The Brothers Karamazov

nd In The Open Air

“The air is fresh, but in my apartment it is not so in any sense of the
word. Let us walk slowly, sir. I should be glad of your kind interest.”

“I too have something important to say to you,” observed Alyosha, “only
I don’t know how to begin.”

“To be sure you must have business with me. You would never have looked
in upon me without some object. Unless you come simply to complain of
the boy, and that’s hardly likely. And, by the way, about the boy: I
could not explain to you in there, but here I will describe that scene
to you. My tow was thicker a week ago—I mean my beard. That’s the
nickname they give to my beard, the schoolboys most of all. Well, your
brother Dmitri Fyodorovitch was pulling me by my beard, I’d done
nothing, he was in a towering rage and happened to come upon me. He
dragged me out of the tavern into the market‐place; at that moment the
boys were coming out of school, and with them Ilusha. As soon as he saw
me in such a state he rushed up to me. ‘Father,’ he cried, ‘father!’ He
caught hold of me, hugged me, tried to pull me away, crying to my
assailant, ‘Let go, let go, it’s my father, forgive him!’—yes, he
actually cried ‘forgive him.’ He clutched at that hand, that very hand,
in his little hands and kissed it.... I remember his little face at
that moment, I haven’t forgotten it and I never shall!”

“I swear,” cried Alyosha, “that my brother will express his most deep
and sincere regret, even if he has to go down on his knees in that same
market‐place.... I’ll make him or he is no brother of mine!”

“Aha, then it’s only a suggestion! And it does not come from him but
simply from the generosity of your own warm heart. You should have said
so. No, in that case allow me to tell you of your brother’s highly
chivalrous soldierly generosity, for he did give expression to it at
the time. He left off dragging me by my beard and released me: ‘You are
an officer,’ he said, ‘and I am an officer, if you can find a decent
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 spirit
indeed! I retired with Ilusha, and that scene is a family record
imprinted for ever on Ilusha’s soul. No, it’s not for us to claim the
privileges of noblemen. Judge for yourself. You’ve just been in our
mansion, what did you see there? Three ladies, one a cripple and
weak‐minded, another a cripple and hunchback and the third not crippled
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 the
Neva. I won’t speak of Ilusha, he is only nine. I am alone in the
world, and if I die, what will become of all of them? I simply ask you
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 but
only cripples me: I couldn’t work, but I should still be a mouth to
feed. Who would feed it and who would feed them all? Must I take Ilusha
from school and send him to beg in the streets? That’s what it means
for me to challenge him to a duel. It’s silly talk and nothing else.”

“He will beg your forgiveness, he will bow down at your feet in the
middle of the market‐place,” cried Alyosha again, with glowing eyes.

“I did think of prosecuting him,” the captain went on, “but look in our
code, could I get much compensation for a personal injury? And then
Agrafena Alexandrovna[3] sent for me and shouted at me: ‘Don’t dare to
dream of it! If you proceed against him, I’ll publish it to all the
world that he beat you for your dishonesty, and then you will be
prosecuted.’ I call God to witness whose was the dishonesty and by
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’ll
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 if
he dismisses me, what can I earn then from any one? Those two are all I
have to look to, for your Fyodor Pavlovitch has not only given over
employing me, for another reason, but he means to make use of papers
I’ve signed to go to law against me. And so I kept quiet, and you have
seen our retreat. But now let me ask you: did Ilusha hurt your finger
much? I didn’t like to go into it in our mansion before him.”

“Yes, very much, and he was in a great fury. He was avenging you on me
as a Karamazov, I see that now. But if only you had seen how he was
throwing stones at his school‐fellows! It’s very dangerous. They might
kill him. They are children and stupid. A stone may be thrown and break
somebody’s head.”

“That’s just what has happened. He has been bruised by a stone to‐day.
Not on the head but on the chest, just above the heart. He came home
crying and groaning and now he is ill.”

“And you know he attacks them first. He is bitter against them on your
account. They say he stabbed a boy called Krassotkin with a pen‐knife
not long ago.”

“I’ve heard about that too, it’s dangerous. Krassotkin is an official
here, we may hear more about it.”

“I would advise you,” Alyosha went on warmly, “not to send him to
school at all for a time till he is calmer ... and his anger is
passed.”

“Anger!” the captain repeated, “that’s just what it is. He is a little
creature, but it’s a mighty anger. You don’t know all, sir. Let me tell
you more. Since that incident all the boys have been teasing him about
the ‘wisp of tow.’ Schoolboys are a merciless race, individually they
are angels, but together, especially in schools, they are often
merciless. Their teasing has stirred up a gallant spirit in Ilusha. An
ordinary boy, a weak son, would have submitted, have felt ashamed of
his father, sir, but he stood up for his father against them all. For
his father and for truth and justice. For what he suffered when he
kissed your brother’s hand and cried to him ‘Forgive father, forgive
him,’—that only God knows—and I, his father. For our children—not your
children, but ours—the children of the poor gentlemen looked down upon
by every one—know what justice means, sir, even at nine years old. How
should the rich know? They don’t explore such depths once in their
lives. But at that moment in the square when he kissed his hand, at
that moment my Ilusha had grasped all that justice means. That truth
entered into him and crushed him for ever, sir,” the captain said hotly
again with a sort of frenzy, and he struck his right fist 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 was delirious all
night. All that day he hardly said a word to me, but I noticed he kept
watching me from the corner, though he turned to the window and
pretended to be learning his lessons. But I could see his mind was not
on his lessons. Next day I got drunk to forget my troubles, sinful man
as I am, and I don’t remember much. Mamma began crying, too—I am very
fond of mamma—well, I spent my last penny drowning my troubles. Don’t
despise me for that, sir, in Russia men who 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 the 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 ran by and begged forgiveness.’ ”

“On the third day when he came back from school, I saw he looked pale
and wretched. ‘What is it?’ I asked. He wouldn’t answer. Well, there’s
no talking in our mansion without mamma and the girls taking part in
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 do
anything rational?’ ‘Quite so,’ I said, ‘can we ever do anything
rational?’ For the time I turned it off like that. So in the evening I
took the boy out for a walk, for you must know we go for a walk every
evening, always the same way, along which we are going now—from our
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 lonely
spot, sir. Ilusha and I walked along hand in hand as usual. He has a
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 eyes
flashing. ‘Father, how he treated you then!’ ‘It can’t be helped,
Ilusha,’ I said. ‘Don’t forgive him, father, don’t forgive him! At
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 began
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 say
you are a coward and won’t challenge him, and that you’ll accept ten
roubles from him.’ ‘I can’t challenge him to a duel, Ilusha,’ I
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 call
him out myself and kill him.’ His eyes shone and glowed. And of course
I am his father, and I had to put in a word: ‘It’s a sin to kill,’ I
said, ‘even in a duel.’ ‘Father,’ he said, ‘when I grow up, I’ll knock
him down, knock the sword out of his hand, I’ll fall on him, wave my
sword over him and say: “I could kill you, but I forgive you, so
there!” ’ You see what the workings of his little mind have been during
these two days; he must have been planning that vengeance all day, and
raving about it at night.

“But he began to come home from school badly beaten, I found out about
it the day before yesterday, and you are right, I won’t send him to
that school any more. I heard that he was standing up against all the
class alone and defying them all, that his heart was full of
resentment, of bitterness—I was alarmed about him. We went for another
walk. ‘Father,’ he asked, ‘are the rich people stronger than any one
else on earth?’ ‘Yes, Ilusha,’ I said, ‘there are no people on earth
stronger than the rich.’ ‘Father,’ he said, ‘I will get rich, I 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 silent and
his lips still kept trembling. ‘Father,’ he said, ‘what a horrid 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, ‘where 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 mind from
painful thoughts, and we began to dream of how we would move to another
town, how we would buy a horse and cart. ‘We will put mamma and your
sisters inside, we will cover them up and we’ll walk, you shall have a
lift now and then, and I’ll walk beside, for we must take care of our
horse, we can’t all ride. That’s how we’ll go.’ He was enchanted 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 long
while. Thank God, I thought, I have diverted his mind and comforted
him.

“That was the day before yesterday, in the evening, but last night
everything was changed. He had gone to school in the morning, he came
back depressed, terribly depressed. In the evening I took him by the
hand and we went for a walk; he would not talk. There was a wind
blowing and no sun, and a feeling of autumn; twilight was coming on. We
walked along, both of us depressed. ‘Well, my boy,’ said I, ‘how about
our setting off on our travels?’ I thought I might bring him back to
our talk of the day before. He didn’t answer, but I felt his fingers
trembling in my hand. Ah, I thought, it’s a bad job; there’s something
fresh. We had reached the stone where we are now. I sat down on the
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 season
for the kites. ‘Look, Ilusha,’ said I, ‘it’s time we got out our last
year’s kite again. I’ll mend it, where have you put it away?’ My boy
made no answer. He looked away and turned sideways to me. And then a
gust of wind blew up the sand. He suddenly fell on me, threw both his
little arms round my neck and held me tight. You know, when children
are silent and proud, and try to keep back their tears when they are in
great trouble and suddenly break down, their tears fall in streams.
With those warm streams of tears, he suddenly wetted my face. He sobbed
and shook as though he were in convulsions, and squeezed up against me
as I sat on the stone. ‘Father,’ he kept crying, ‘dear father, how he
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. God
alone saw us, I hope He will record it to my credit. You must thank
your brother, Alexey Fyodorovitch. No, sir, I won’t thrash my boy for
your satisfaction.”

He had gone back to his original tone of resentful buffoonery. Alyosha
felt though that he trusted him, and that if there had been some one
else in his, Alyosha’s place, the man would not have spoken so openly
and would not have told what he had just told. This encouraged Alyosha,
whose heart was trembling on the verge of tears.

“Ah, how I would like to make friends with your boy!” he cried. “If you
could arrange it—”

“Certainly, sir,” muttered the captain.

“But now listen to something quite different!” Alyosha went on. “I have
a message for you. That same brother of mine, Dmitri, has insulted his
betrothed, too, a noble‐hearted girl of whom you have probably heard. I
have a right to tell you of her wrong; I ought to do so, in fact, for
hearing of the insult done to you and learning all about your
unfortunate position, she commissioned me at once—just now—to bring you
this help from her—but only from her alone, not from Dmitri, who has
abandoned her. Nor from me, his brother, nor from any one else, but
from her, only from her! She entreats you to accept her help.... You
have both been insulted by the same man. She thought of you only when
she had just received a similar insult from him—similar in its cruelty,
I mean. She comes like a sister to help a brother in misfortune.... She
told me to persuade you to take these two hundred 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. There are the two hundred
roubles, and I swear you must take them unless—unless all men are to be
enemies on earth! But there are brothers even on earth.... You have a
generous heart ... you must see that, you must,” and Alyosha held out
two new rainbow‐colored hundred‐rouble notes.

They were both standing at the time by the great stone close to the
fence, and there was no one near. The notes seemed to produce a
tremendous impression on the captain. He started, but at first only
from astonishment. Such an outcome of their conversation was the last
thing he expected. Nothing could have been farther from his dreams than
help from any one—and such a sum!

He took the notes, and for a minute he was almost unable to answer,
quite a new expression came into his face.

“That for me? So much money—two hundred roubles! Good heavens! Why, I
haven’t seen so much money for the last four years! Mercy on us! And
she says she is a sister.... And is that the truth?”

“I swear that all I told you is the truth,” cried Alyosha.

The captain flushed red.

“Listen, my dear, listen. If I take it, I shan’t be behaving like a
scoundrel? In your eyes, Alexey Fyodorovitch, I shan’t be a scoundrel?
No, Alexey Fyodorovitch, listen, listen,” he hurried, touching Alyosha
with both his hands. “You are persuading me to take it, saying that
it’s a sister sends it, but inwardly, in your heart won’t you feel
contempt for me if I take it, eh?”

“No, no, on my salvation I swear I shan’t! And no one will ever know
but me—I, you and she, and one other lady, her great friend.”

“Never mind the lady! Listen, Alexey Fyodorovitch, at a moment like
this you must listen, for you can’t understand what these two hundred
roubles mean to me now.” The poor fellow went on rising gradually into
a sort of incoherent, almost wild enthusiasm. He was thrown off his
balance and talked extremely fast, as though afraid he would not be
allowed to say all he had to say.

“Besides its being honestly acquired from a ‘sister,’ so highly
respected and revered, do you know that now I can look after mamma and
Nina, my hunchback angel daughter? Doctor Herzenstube came to me in the
kindness of his heart and was examining them both for a whole hour. ‘I
can make nothing of it,’ said he, but he prescribed a mineral water
which is kept at a chemist’s here. He said it would be sure to do her
good, and he ordered baths, too, with some medicine in them. The
mineral water costs thirty copecks, and she’d need to drink forty
bottles perhaps; so I took the prescription and laid it on the shelf
under the ikons, and there it lies. And he ordered hot baths for Nina
with something dissolved in them, morning and evening. But how can we
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’t
think I told you that. All her right side aches at night, she is in
agony, and, would you believe it, the angel bears it without groaning
for fear of waking us. We eat what we can get, and she’ll only take the
leavings, what you’d scarcely give to a dog. ‘I am not worth it, I am
taking it from you, I am a burden on you,’ that’s what her angel eyes
try to express. We wait on her, but she doesn’t like it. ‘I am a
useless cripple, no good to any one.’ As though she were not worth it,
when she is the saving of all of us with her angelic sweetness. Without
her, without her gentle word it would be hell among us! She softens
even Varvara. And don’t judge Varvara harshly either, she is an angel
too, she, too, has suffered wrong. She came to us for the summer, and
she brought sixteen roubles she had earned by lessons and saved up, to
go back with to Petersburg in September, that is now. But we took her
money and lived on it, so now she has nothing to go back with. Though
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 waits
on us all, mends and washes, sweeps the floor, puts mamma to bed. And
mamma is capricious and tearful and insane! And now I can get a servant
with this money, you understand, Alexey Fyodorovitch, I can get
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!”

Alyosha was delighted that he had brought him such happiness and that
the poor fellow had consented to be made happy.

“Stay, Alexey Fyodorovitch, stay,” the captain began to talk with
frenzied rapidity, carried away by a new day‐dream. “Do you know that
Ilusha and I will perhaps really carry out our dream. We will buy a
horse and cart, a black horse, he insists on its being black, and we
will set off as we pretended the other day. I have an old friend, a
lawyer in K. province, and I heard through a trustworthy man that if I
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 Ilusha
could drive, and I’d walk, I’d walk.... Why, if I only succeed in
getting one debt paid that’s owing me, I should have perhaps enough for
that too!”

“There would be enough!” cried Alyosha. “Katerina Ivanovna will send
you as much more as you need, and you know, I have money too, take what
you want, as you would from a brother, from a friend, you can give it
back later.... (You’ll get rich, you’ll get rich!) And you know you
couldn’t have a better idea than to move to another province! It would
be the saving of you, especially of your boy—and you ought to go
quickly, before the winter, before the cold. You must write to us when
you are there, and we will always be brothers.... No, it’s not a
dream!”

Alyosha could have hugged him, he was so pleased. But glancing at him
he stopped short. The man was standing with his neck outstretched and
his lips protruding, with a pale and frenzied face. His lips were
moving as though trying to articulate something; no sound came, but
still his lips moved. It was uncanny.

“What is it?” asked Alyosha, startled.

“Alexey Fyodorovitch ... I ... you,” muttered the captain, faltering,
looking at him with a strange, wild, fixed stare, and an air of
desperate resolution. At the same time there was a sort of grin on his
lips. “I ... you, sir ... wouldn’t you like me to show you a little
trick I know?” he murmured, suddenly, in a firm rapid whisper, his
voice no longer faltering.

“What trick?”

“A pretty trick,” whispered the captain. His mouth was twisted on the
left side, his left eye was screwed up. He still stared at Alyosha.

“What is the matter? What trick?” Alyosha cried, now thoroughly
alarmed.

“Why, look,” squealed the captain suddenly, and showing him the two
notes which he had been holding by one corner between his thumb and
forefinger during the conversation, he crumpled them up savagely and
squeezed them tight in his right hand. “Do you see, do you see?” he
shrieked, pale and infuriated. And suddenly flinging up his hand, he
threw the crumpled notes on the sand. “Do you see?” he shrieked again,
pointing to them. “Look there!”

And with wild fury he began trampling them under his heel, gasping and
exclaiming as he did so:

“So much for your money! So much for your money! So much for your
money! So much for your money!”

Suddenly he darted back and drew himself up before Alyosha, and his
whole figure expressed unutterable pride.

“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 began
to run; but he had not run five steps before he turned completely round
and kissed his hand to Alyosha. He ran another five paces and then
turned round for the last time. This time his face was not contorted
with laughter, but quivering all over with tears. In a tearful,
faltering, sobbing voice he cried:

“What should I say to my boy if I took money from you for our shame?”

And then he ran on without turning. Alyosha looked after him,
inexpressibly grieved. Oh, he saw that till the very last moment the
man had not known he would crumple up and fling away the notes. He did
not turn back. Alyosha knew he would not. He would not follow him and
call him back, he knew why. When he was out of sight, Alyosha picked up
the two notes. They were very much crushed and crumpled, and had been
pressed into the sand, but were uninjured and even rustled like new
ones when Alyosha unfolded them and smoothed them out. After smoothing
them out, he folded them up, put them in his pocket and went to
Katerina Ivanovna to report on the success of her commission.

Book V. Pro And Contra