The Brothers Karamazov

n The Dark

Where was he running? “Where could she be except at Fyodor
Pavlovitch’s? She must have run straight to him from Samsonov’s, that
was clear now. The whole intrigue, the whole deceit was evident.” ...
It all rushed whirling through his mind. He did not run to Marya
Kondratyevna’s. “There was no need to go there ... not the slightest
need ... he must raise no alarm ... they would run and tell
directly.... Marya Kondratyevna was clearly in the plot, Smerdyakov
too, he too, all had been bought over!”

He formed another plan of action: he ran a long way round Fyodor
Pavlovitch’s house, crossing the lane, running down Dmitrovsky Street,
then over the little bridge, and so came straight to the deserted alley
at the back, which was empty and uninhabited, with, on one side the
hurdle fence of a neighbor’s kitchen‐garden, on the other the strong
high fence, that ran all round Fyodor Pavlovitch’s garden. Here he
chose a spot, apparently the very place, where according to the
tradition, he knew Lizaveta had once climbed over it: “If she could
climb over it,” the thought, God knows why, occurred to him, “surely I
can.” He did in fact jump up, and instantly contrived to catch hold of
the top of the fence. Then he vigorously pulled himself up and sat
astride on it. Close by, in the garden stood the bath‐house, but from
the fence he could see the lighted windows of the house too.

“Yes, the old man’s bedroom is lighted up. She’s there!” and he leapt
from the fence into the garden. Though he knew Grigory was ill and very
likely Smerdyakov, too, and that there was no one to hear him, he
instinctively hid himself, stood still, and began to listen. But there
was dead silence on all sides and, as though of design, complete
stillness, not the slightest breath of wind.

“And naught but the whispering silence,” the line for some reason rose
to his mind. “If only no one heard me jump over the fence! I think
not.” Standing still for a minute, he walked softly over the grass in
the garden, avoiding the trees and shrubs. He walked slowly, creeping
stealthily at every step, listening to his own footsteps. It took him
five minutes to reach the lighted window. He remembered that just under
the window there were several thick and high bushes of elder and
whitebeam. The door from the house into the garden on the left‐hand
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 my
footsteps and are listening ... if only I don’t cough or sneeze.”

He waited two minutes. His heart was beating violently, and, at
moments, he could scarcely breathe. “No, this throbbing at my heart
won’t stop,” he thought. “I can’t wait any longer.” He was standing
behind a bush in the shadow. The light of the window fell on the front
part of the bush.

“How red the whitebeam berries are!” he murmured, not knowing why.
Softly and noiselessly, step by step, he approached the window, and
raised himself on tiptoe. All Fyodor Pavlovitch’s bedroom lay open
before him. It was not a large room, and was divided in two parts by a
red screen, “Chinese,” as Fyodor Pavlovitch used to call it. The word
“Chinese” flashed into Mitya’s mind, “and behind the screen, is
Grushenka,” thought Mitya. He began watching Fyodor Pavlovitch, who was
wearing his new striped‐silk dressing‐gown, which Mitya had never seen,
and a silk cord with tassels round the waist. A clean, dandified shirt
of fine linen with gold studs peeped out under the collar of the
dressing‐gown. On his head Fyodor Pavlovitch had the same red bandage
which Alyosha had seen.

“He has got himself up,” thought Mitya.

His father was standing near the window, apparently lost in thought.
Suddenly he jerked up his head, listened a moment, and hearing nothing
went up to the table, poured out half a glass of brandy from a decanter
and drank it off. Then he uttered a deep sigh, again stood still a
moment, walked carelessly up to the looking‐glass on the wall, with his
right hand raised the red bandage on his forehead a little, and began
examining his bruises and scars, which had not yet disappeared.

“He’s alone,” thought Mitya, “in all probability he’s alone.”

Fyodor Pavlovitch moved away from the looking‐glass, turned suddenly to
the window and looked out. Mitya instantly slipped away into the
shadow.

“She may be there behind the screen. Perhaps she’s asleep by now,” he
thought, with a pang at his heart. Fyodor Pavlovitch moved away from
the window. “He’s looking for her out of the window, so she’s not
there. Why should he stare out into the dark? He’s wild with
impatience.” ... Mitya slipped back at once, and fell to gazing in at
the window again. The old man was sitting down at the table, apparently
disappointed. At last he put his elbow on the table, and laid his right
cheek against his hand. Mitya watched him eagerly.

“He’s alone, he’s alone!” he repeated again. “If she were here, his
face would be different.”

Strange to say, a queer, irrational vexation rose up in his heart that
she was not here. “It’s not that she’s not here,” he explained to
himself, immediately, “but that I can’t tell for certain whether she is
or not.” Mitya remembered afterwards that his mind was at that moment
exceptionally clear, that he took in everything to the slightest
detail, and missed no point. But a feeling of misery, the misery of
uncertainty and indecision, was growing in his heart with every
instant. “Is she here or not?” The angry doubt filled his heart, and
suddenly, making up his mind, he put out his hand and softly knocked on
the window frame. He knocked the signal the old man had agreed upon
with Smerdyakov, twice slowly and then three times more quickly, the
signal that meant “Grushenka is here!”

The old man started, jerked up his head, and, jumping up quickly, ran
to the window. Mitya slipped away into the shadow. Fyodor Pavlovitch
opened the window and thrust his whole head out.

“Grushenka, is it you? Is it you?” he said, in a sort of trembling
half‐ whisper. “Where are you, my angel, where are you?” He was
fearfully agitated and breathless.

“He’s alone.” Mitya decided.

“Where are you?” cried the old man again; and he thrust his head out
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’ll
show you....”

“He means the three thousand,” thought Mitya.

“But where are you? Are you at the door? I’ll open it directly.”

And the old man almost climbed out of the window, peering out to the
right, where there was a door into the garden, trying to see into the
darkness. In another second he would certainly have run out to open the
door without waiting for Grushenka’s answer.

Mitya looked at him from the side without stirring. The old man’s
profile that he loathed so, his pendent Adam’s apple, his hooked nose,
his lips that smiled in greedy expectation, were all brightly lighted
up by the slanting lamplight falling on the left from the room. A
horrible fury of hatred suddenly surged up in Mitya’s heart: “There he
was, his rival, the man who had tormented him, had ruined his life!” It
was a rush of that sudden, furious, revengeful anger of which he had
spoken, as though foreseeing it, to Alyosha, four days ago in the
arbor, when, in answer to Alyosha’s question, “How can you say you’ll
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’ll
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 beside
himself, he suddenly pulled the brass pestle out of his pocket.

“God was watching over me then,” Mitya himself said afterwards. At that
very moment Grigory waked up on his bed of sickness. Earlier in the
evening he had undergone the treatment which Smerdyakov had described
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 his
wife repeated a “certain prayer” over him, after which he had gone to
bed. Marfa Ignatyevna had tasted the stuff, too, and, being unused to
strong drink, slept like the dead beside her husband.

But Grigory waked up in the night, quite suddenly, and, after a
moment’s reflection, though he immediately felt a sharp pain in his
back, he sat up in bed. Then he deliberated again, got up and dressed
hurriedly. Perhaps his conscience was uneasy at the thought of sleeping
while the house was unguarded “in such perilous times.” Smerdyakov,
exhausted by his fit, lay motionless in the next room. Marfa Ignatyevna
did not stir. “The stuff’s been too much for the woman,” Grigory
thought, glancing at her, and groaning, he went out on the steps. No
doubt he only intended to look out from the steps, for he was hardly
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 into
the garden that evening. He was the most punctual and precise of men, a
man who adhered to an unchangeable routine, and habits that lasted for
years. Limping and writhing with pain he went down the steps and
towards the garden. Yes, the gate stood wide open. Mechanically he
stepped into the garden. Perhaps he fancied something, perhaps caught
some sound, and, glancing to the left he saw his master’s window open.
No one was looking out of it then.

“What’s it open for? It’s not summer now,” thought Grigory, and
suddenly, at that very instant he caught a glimpse of something
extraordinary before him in the garden. Forty paces in front of him a
man seemed to be running in the dark, a sort of shadow was moving very
fast.

“Good Lord!” cried Grigory beside himself, and forgetting the pain in
his back, he hurried to intercept the running figure. He took a short
cut, evidently he knew the garden better; the flying figure went
towards the bath‐house, ran behind it and rushed to the garden fence.
Grigory followed, not losing sight of him, and ran, forgetting
everything. He reached the fence at the very moment the man was
climbing over it. Grigory cried out, beside himself, pounced on him,
and clutched his leg in his two hands.

Yes, his foreboding had not deceived him. He recognized him, it was he,
the “monster,” the “parricide.”

“Parricide!” the old man shouted so that the whole neighborhood could
hear, but he had not time to shout more, he fell at once, as though
struck by lightning.

Mitya jumped back into the garden and bent over the fallen man. In
Mitya’s hands was a brass pestle, and he flung it mechanically in the
grass. The pestle fell two paces from Grigory, not in the grass but on
the path, in a most conspicuous place. For some seconds he examined the
prostrate figure before him. The old man’s head was covered with blood.
Mitya put out his hand and began feeling it. He remembered afterwards
clearly, that he had been awfully anxious to make sure whether he had
broken the old man’s skull, or simply stunned him with the pestle. But
the blood was flowing horribly; and in a moment Mitya’s fingers were
drenched with the hot stream. He remembered taking out of his pocket
the clean white handkerchief with which he had provided himself for his
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 the
handkerchief was instantly soaked with blood.

“Good heavens! what am I doing it for?” thought Mitya, suddenly pulling
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’ve
killed him, I’ve killed him.... You’ve come to grief, old man, so 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 handkerchief
soaked with blood he held, crushed up in his right fist, and as he ran
he thrust it into the back pocket of his coat. He ran headlong, and the
few passers‐by who met him in the dark, in the streets, remembered
afterwards that they had met a man running that night. He flew back
again to the widow Morozov’s house.

Immediately after he had left it that evening, Fenya had rushed to the
chief porter, Nazar Ivanovitch, and besought him, for Christ’s sake,
“not to let the captain in again to‐day or to‐morrow.” Nazar Ivanovitch
promised, but went upstairs to his mistress who had suddenly sent for
him, and meeting his nephew, a boy of twenty, who had recently come
from the country, on the way up told him to take his place, but forgot
to mention “the captain.” Mitya, running up to the gate, knocked. The
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 him
with a good‐humored smile that “Agrafena Alexandrovna is not at home
now, you know.”

“Where is she then, Prohor?” asked Mitya, stopping short.

“She set off this evening, some two hours ago, with Timofey, to
Mokroe.”

“What for?” cried Mitya.

“That I can’t say. To see some officer. Some one invited her and horses
were sent to fetch her.”

Mitya left him, and ran like a madman to Fenya.