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030 - Book Four Chapter Six · Brothers Karamazov

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Speaker 1: Chapter thirty of The Brother's Karamatzo by Fayodor Dostoyevsky, translated
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Speaker 1: by Constance Garnet. This LibriVox recording is in the public
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Speaker 1: domain recording by Tony Addison, Chapter six A laceration in
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Speaker 1: the cottage. He certainly was really grieved in a way
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Speaker 1: he had seldom been before. He had rushed in like
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Speaker 1: a fool and meddled in what in a love affair?
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Speaker 1: But what do I know about it? What can I
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Speaker 1: tell about such things? He repeated to himself for the
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Speaker 1: hundredth time, flushing Crimson, Oh, being ashamed would be nothing.
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Speaker 1: Shame is only the punishment I deserved. The trouble is
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Speaker 1: I shall certainly have caused more unhappiness. And Father Zossima
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Speaker 1: sent me to reconcile and bring them together? Is this
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Speaker 1: the way to bring them together? Then he suddenly remembered
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Speaker 1: how he had tried to join their hands, and he
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Speaker 1: felt fearfully ashamed again. Though I acted quite sincerely, I
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Speaker 1: must be more sensible in the future, he concluded suddenly,
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Speaker 1: and did not even smile at his conclusion. Katerina Ivanovna's
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Speaker 1: commission took him to Lake Street and his brother Dmitri
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Speaker 1: lived close by in a turning out of Lake Street.
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Speaker 1: Alyosha decided to go to him in any case before
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Speaker 1: going to the captain. Though he had a presentiment that
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Speaker 1: he would not find his brother. He suspected that he
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Speaker 1: would intentionally keep her of his way now, but he
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Speaker 1: must find him anyhow, time was passing. The thought of
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Speaker 1: his dying elder had not left Alyosha for one minute
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Speaker 1: from the time he set off from the monastery. There
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Speaker 1: was one point which interested him, particularly about Katerina Ivanovna's commission.
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Speaker 1: When she had mentioned the Captain's son, the little schoolboy
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Speaker 1: who had run beside his father crying. The idea had
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Speaker 1: at once struck Alyosha that this must be the schoolboy
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Speaker 1: who had bitten his finger. When he Alyosha asked him
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Speaker 1: what he had done to hurt him. Now Alyosha felt
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Speaker 1: practically certain of this, though we could not have said why.
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Speaker 1: Thinking of another subject was a relief, and he resolved
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Speaker 1: to think no more about the mischief he had done,
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Speaker 1: and not to torture himself with remorse, but to do
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Speaker 1: what he had to do, let come what would. At
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Speaker 1: that thought, he was completely comforted. Turning to the street
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Speaker 1: where Dmitri lodged. He felt hungry, and taking out of
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Speaker 1: his pocket the roll he had brought from his father's,
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Speaker 1: he ate it. It made him feel stronger. Dmitri was not
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Speaker 1: at home. The people of the house, an old cabinet maker,
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Speaker 1: his son, and his old wife, looked with positive suspicion
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Speaker 1: at Alyosha. He hasn't slept here for the last three nights.
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Speaker 1: Maybe he has gone away, the old man said, in
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Speaker 1: answer to Alyosha's persistent inquirers. Alyosha saw that he was
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Speaker 1: answering in accordance with instructions. When he asked whether he
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Speaker 1: were not at Grushenka's or in hiding at Fomer's. Alyosha
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Speaker 1: spokes so freely on purpose. All three looked at him
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Speaker 1: in alarm. They are fond of him. They are doing
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Speaker 1: their best for him, thought Alyosha. That's good. At last,
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Speaker 1: he found the house in Lake Street. It was a
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Speaker 1: decrepit little house, sunk on one side, with three windows
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Speaker 1: looking into the street, and with a muddy yard in
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Speaker 1: the middle of which stood a solitary cow. He crossed
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Speaker 1: the yard and found the door opening into the passage.
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Speaker 1: On the left of the passage lived the old woman
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Speaker 1: of the house with her old daughter. Both seemed to
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Speaker 1: be deaf in answer to his repeated inquiry for the captain.
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Speaker 1: One of them at last understood that he was asking
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Speaker 1: for their lodgers, and pointed to a door across the passage.
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Speaker 1: The captain's lodging turned out to be a simple cottage room.
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Speaker 1: Alyosha had his hand on the iron latch to open
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Speaker 1: the door when he was struck by the strange hush within.
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Speaker 1: Yet he knew from Katerina Ivanovna's words that the man
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Speaker 1: had a family. Either they are all asleep, or perhaps
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Speaker 1: they have heard me coming and are waiting for me
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Speaker 1: to open the door. I better knock first, and he knocked.
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Speaker 1: An answer came, but not at once, after an interval
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Speaker 1: of perhaps ten seconds. Here's that, shouted someone in a
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Speaker 1: loud and very angry voice. Then Alyosha opened the door
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Speaker 1: and crushed the threshold. He found himself in a regular
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Speaker 1: place's room. Though it was large, it was cumbered up
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Speaker 1: with domestic belongings of all sorts, and there were several
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Speaker 1: people in it. On the left was a large Russian stove.
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Speaker 1: From the stove to the window. On the left was
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Speaker 1: a string running across the room, and on it there
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Speaker 1: were rags hanging. There was a bedstead against the wall
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Speaker 1: on each side, right and left, covered with knitted quilts.
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Speaker 1: On the one. On the left was a pyramid of
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Speaker 1: four print covered pillows, each smaller than the one beneath.
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Speaker 1: On the other there was only one very small pillow.
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Speaker 1: The opposite corner was screened up by a curtain or
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Speaker 1: a sheet hung on a string. Behind this curtain could
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Speaker 1: be seen a bed made up on a bench and
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Speaker 1: a chair. The rough square table of plain wood had
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Speaker 1: been moved into the middle window. The three windows, which
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Speaker 1: consisted each of four tiny greenish mildewy panes, gave little
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Speaker 1: light and were close shut, so that the room was
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Speaker 1: not very light and rather stuffy. On the table was
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Speaker 1: a frying pan with the remains of some fried eggs,
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Speaker 1: a half eaten piece of bread, and a small bottle
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Speaker 1: with a few drops of budka. A woman of genteel appearance,
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Speaker 1: wearing a cut and gown, was sitting on a chair
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Speaker 1: by the bed on the left. Her face was thin
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Speaker 1: and yellow, and her sunken cheeks betrayed at the first
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Speaker 1: glance that she was ill. But what struck Alyosha. Most
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Speaker 1: was the expression in the poor woman's eyes, a look
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Speaker 1: of surprised inquiry and yet of haughty pride. And while
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Speaker 1: he was talking to her husband, her big brown eyes
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Speaker 1: moved from one speaker to the other with the same
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Speaker 1: haughty and questioning expression. Beside her at the window stood
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Speaker 1: a young girl, rather plain, with scanty, reddish hair, poorly
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Speaker 1: but very neatly dressed. She looked distinfully at Alyosha as
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Speaker 1: he came in. Beside the other bed was sitting another
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Speaker 1: female figure. She was a very sad sight, a young
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Speaker 1: girl of about twenty, but hunchback and crippled with withered legs.
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Speaker 1: As Alyosha was told afterwards, her crutches stood in the
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Speaker 1: corner close by. The strikingly beautiful and gentle eyes of
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Speaker 1: this poor girl looked with mild serenity at Alyosha. A
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Speaker 1: mourner forty five was sitting at the table finishing the
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Speaker 1: fried eggs. He was spare, small and weakly built. He
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Speaker 1: had reddish hair and a scanty, light colored beard, very
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Speaker 1: much like a wisp of tow. This comparison and the
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Speaker 1: phrase a wisp of tow flashed at once into Alyosha's mind.
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Speaker 1: For some reason, he remembered it afterwards. It was obviously
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Speaker 1: this gentleman who had shouted to him, as there was
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Speaker 1: no other man in the room. But when Alyosha went in,
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Speaker 1: he leapt up on the bench on which he was sitting, and,
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Speaker 1: hastily wiping his mouth with a ragged napkin, darted up
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Speaker 1: to Alyosha. It's a monk come to beg for the monastery.
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Speaker 1: A nice place to come to. The girl standing in
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Speaker 1: the left corner said aloud. The man spun round instantly
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Speaker 1: towards her and answered her in an excited and breaking voice, No, Babara,
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Speaker 1: you are wrong. Allow me to ask. He turned again
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Speaker 1: to Alyosha. What has portrait too? Ah? Retreat. Alyosha looked
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Speaker 1: attentively at him. It was the first time he had
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Speaker 1: seen him. There was something angular, florrid, and irritable about him.
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Speaker 1: Though he had obviously just been drinking, he was not drunk.
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Speaker 1: There was extraordinary impudence in his expression, and yet, strange
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Speaker 1: to say, at the same time, there was fear. He
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Speaker 1: looked like a man who had long been kept in
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Speaker 1: subjection and had submitted to it, and now had suddenly
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Speaker 1: turned and was trying to assert himself, or better still,
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Speaker 1: like a man who once dreadfully to hit you, but
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Speaker 1: is horribly afraid you will hit him. In his words
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Speaker 1: and in the intonation of his shrill voice, there was
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Speaker 1: a sort of crazy humor, at times spiteful and at
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Speaker 1: times cringing, and continually shifting from one tone to another.
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Speaker 1: The question about our retreat, he had asked as it were,
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Speaker 1: quivering all over, rolling his eyes and skipping up so
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Speaker 1: close to Alyosha that he instinctively drew back a step.
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Speaker 1: He was dressed in a very shabby, dark cotton coat,
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Speaker 1: patched and spotted. He wore checked trousers of an extremely
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Speaker 1: light color, long out of fashion, and of very thin material.
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Speaker 1: They were so crumpled and so short that he looked
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Speaker 1: as though he had grown out of them like a boy.
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Speaker 1: I am Alexei karamatso of Alyosha, began in reply. I
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Speaker 1: quite understand that, Sir the gentleman snapped out at once
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Speaker 1: to assure him that he knew who he was already.
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Speaker 1: I am captain snegirya sir, but I am still desirous
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Speaker 1: to know precisely what has led to Oh. I've come
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Speaker 1: for nothing special. I wanted to have a word with you,
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Speaker 1: if only you allow me. In that case, he is
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Speaker 1: a chair, sir, Kindly be seated. That's what they used
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Speaker 1: to say in the old comedies. Kindly be seated, And
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Speaker 1: with a rapid gesture, he seized an empty chair. It
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Speaker 1: was a rough wooden chair, not upholstered, and set it
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Speaker 1: for him almost in the middle of the room. Then
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Speaker 1: taking another similar chair for himself, he sat down facing Alyosha,
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Speaker 1: so close to him that their knees almost touched. And
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Speaker 1: Nikolai Eliot Snegeria, sir, formerly a captain in the Russian infantry,
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Speaker 1: put to shame for his vices, but still a captain,
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Speaker 1: though I might not be one now. For the way
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Speaker 1: I talk. For the last half of my life, I've
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Speaker 1: learnt to say, sir, it's a word you use when
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Speaker 1: you've come down in the world. That's very true, smiled Alyosha.
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Speaker 1: But is it used involuntarily or on purpose? Ah, God's above,
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Speaker 1: it's involuntary, and I usun't to use it. I didn't
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Speaker 1: use the word sir all my life, but as soon
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Speaker 1: as I sank into low water, I began to say, sir,
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Speaker 1: it's the work of a higher power. I see you
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Speaker 1: are interested in contemporary questions. But how can I have
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Speaker 1: excited your curiosity? Living as I do in surroundings? Impossible?
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Speaker 1: But the exercise of hospitality. I've come about that business?
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Speaker 1: About what business? The captain interrupted impatiently, about your meeting
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Speaker 1: with my brother Dmitri Fyodorovitch. Alyosha blurted out awkwardly, what meeting, sir?
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Speaker 1: You don't been that meeting? About my whisper toe. Then
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Speaker 1: he moved closer so that his knees positively knocked against Alyosha.
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Speaker 1: His lips were strangely compressed like a thread. What whispered
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Speaker 1: to muttered Alyosha. He is come to complain of me? Father,
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Speaker 1: cried a voice familiar to Alyosha, the voice of the
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Speaker 1: schoolboy from behind the curtain. I bit his finger just now.
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Speaker 1: The curtain was pulled, and Alyosha saw his assailant lying
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Speaker 1: on a little bird made up on the bench and
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Speaker 1: the chair in the corner under the ikons. The boy
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Speaker 1: lay covered by his coat and an old wadded quilt.
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Speaker 1: He was evidently unwell, and, judging by his glittering eyes,
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Speaker 1: he was in a fever. He looked at Aloysha without
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Speaker 1: fear as though he felt he was at home and
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Speaker 1: could not be touched. What did he bite your finger?
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Speaker 1: The captain jumped up from his chair. Was it your
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Speaker 1: finger he bit? Yes, he was throwing stones with other schoolboys.
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Speaker 1: There were six of them against him alone. I went
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Speaker 1: up to him, and he threw a stone at me,
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Speaker 1: and then another at my head. I asked him what
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Speaker 1: I had done to him, and then he rushed at
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Speaker 1: me and bit my finger badly. I don't know why
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Speaker 1: I'll rush him sat at once this minute, the captain
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Speaker 1: jumped up from his seat. But I am not complaining
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Speaker 1: at all. I am simply telling you I don't want
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Speaker 1: him to be thrashed. Besides, he seems to be ill.
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Speaker 1: And do you suppose, Adrashem, that i'd take my ilusha
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Speaker 1: and thrashia before you for your satisfaction? Would you like
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Speaker 1: it done at once? Sir? Said the captain, suddenly turning
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Speaker 1: to Alyosha as though he were going to attack him.
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Speaker 1: I am sorry about your finger, sir, but instead of
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Speaker 1: tashing ilusha, would you like me to top up my
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Speaker 1: four fingers with this knife here before your eyes? To
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Speaker 1: satisfy You're just raugh I should think four fingers would
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Speaker 1: be enough to satisfy your thirst. P avengeance, you won't
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Speaker 1: ask for at one toe, he stopped short with a
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Speaker 1: catch in his throat. Every feature in his face was
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Speaker 1: twitching and working. He looked extremely defiant. He was in
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Speaker 1: a sort of frenzy. I think I understand it all now,
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Speaker 1: said Alyosha, and sorrowfully, still keeping your seat. So your
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Speaker 1: boy is a good boy. He loves his father, and
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Speaker 1: he attacked me as the brother of your assailant. Now
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Speaker 1: I understand it, he repeated thoughtfully. But my brother Dmitri
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Speaker 1: Fyodorovitch regrets his action. I know that. And if only
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Speaker 1: it is possible for him to come to you, or
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Speaker 1: better still, to meet you in that same place, he
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Speaker 1: will ask your forgiveness before everyone, if you wish it.
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Speaker 1: After pulling out my bed, you mean, he will ask
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Speaker 1: my forgiveness, and he thinks that will be a satisfactory finished,
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Speaker 1: doesn't it. Oh? No, On the contrary, he will do
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Speaker 1: anything you like, and in any way you like. So
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Speaker 1: if I were to ask his Highness to go down
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Speaker 1: on his knees before me in that very tavern, the
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Speaker 1: metropolis it's called, or in the marketplace, you would do it. Yes,
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Speaker 1: he would even go down on his knees. You pierced
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Speaker 1: me to the heart, Sir, touched me to tears and
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Speaker 1: pierced me to the heart. I am only too sensible
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Speaker 1: of your brother's generosity. Allow me to incroduce my family,
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Speaker 1: my two daughters and my son, my litter. If I die,
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Speaker 1: who will care for them? And while I live? Who?
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Speaker 1: But they will care for a wretch like me. That's
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Speaker 1: a great thing the Lord has ordained for every man
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Speaker 1: of my sort, Sir, for there must be some one
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Speaker 1: able to love, even a man like me. Ah, that's
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Speaker 1: perfectly true, exclaimed Alyosha. Oh, do leave off playing the fool.
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Speaker 1: Some idiot comes in and you put us to shame,
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Speaker 1: cried the girl by the window, suddenly turning to her
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Speaker 1: father with a disdainful and contemptuous air. Wait, a little Barbara,
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Speaker 1: cried her father, speaking peremptorily but looking at her quite approvingly.
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Speaker 1: That's character, he said, addressing Alyosha again. And in all
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Speaker 1: nature there was nought that could find favor in his eyes,
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Speaker 1: or rather in the feminine, that could find favor in
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Speaker 1: her eyes. But now let me present you to my wife,
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Speaker 1: Arina Petrovna. She is crippled. She is forty three. She
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Speaker 1: can move but very little. She is of humble origin.
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Speaker 1: Arena Petrovna, compose your countenance. This is Alexi Fyodorovitch. Caramatza.
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Speaker 1: Get up, Alexi Fyodorovitch. He took him by the hand
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Speaker 1: and with unexpected force, pulled him up. You must stand
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Speaker 1: on to be introduced to a lady. It's not the
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Speaker 1: Karamtsov mamma, whom et cetera, but his brother, our radiant
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Speaker 1: with mudeste virtues. Come Arina Petrovna, Come mama. First your
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Speaker 1: hand to be kissed. And he kissed his wife's hand
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Speaker 1: respectfully and even tenderly. The girl at the window turned
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Speaker 1: her back indignantly. On the scene. An expression of extraordinary
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Speaker 1: cordiality came over the haughtily inquiring face of the woman.
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Speaker 1: Good morning, Sit down, mister church Nomazov. She said, Karamertzer, Mama, kramertz.
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Speaker 1: We are of humble our regin. He whispered again, well,
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Speaker 1: caramts up or whatever it ease, But I always think
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Speaker 1: of chernamours up and sit down. Why has he pulled
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Speaker 1: you up? He calls me craled, But I am not.
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Speaker 1: Only my legs are swollen like barrels, and I am
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Speaker 1: shriveled up myself. Once I used to be so fat,
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Speaker 1: but now it's as though I had swallowed a needle.
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Speaker 1: We are of humble origin, the captain muttered again, Oh, father, father.
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Speaker 1: The hunchback girl, who had till then been silent on
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Speaker 1: her chair, said suddenly, and she hid her eyes in
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Speaker 1: her handkerchief. Buffoon blurted out the girl at the window.
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Speaker 1: Have you heard our news, said the mother, pointing at
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Speaker 1: her daughter's It's like clouds coming over. The clouds pass,
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Speaker 1: and we have music again. When we were with the army,
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Speaker 1: we used to have many such guests. I don't mean
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Speaker 1: to make any comparisons, every one to their daste. The
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Speaker 1: deacon's wife used to come then and say, Alexandra, Alexandrovitch
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Speaker 1: is a man of the noblest heart. But Nastashia Petrovna,
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Speaker 1: she would say, is up the brood of hell. Oh well,
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Speaker 1: I said, that's a matter of taste. But you are
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Speaker 1: a little spitfire, and you want keeping in your place,
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Speaker 1: says she You black sword, said I who asked you
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Speaker 1: to teach me? But my breath says she is clean
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Speaker 1: and yours is unclean. You ask all the officers whether
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Speaker 1: my breath is unclean? And ever since then I had
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Speaker 1: it in my mind. Not long ago, I was sitting
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Speaker 1: here as I am now, when I saw that very
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Speaker 1: general come in, who came here for Easter. And I
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Speaker 1: asked him. Your excellency said I can a lady's breath
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Speaker 1: be unpleasant? Yes? He answered, you ought to open a
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Speaker 1: window pane or open the door, for the air is
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Speaker 1: not fresh here. And they all go on like that,
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Speaker 1: And what is my breath to them? The dead smell worse. Still,
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Speaker 1: I won't spoil the air, said I. I'll order some
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Speaker 1: slippers and go away. My darlings. Don't blame your own mother,
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Speaker 1: nikolay ilyitch, how is it I can't please you? There's
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Speaker 1: only Ilusha who comes home from school and loves me.
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Speaker 1: Yesterday he brought me an apple. Forgive your own mother,
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Speaker 1: forgive a poor lonely creature. Why has my breath become
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Speaker 1: unpleasant to you? And the poor mad woman broke into
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Speaker 1: sobs and tears streamed down her cheeks. The captain rushed
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Speaker 1: up to her, Am, Mamma, mam my dear, give over.
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Speaker 1: You are not lonely. Everyone loves you. Every one adores you.
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Speaker 1: He began kissing both her hands again and tenderly stroking
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Speaker 1: her face. Taking the dinner napkin, he began wiping away
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Speaker 1: her tears. Alyosha fancied that he too had tears in
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Speaker 1: his eyes. There you see you here, He turned with
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Speaker 1: a sort of fury to Alyosha, pointing to the poor imbecile.
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Speaker 1: I see and here, muttered Alyosha, father, father, how can
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Speaker 1: you with him? Let him alone? Cried the boy, sitting
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Speaker 1: up in his bed and gazing at his father with
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Speaker 1: glowing eyes. Do give over fooling, showing up your silly antics,
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Speaker 1: which never laid to anything, shouted Barbara, stamping her foot
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Speaker 1: with passion. Your anger is quite just this time, Barbara,
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Speaker 1: and I'll make haste to satisfy you. Come put on
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Speaker 1: your cap, Alexey Fyodorovitch, and I'll put on mine. We
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Speaker 1: will go out. I have a word to say to
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Speaker 1: you in earnest, but not within these walls. This girl
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Speaker 1: sitting here is my daughter, Nina. I forgot to introduce
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Speaker 1: her to you. She is a heavenly angel encounter who
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Speaker 1: has blown down to us mortals. If you can understand there,
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Speaker 1: he is shaking all over, as though he is in convulsions.
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Speaker 1: Varvara went on indignantly. And she there stumping her foot
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Speaker 1: at me and calling me a fool. Just now, she
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Speaker 1: is a heavenly angel incarnate too, and she has good
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Speaker 1: reason to call me. So come along, Alexi, peadarrabitch. We
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Speaker 1: must make an end. And snatching Alyoysha's hand, he drew
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Speaker 1: him out of the room into the street. End of
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Speaker 1: chapter thirty