiryov became somewhat calmer, though at times h had outbursts of the same unconscious and, as it were, incoheren anxiety. At one moment he went up to the coffin to set straight th cover or the wreath, when a candle fell out of the candlestick h rushed to replace it and was a fearful time fumbling over it, then h subsided and stood quietly by the coffin with a look of blan uneasiness and perplexity. After the Epistle he suddenly whispered t Alyosha, who was standing beside him, that the Epistle had not bee read properly but did not explain what he meant. During the prayer \"Like the Cherubim,\" he joined in the singing but did not go on to th end. Falling on his knees, he pressed his forehead to the stone floo and lay so for a long while."},
{"text":"At last came the funeral service itself and candles were distributed The distracted father began fussing about again, but the touching an impressive funeral prayers moved and roused his soul. He seeme suddenly to shrink together and broke into rapid, short sobs, which h tried at first to smother, but at last he sobbed aloud. When they bega taking leave of the dead and closing the coffin, he flung his arm about, as though he would not allow them to cover Ilusha, and bega greedily and persistently kissing his dead boy on the lips. At las they succeeded in persuading him to come away from the step, bu suddenly he impulsively stretched out his hand and snatched a fe flowers from the coffin. He looked at them and a new idea seemed t dawn upon him, so that he apparently forgot his grief for a minute Gradually he seemed to sink into brooding and did not resist when th coffin was lifted up and carried to the grave. It was an expensive on in the churchyard close to the church, Katerina Ivanovna had paid fo it. After the customary rites the gravediggers lowered the coffin Snegiryov with his flowers in his hands bent down so low over the ope grave that the boys caught hold of his coat in alarm and pulled hi back. He did not seem to understand fully what was happening. When the began filling up the grave, he suddenly pointed anxiously at th falling earth and began trying to say something, but no one could mak out what he meant, and he stopped suddenly. Then he was reminded tha he must crumble the bread and he was awfully excited, snatched up th bread and began pulling it to pieces and flinging the morsels on th grave."},
{"text":"\"Come, fly down, birds, fly down, sparrows!\" he muttered anxiously."},
{"text":"One of the boys observed that it was awkward for him to crumble th bread with the flowers in his hands and suggested he should give the to someone to hold for a time. But he would not do this and seeme indeed suddenly alarmed for his flowers, as though they wanted to tak them from him altogether. And after looking at the grave, and as i were, satisfying himself that everything had been done and the brea had been crumbled, he suddenly, to the surprise of everyone, turned quite composedly even, and made his way homewards. But his steps becam more and more hurried, he almost ran. The boys and Alyosha kept up wit him."},
{"text":"\"The flowers are for mamma, the flowers are for mamma! I was unkind t mamma,\" he began exclaiming suddenly."},
{"text":"Someone called to him to put on his hat as it was cold. But he flun the hat in the snow as though he were angry and kept repeating, \" won't have the hat, I won't have the hat.\" Smurov picked it up an carried it after him. All the boys were crying, and Kolya and the bo who discovered about Troy most of all. Though Smurov, with th captain's hat in his hand, was crying bitterly too, he managed, as h ran, to snatch up a piece of red brick that lay on the snow of th path, to fling it at the flock of sparrows that was flying by. H missed them, of course, and went on crying as he ran. Halfway Snegiryov suddenly stopped, stood still for half a minute, as thoug struck by something, and suddenly turning back to the church, ra towards the deserted grave. But the boys instantly overtook him an caught hold of him on all sides. Then he fell helpless on the snow a though he had been knocked down, and struggling, sobbing, and wailing he began crying out, \"Ilusha, old man, dear old man!\" Alyosha and Koly tried to make him get up, soothing and persuading him."},
{"text":"\"Captain, give over, a brave man must show fortitude,\" muttered Kolya."},
{"text":"\"You'll spoil the flowers,\" said Alyosha, \"and mamma is expecting them she is sitting crying because you would not give her any before Ilusha's little bed is still there--\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, yes, mamma!\" Snegiryov suddenly recollected, \"they'll take awa the bed, they'll take it away,\" he added as though alarmed that the really would. He jumped up and ran homewards again. But it was not fa off and they all arrived together. Snegiryov opened the door hurriedl and called to his wife with whom he had so cruelly quarreled jus before:"},
{"text":"\"Mamma, poor crippled darling, Ilusha has sent you these flowers,\" h cried, holding out to her a little bunch of flowers that had bee frozen and broken while he was struggling in the snow. But at tha instant he saw in the corner, by the little bed, Ilusha's little boots which the landlady had put tidily side by side. Seeing the old patched, rusty-looking, stiff boots he flung up his hands and rushed t them, fell on his knees, snatched up one boot and, pressing his lips t it, began kissing it greedily, crying, \"Ilusha, old man, dear old man where are your little feet?\""},
{"text":"\"Where have you taken him away? Where have you taken him?\" the lunati cried in a heartrending voice. Nina, too, broke into sobs. Kolya ra out of the room, the boys followed him. At last Alyosha too went out."},
{"text":"\"Let them weep,\" he said to Kolya, \"it's no use trying to comfort the just now. Let us wait a minute and then go back.\""},
{"text":"\"No, it's no use, it's awful,\" Kolya assented. \"Do you know Karamazov,\" he dropped his voice so that no one could hear them, \" feel dreadfully sad, and if it were only possible to bring him back I'd give anything in the world to do it.\""},
{"text":"\"Ah, so would I,\" said Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"What do you think, Karamazov? Had we better come back here tonight He'll be drunk, you know.\""},
{"text":"\"Perhaps he will. Let us come together, you and I, that will be enough to spend an hour with them, with the mother and Nina. If we all com together we shall remind them of everything again,\" Alyosha suggested."},
{"text":"\"The landlady is laying the table for them now--there'll be a funera dinner or something, the priest is coming; shall we go back to it Karamazov?\""},
{"text":"\"Of course,\" said Alyosha."},
{"text":"\"It's all so strange, Karamazov, such sorrow and then pancakes afte it, it all seems so unnatural in our religion.\""},
{"text":"\"They are going to have salmon, too,\" the boy who had discovered abou Troy observed in a loud voice."},
{"text":"\"I beg you most earnestly, Kartashov, not to interrupt again with you idiotic remarks, especially when one is not talking to you and doesn' care to know whether you exist or not!\" Kolya snapped out irritably The boy flushed crimson but did not dare to reply."},
{"text":"Meantime they were strolling slowly along the path and suddenly Smuro exclaimed:"},
{"text":"\"There's Ilusha's stone, under which they wanted to bury him.\""},
{"text":"They all stood still by the big stone. Alyosha looked and the whol picture of what Snegiryov had described to him that day, how Ilusha weeping and hugging his father, had cried, \"Father, father, how h insulted you,\" rose at once before his imagination."},
{"text":"A sudden impulse seemed to come into his soul. With a serious an earnest expression he looked from one to another of the bright pleasant faces of Ilusha's schoolfellows, and suddenly said to them:"},
{"text":"\"Boys, I should like to say one word to you, here at this place.\""},
{"text":"The boys stood round him and at once bent attentive and expectant eye upon him."},
{"text":"\"Boys, we shall soon part. I shall be for some time with my tw brothers, of whom one is going to Siberia and the other is lying a death's door. But soon I shall leave this town, perhaps for a lon time, so we shall part. Let us make a compact here, at Ilusha's stone that we will never forget Ilusha and one another. And whatever happen to us later in life, if we don't meet for twenty years afterwards, le us always remember how we buried the poor boy at whom we once thre stones, do you remember, by the bridge? and afterwards we all grew s fond of him. He was a fine boy, a kindhearted, brave boy, he felt fo his father's honor and resented the cruel insult to him and stood u for him. And so in the first place, we will remember him, boys, all ou lives. And even if we are occupied with most important things, if w attain to honor or fall into great misfortune--still let us remembe how good it was once here, when we were all together, united by a goo and kind feeling which made us, for the time we were loving that poo boy, better perhaps than we are. My little doves--let me call you so for you are very like them, those pretty blue birds, at this minute a I look at your good dear faces. My dear children, perhaps you won' understand what I am saying to you, because I often speak ver unintelligibly, but you'll remember it all the same and will agree wit my words some time. You must know that there is nothing higher an stronger and more wholesome and good for life in the future than som good memory, especially a memory of childhood, of home. People talk t you a great deal about your education, but some good, sacred memory preserved from childhood, is perhaps the best education. If a ma carries many such memories with him into life, he is safe to the end o his days, and if one has only one good memory left in one's heart, eve that may sometime be the means of saving us. Perhaps we may even gro wicked later on, may be unable to refrain from a bad action, may laug at men's tears and at those people who say as Kolya did just now, ` want to suffer for all men,' and may even jeer spitefully at suc people. But however bad we may become--which God forbid--yet, when w recall how we buried Ilusha, how we loved him in his last days, and ho we have been talking like friends all together, at this stone, th cruelest and most mocking of us--if we do become so--will not dare t laugh inwardly at having been kind and good at this moment! What' more, perhaps, that one memory may keep him from great evil and he wil reflect and say, `Yes, I was good and brave and honest then!' Let hi laugh to himself, that's no matter, a man often laughs at what's goo and kind. That's only from thoughtlessness. But I assure you, boys that as he laughs he will say at once in his heart, `No, I do wrong t laugh, for that's not a thing to laugh at.' \""},
{"text":"\"That will be so, I understand you, Karamazov!\" cried Kolya, wit flashing eyes."},
{"text":"The boys were excited and they, too, wanted to say something, but the restrained themselves, looking with intentness and emotion at th speaker."},
{"text":"\"I say this in case we become bad,\" Alyosha went on, \"but there's n reason why we should become bad, is there, boys? Let us be, first an above all, kind, then honest and then let us never forget each other!  say that again. I give you my word for my part that I'll never forge one of you. Every face looking at me now I shall remember even fo thirty years. Just now Kolya said to Kartashov that we did not care t know whether he exists or not. But I cannot forget that Kartasho exists and that he is not blushing now as he did when he discovered th founders of Troy, but is looking at me with his jolly, kind, dea little eyes. Boys, my dear boys, let us all be generous and brave lik Ilusha, clever, brave and generous like Kolya (though he will be eve so much cleverer when he is grown up), and let us all be as modest, a clever and sweet as Kartashov. But why am I talking about those two You are all dear to me, boys, from this day forth, I have a place in m heart for you all, and I beg you to keep a place in your hearts for me Well, and who has united us in this kind, good feeling which we shal remember and intend to remember all our lives? Who, if not Ilusha, th good boy, the dear boy, precious to us forever! Let us never forge him. May his memory live forever in our hearts from this time forth!\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, yes, forever, forever!\" the boys cried in their ringing voices with softened faces."},
{"text":"\"Let us remember his face and his clothes and his poor little boots his coffin and his unhappy, sinful father, and how boldly he stood u for him alone against the whole school.\""},
{"text":"\"We will remember, we will remember,\" cried the boys. \"He was brave, h was good!\""},
{"text":"\"Ah, how I loved him!\" exclaimed Kolya."},
{"text":"\"Ah, children, ah, dear friends, don't be afraid of life! How good lif is when one does something good and just!\""},
{"text":"\"Yes, yes,\" the boys repeated enthusiastically."},
{"text":"\"Karamazov, we love you!\" a voice, probably Kartashov's, crie impulsively."},
{"text":"\"We love you, we love you!\" they all caught it up. There were tears i the eyes of many of them."},
{"text":"\"Hurrah for Karamazov!\" Kolya shouted ecstatically."},
{"text":"\"And may the dead boy's memory live forever!\" Alyosha added again wit feeling."},
{"text":"\"Forever!\" the boys chimed in again."},
{"text":"\"Karamazov,\" cried Kolya, \"can it be true what's taught us in religion that we shall all rise again from the dead and shall live and see eac other again, all, Ilusha too?\""},
{"text":"\"Certainly we shall all rise again, certainly we shall see each othe and shall tell each other with joy and gladness all that has happened!\"Alyosha answered, half laughing, half enthusiastic."},
{"text":"\"Ah, how splendid it will be!\" broke from Kolya."},
{"text":"\"Well, now we will finish talking and go to his funeral dinner. Don' be put out at our eating pancakes--it's a very old custom and there' something nice in that!\" laughed Alyosha. \"Well, let us go! And now w go hand in hand.\""},
{"text":"\"And always so, all our lives hand in hand! Hurrah for Karamazov!\"Kolya cried once more rapturously, and once more the boys took up hi exclamation: \"Hurrah for Karamazov!\""}]}