The Brothers Karamazov (37 page)

“What back-scrubber?” Alyosha muttered.

“He’s come to complain about me, papa,” Alyosha heard the already familiar voice of the boy coming from behind the screened-off corner, “because it was his finger I bit today.” The sheet was pushed aside and Alyosha saw his recent enemy lying on the chair and bench tied together in the corner under the icons. The little boy lay there under an old quilt and the overcoat he had worn earlier that day. He was sick and was running a temperature, as could be seen from the feverish brilliance of his eyes. Unlike in the street, he now glared fearlessly at Alyosha, as if challenging him: “You can’t do anything to me here because this is my home!”

“What finger? Whose finger did he bite? You mean he bit your finger,” Snegirev said, jumping up from his chair, “your finger, sir?”

“That’s right. He was having a battle with some other boys—they were throwing stones at him and he at them. There were six of them against him and he was all alone. I walked over to him, but he threw a stone at me too and then another one, aimed at my head. When I asked him why, he suddenly rushed at me and bit my finger rather badly. I still don’t know why.”

“I’ll give him a good whipping right away, sir, right away!”

The captain looked as if he was about to put his words into action.

“But I wasn’t complaining at all. I just told you what happened . . . I don’t want you to whip him. Besides, I think he’s sick now . . .”

“Did you really think I was going to do it? That I’d take my little Ilyusha and whip him just to please you? Must I do it at once or could you wait a little, my good sir?” The captain suddenly turned toward Alyosha as though he were about to attack him. “I’m awfully sorry about your precious finger, my dear sir. Perhaps you’d like me, before I start whipping Ilyusha, to cut off these four fingers of mine with this knife, to satisfy your sense of justice? I do hope, though, that you’ll be satisfied with four of my fingers and not demand the fifth as well . . .”

He stopped abruptly. He seemed to be gasping for breath. His every feature was jerking and twitching as he glared at Alyosha with the utmost defiance. He was beside himself.

“I think I understand everything now,” Alyosha said quietly and sadly, without getting up. “I see now that your little boy is a good son. He loves you, and he attacked me because I am the brother of the man who offended his father. Yes, it all makes sense to me now,” Alyosha repeated musingly. “May I say that I know my brother, Dmitry Karamazov, is now very sorry for what he did and that, if you would allow him to come and see you or, if you prefer, to meet you in the same public place and apologize to you before everybody, he would do so . . .”

“You mean he can pull my beard, then say he’s sorry, and everything is fine and no damage done? Is that what you’re suggesting?”

“No, no, not at all. He’ll do anything you want, whatever you ask him to . . .”

“You mean if I asked his highness to get down on his knees before me in that same inn—by the way, it’s called the Capital City Inn—or, say, in the middle of the square, he’d do it?”

“Yes, he’d kneel too, if you demanded it.”

“I’m moved to the core, sir, moved to the core and moved to tears. Or am I being a bit overappreciative of your brother’s magnanimity? Allow me to finish introducing myself, that is, to introduce my family, my two daughters and my son—I mean my litter, dear sir. If I should die, who would care for them? And as long as I’m alive, who except them gives a damn for a repulsive old man like me? A family is a great arrangement that God has provided for men like myself, because even a man like me must have someone in the world to love him . . .”

“You’re absolutely right!” Alyosha cried approvingly.

“Stop making a fool of yourself, will you!” the girl who stood by the window suddenly cried out, looking at her father with scorn and distaste. “An idiot comes and you at once feel obliged to disgrace yourself before him!”

“Give me time, Barbara, give me a chance to make my point,” the captain shouted at her commandingly, although he gave her a very approving look nevertheless. “That’s just the way she is, sir. You know the type:

*

In all creation there was nothing

To which his blessing he would give.

*

It should, of course, be ‘she’ instead of ‘he’: she certainly wouldn’t give her blessing to anything . . . And now allow me to introduce my wife, Arina, a lady of about forty-three, who has no legs to speak of—what legs she has cannot carry her far. She comes of humble folk. Arina, my dear, relax your features. Get up, Mr. Karamazov!” The captain seized Alyosha by the hand and pulled him up with a strength that no one would have suspected in him. “Come, ladies, come and introduce yourselves. You must stand up for that, remember . . . No, no, mother, this isn’t the same Karamazov who . . . well, you know who. This is his brother, famous for his meekness and his virtue. Please allow him, Arina, allow me first to kiss your hand.”

And the captain bent down and, with great courtesy, kissed his wife’s hand. The girl standing by the window turned her back on them in disgust, but the puzzled and disdainful expression on Mrs. Snegirev’s face suddenly vanished.

“Please sit down, Mr. Chernomazov,” she said, great warmth radiating from her eyes.

“His name is Karamazov, mother,” the captain corrected her. “She’s of humble origin, you know,” he reminded Alyosha in a whisper.

“All right, let it be Karamazov, but somehow I always say Chernomazov instead . . . Sit down then, please. I don’t really know why he had to get you up . . . He said I’m a lady without legs, but in fact I have huge legs, like barrels. That’s because they’re swollen, while the rest of me has dried out. Once upon a time I was quite a big woman, but today it’s as if I’d swallowed a worm . . .”

“We’re humble, ordinary people, please keep that in mind,” the captain said again.

“Ah, father, father!” the hunchbacked girl, who until then had sat silent in her chair, said suddenly, covering her eyes with a handkerchief.

“Clown!” the girl standing by the window said.

“You see how things are with us,” the mother said, indicating both her daughters at once with a sweeping gesture. “It’s just like clouds passing over us . . . But the clouds will pass and the music will play for us again. In the old days, when we were with the army, we had many guests coming to visit us. I make no comparisons, sir, if someone likes someone—that’s his own business. Once the deacon’s wife comes to see me and she says to me, ‘Alexander is the sweetest man on earth, but Natalia,’ she says, ‘she’s an emanation from hell.’ ‘Well,’ I say to her, ‘that depends on people’s taste and, as to you,’ I say, ‘you aren’t big, but you stink.’ ‘And you,’ she says, ‘you ought to be taught a lesson.’ ‘Ah, you ignorant creature,’ I say, ‘do you think you’re going to teach me or what?’ ‘I breathe clean air,’ she says, ‘and you breathe foul air.’ So I say to that woman: ‘Go and ask the officers around here whether the air in me is pure or foul, ask them.’ And ever since then, that woman has weighed on my heart. So some time later, I was sitting just as I’m sitting now when that general comes in, the same general, you know, who came here during Holy Week. ‘Tell me, Your Excellency,’ I asked him, ‘is it possible for a true lady to breathe fresh air into herself?’ ‘It is indeed,’ he answered, ‘and it would be nice if you opened a window or a door, because it’s rather stuffy in here.’ So they’re all the same and I wonder why they all speak like that about my air? Dead people smell even worse. Then I said to him: ‘I’m not spoiling your air, but I’ll leave as soon as I get myself a new pair of shoes.’ Ah, my lovely ones, don’t blame your own mother! Ah, Nikolai, my husband, how have I displeased you? All I have is my little Ilyusha—he loves me when he comes back home from school. Yesterday he brought me an apple. Forgive me, my dear ones, forgive me, a poor, lonely, abandoned woman . . . And why is it that my smell has become so repulsive to you?”

Tears gushed from the eyes of the poor madwoman. The captain rushed toward her.

“Mother, mother, darling, stop, please stop! You aren’t lonely or abandoned, we all love you, adore you.”

He kissed both her hands again and gently stroked her cheeks; then he took the napkin from the table and wiped away her tears with it. Alyosha felt tears in his own eyes too.

“Well, now you’ve seen, now you’ve heard for yourself!” the captain shouted suddenly, turning toward Alyosha and pointing his finger at the madwoman.

“I’ve seen and heard,” Alyosha mumbled.

“Papa, papa, you aren’t trying to plead with him, are you? Don’t bother with him, papa. Let him go!” the boy shouted, sitting up in bed and looking at his father with burning eyes.

“Perhaps it’s time you stopped acting like a fool at last and showing your stupid tricks, which never achieve anything anyway!” Barbara cried from her corner. She was really furious now and even stamped her foot.

“This time you’re absolutely right to be angry, my dear Barbara, and I’ll comply with your wishes at once. Here, Mr. Karamazov, here’s your hat; let me get my own cap, and let us be on our way. I have something pretty serious to say to you, but I would like to say it outside these walls. This other daughter of mine, Nina—I believe I forgot to introduce her to you—is an angel of God in the flesh, sent down among mortals . . . if you understand what I mean . . .”

“You’re shaking all over as if you were having a fit,” Barbara said with indignant disgust.

“And the one who stamped her foot at me and called me a clown, she, too, is an angel incarnate, and she was right to say what she said about me. So let us be on our way, Mr. Karamazov. It’s high time we put an end to this, sir.”

And grabbing Alyosha by the arm, the captain led him out of the room and into the street.

Chapter 7: Heartbreak Outdoors

AT LEAST the air is fresh here, and I’m afraid I can’t say the same of the air in my house—I mean that in every sense. Let’s take a little walk, my good sir, because I have something to tell you that I hope will interest you.”

“I, too, have a very important matter to discuss with you, only I don’t know how to begin,” Alyosha said.

“I gathered that much, you know, for if you hadn’t had some important matter to discuss with me, you’d never have come here in the first place. Unless you really wanted to complain about my boy, but that’s extremely unlikely. And speaking of the boy, now I can describe the whole scene to you, for I couldn’t possibly do so inside. You see, my back-scrubber used to be thicker before, I mean, no more than a week ago—I’m referring, of course, to my beard, which the schoolboys have nicknamed a back-scrubber. Well, then, it was by this beard of mine that your dear brother Dmitry decided to pull me out of the inn. Oh, for no particular reason, just because he felt in the mood for it and I happened to be at hand. So he dragged me out into the street just when the boys were walking home from school, and among them was my Ilyusha. When he saw me in that state, he rushed up to me shouting, ‘Papa, papa!’ flung his arms round me, trying to pull me away, shouting at my assailant, ‘Let go of him, he’s my papa, please let him go, forgive him!’ Yes, he said just that, ‘Forgive him,’ and he caught the hand that was clutching my beard and even kissed that hand . . . I can still see his little face at that moment—I’ll never forget it as long as I live, you know . . .”

“I swear to you,” Alyosha cried, “my brother will apologize to you completely sincerely and, if he must, he will kneel on that same square . . . I will make him kneel, for if he refuses, he will no longer be a brother to me!”

“Ah, it is all still in the planning stage, I see. Indeed, it doesn’t even come from him but from your own warm heart. I wish you had said so in the first place, sir. In that case, allow me to tell you more of your brother’s sense of the honor and chivalry of an officer and a gentleman. When he had had enough of pulling me by the beard, he let go and said: ‘You’re an officer and I’m an officer, so if you can find yourself an acceptable second, send him to me and I’ll give you satisfaction, although you’re nothing but a dog.’ That’s exactly what he said. A real knight in shining armor! Well, we walked off, Ilyusha and I, and I’m afraid the picture of our family honor was changed once and for all in my boy’s mind. No, sir, we can’t afford to remain gentlemen in our circumstances. Anyway, you can judge for yourself since you’ve been inside our castle and seen the three ladies sitting there—one legless and simple-minded, the second legless and hunchbacked, and the third one with legs but, alas, too intelligent for her own good. She has a degree and is impatient to return to Petersburg and fight for women’s rights on the banks of the Neva. And, of course, there’s Ilyusha, who’s only nine. Well, I’m their sole support in the world and just think what would happen to them if I were to die! And since that is the situation, how can I challenge him to a duel? Suppose he kills me—what will they all do without me? And even worse, if, instead of killing me outright, he only crippled me, made it impossible for me to work, made me into just one more mouth to feed—well, who would there be to feed all those mouths then? Of course, we might take Ilyusha out of school and send him begging. So that’s what his offer to accept my challenge means to me—just stupid words and nothing else.”

“He will beg you to forgive him. He will kneel before you and bow to the ground before you in the middle of the square,” Alyosha said again, his eyes afire.

“I thought of suing him, but if you take a look at the laws on our books, you’ll see there is very little I could claim for a personal insult. Besides, when she heard about it, Grushenka warned me: ‘Don’t you ever dare sue him, because if you do, I’ll see to it that everyone finds out that he gave you that beating because of your own crooked dealing, and you’ll wind up being tried yourself!’ But as God is my witness, if I got involved in that crooked deal at all, I was just an insignificant worm, acting on her and Mr. Karamazov’s—your father’s—behalf. ‘And on top of that,’ she told me, ‘if you sue him, I won’t have anything to do with you and you’ll never earn one kopek from me, and my merchant will kick you out.’ Yes, sir, ‘my merchant,’ that’s how she refers to him. ‘Well,’ I said to myself, ‘if her merchant kicks me out too, where will I be able to earn anything at all?’ Those two are now the only sources of income I have left, since your father not only doesn’t trust me anymore for another, quite unrelated, reason, but also wants to drag me into court himself, making use of papers in his possession with my signature on them. Well, in view of all this, I decided to keep quiet and do nothing, and you yourself have now had the opportunity of seeing my home. And now allow me to ask you this: How badly did my Ilyusha bite your finger? I didn’t want to go into these details in the house.”