IV. The Confession of an Ardent Heart. In Anecdotes

“I led a wild life there. Father said earlier that I used to pay several thousand for seducing girls. That’s a swinish phantom, it never happened, and what did happen didn’t, strictly speaking, require money for ‘that.’ With me money is an accessory, the fever of the soul, the setting. Today she’s my lady, tomorrow a little street girl in her place. I amuse the one and the other, I throw money around by the handful, music, uproar, gypsy girls. If need be, I give her some too, because they take it, they take it with a passion, that has to be admitted, and they’re pleased and grateful. Fine ladies loved me, not all of them, but it happened, it happened; but I always loved the little back lanes, the dark, out-of-the-way little alleys beyond the square—there are adventures there, surprises there, nuggets of gold in the mud. I’m speaking allegorically, brother. In our little town there weren’t any real lanes like that, but there were moral ones. But if you were what I am, you’d understand what they mean. I loved debauchery, and I loved the shame of debauchery too. I loved cruelty: am I not a bedbug, a wicked insect? It’s said: a Karamazov! Once the whole town went on a picnic, we drove off in seven troikas; in the dark, in winter, in the sledge, I began squeezing the little hand of a girl next to me and forced kisses on that girl, an official’s daughter, poor, sweet, meek, unresisting. She allowed it, allowed a lot in the dark. She thought, poor thing, that I’d come for her the next day and propose (I was valued as a suitor, mainly); and after that I didn’t say a word to her, not half a word for five months. I saw her little eyes following me from a corner of the ballroom whenever there was dancing (and among us there’s nothing but dancing), I saw how they burned with a little flame—a little flame of meek indignation. This game only amused my insect sensuality, which I was feeding in myself. Five months later she married an official and left… angry, and perhaps still loving me. Now they live happily. Mind you, I didn’t tell anyone, I didn’t give her a bad name; though I’m low in my desires and love lowness, I’m not without honor. You’re blushing, your eyes have flashed. You’ve had enough of this filth. And all this was still nothing much, little Paul de Kock posies, although the cruel insect was already growing, already spreading in my soul. There’s a whole album of memories here, brother. May God send them health, the darlings. When I broke things off, I liked not to quarrel. And I never gave anyone away, never gave a single one of them a bad name. But enough. Did you really think I called you here just for this trash? No, I’ll tell you a more curious thing; but don’t be surprised that I’m not ashamed before you, and even seem to be glad.”

“You say that because I blushed,” Alyosha suddenly remarked. “I didn’t blush at your words or for your deeds, but because I am the same as you.”

“You? Well, that’s going a bit far.”

“No, not far,” Alyosha said warmly. (Evidently the thought had been in him for a long time.) “It’s all the same steps. I’m on the very lowest, and you’re above, somewhere on the thirteenth. That’s how I look at it, but it’s all one and the same, entirely of a kind. Whoever has set foot on the lowest step will in any case certainly go up to the top one.”

“So one shouldn’t set foot at all?”

“Whoever can—shouldn’t set foot at all.”

“And can you?”

“I think not.”

“Hush, Alyosha, hush, my dear, I want to kiss your hand, just like that, out of tenderness. That rogue Grushenka is a connoisseur of men; she told me once that someday she would eat you up. I’m quiet, I’m quiet! From the abominations, from a field fouled by flies, let us pass to my tragedy, also a field fouled by flies, that is, by every kind of lowness. The thing is, you see, the old man lied about seducing innocents, but in essence, in my tragedy, that is just how it was, though it happened only once, and even then it didn’t come off. The old man, who reproached me with a fable, doesn’t know this particular business: I’ve never told anyone, I’ll tell you now, the first, except Ivan, of course; Ivan knows everything. He’s known it long before you. But Ivan is a grave.”

“Ivan is a grave?”

“Yes.”

Alyosha was listening extremely attentively.

“I was in that battalion, a line battalion, as an ensign, but all the same I was as if under surveillance, like some sort of exile. And the little town received me terribly well. I threw a lot of money around; they believed I was rich, and I believed it myself. But then I must have pleased them with something else too. They shook their heads, but, honestly, they loved me. My lieutenant colonel, an old man already, suddenly took a dislike to me. He found fault with me; but I had a hand to back me, and besides, the whole town stood up for me, so he couldn’t find much fault. I was to blame myself; I deliberately didn’t show him the proper respect. I was proud. This old stubborn fellow, not at all a bad man and a most good-natured host, had once had two wives; both had died. One, the first, was from some simple people and left him a daughter, also simple. In my time she was already a maiden of twenty-four or so and lived with her father together with her aunt, her late mother’s sister. The aunt was a speechless simplicity, and the niece, the lieutenant colonel’s elder daughter, a lively simplicity. I like to say a good word when I remember: never, my dear, did I know a more charming feminine character than that girl’s; her name was Agafya, imagine, Agafya Ivanovna. And she wasn’t at all bad-looking either, in the Russian taste—tall, buxom, full-bodied, with beautiful eyes, her face, let’s say, a bit coarse. She didn’t marry, though two men proposed; she refused them and didn’t lose her cheerfulness. I became close with her—not in that way, no, it was pure there, but just as friends. I’ve often become close with women quite sinlessly, as friends. I’d chatter to her about such candid things, whew!—and she only laughed. Many women love candor, mark that, and besides, she was a maiden, which amused me very much. And here’s another thing: you couldn’t possibly have called her a young lady. They lived at her father’s, she and her aunt, somehow voluntarily lowering themselves, not putting themselves on a level with the rest of society. Everyone loved her and needed her, because she was a fine dressmaker: she had a talent, didn’t ask money for her services, did it out of kindness, but when she was given presents, she didn’t refuse them. As for the lieutenant colonel—my word! The lieutenant colonel was one of the very first persons in our parts. He lived in grand style, received the whole town, suppers, dances. When I arrived and joined the battalion, the whole little town began talking about how the lieutenant colonel’s second daughter would soon be coming to us from the capital, a beauty of beauties, who had only just finished, they said, at one of the aristocratic institutes in the capital. This second daughter is this very Katerina Ivanovna, and from the lieutenant colonel’s second wife. And this second wife, now deceased, was from a distinguished family, some great general’s house, though, as I know for certain, she didn’t bring the lieutenant colonel any money either. So she came with relations, and that was all, maybe some expectations, but nothing in hand. And yet, when the institute girl arrived (for a visit, not for good), our whole little town seemed to be renewed; our most distinguished ladies—two generals’ wives, a colonel’s wife, and all, all the rest after them, at once took her up, snatched her up, began entertaining her; she was the queen of balls and picnics; they cooked up tableaux vivants for the benefit of some governesses. I keep quiet, I carry on, it was just then that I pulled off a stunt that set the whole town buzzing. I see her measure me with her eyes once, it was at the battery commander’s, but I didn’t go up to her then: I disdain, as it were, to make her acquaintance. I went up to her somewhat later, also at an evening party, started talking; she barely looked at me, pursed her contemptuous little lips, and I think: just wait, I’ll have my revenge! I was a most appalling boor in most cases in those days, and I felt it myself. Above all, I felt that ‘Katenka’ was not just some innocent institute girl, but a person with character, proud and really virtuous, and above all with intelligence and education, and I had neither the one nor the other. You think I wanted to propose? Not at all; I simply wanted revenge, because I was such a fine fellow and she didn’t feel it. Meanwhile, carousing and havoc. At last the lieutenant colonel put me under arrest for three days. It was just at that time that Father sent me six thousand, after I had sent him a formal renunciation of everything and anything, that is, saying we were ‘quits’ and I wouldn’t demand anything more. I didn’t understand anything then: right up to my coming here, brother, and even up to these very last days, and perhaps even up to today, I understood nothing about all these money disputes between me and Father. But to the devil with that, that’s for later. And then, having received these six, I suddenly learned for certain, from a little letter from a friend, of something most curious for me, namely that they were dissatisfied with our lieutenant colonel, that they suspected him of irregularities, in a word, that his enemies were preparing a treat for him. And sure enough, the division commander arrived and gave him a dressing-down for all he was worth. Then a little later he was ordered to send in his resignation. I won’t tell you in detail how it all came about; he really did have enemies, only suddenly in the town there was an excessive coolness toward him and toward the whole family; everyone suddenly drew back, as it were. And that was when I pulled my first stunt: I meet Agafya Ivanovna, with whom I’d always kept up a friendship, and I say: ‘You know, your papa is short four thousand five hundred rubles of government money.’ ‘What are you saying, why do you say that? The general was here not long ago, everything was there…’ ‘It was then, but now it isn’t.’ She was terribly frightened: ‘Please don’t frighten me; who did you hear it from?’ ‘Don’t worry,’ I say, ‘I won’t tell anyone, and you know I’m a grave in such matters, but here is what I wanted to add on this score, by way, so to speak, of “in case of anything”: when they demand the four thousand five hundred from your papa and he doesn’t have it, then rather than be put on trial and then end up a common soldier in his old age, you’d better send me your institute girl in secret; I’ve just had some money sent to me, and I might hand her the four thousand, I dare say, and keep the secret sacredly.’ ‘Ah, what a scoundrel you are,’ she says (that’s just what she said)! ‘What a wicked scoundrel you are,’ she says! ‘How dare you!’ She went off in terrible indignation, and I shouted after her once more that the secret would be kept sacred and inviolable. These two women, that is, Agafya and her aunt, I’ll tell you in advance, turned out to be pure angels in this whole affair, and they truly adored this sister, the proud one, Katya, lowered themselves before her, were her maids… Only Agafya went and told her about that stunt, that is, our conversation. I found it all out later, as clear as my five fingers. She didn’t hide it, and that, of course, was just what I wanted.

“Suddenly a new major arrives to take over the battalion. He takes it over. The old lieutenant colonel suddenly falls ill, can’t move, stays at home for two days, doesn’t hand over the government funds. Our doctor Kravchenko insisted that he really was ill. Only here’s what I knew thoroughly, in secret, and had known for a long time: that the sum, each time after the authorities had inspected it, and this for four years running now, disappeared for a while. The lieutenant colonel lent it to a most reliable man, a merchant of ours, an old widower, Trifonov, a bearded fellow in gold spectacles. Trifonov would go to the fair, do whatever business he needed to there, and return the money intact to the lieutenant colonel at once, and along with it he would bring presents from the fair, and with the presents a little interest. Only this time (I learned all this then quite by chance from a youngster, Trifonov’s slobbering little son, his son and heir, the most depraved boy the world ever produced), this time, I say, Trifonov, coming back from the fair, returned nothing. The lieutenant colonel rushed to him: ‘I never received anything from you, and couldn’t have received anything’—that was the answer. Well, so our lieutenant colonel sits at home, with a towel tied around his head, and all three of them are putting ice to his crown; suddenly an orderly arrives with the book and an order: ‘Hand over the government funds at once, immediately, within two hours.’ He signed, I saw that signature in the book later—got up, said he was going to put on his uniform, ran into his bedroom, took his double-barreled hunting gun, loaded it, rammed in a soldier’s bullet, took the boot off his right foot, set the muzzle against his chest, and started groping for the trigger with his foot. But Agafya already suspected, she had remembered my words that time; she crept up and caught sight of him in time: she burst in, threw herself on him from behind, put her arms around him, the gun went off upward into the ceiling; no one was hurt; the others ran in, seized him, took the gun away, held him by the arms… I learned all this later down to the last detail. I was sitting at home then, it was dusk, and I was just about to go out; I had dressed, combed my hair, scented my handkerchief, picked up my cap, when suddenly the door opens and—before me, in my own lodgings, is Katerina Ivanovna.

“Strange things do happen: nobody in the street noticed her coming to me that time, so that in the town it vanished without a trace. I was renting lodgings from two officials’ widows, most ancient old women, who also waited on me, respectful women; they obeyed me in everything and at my order both of them were silent afterward, like cast-iron posts. Of course I understood everything at once. She came in and looked straight at me; her dark eyes looked resolute, insolent even, but in her lips and around her lips, I see, there is irresolution.

“‘My sister told me that you would give four thousand five hundred rubles if I came for them… to you myself. I have come… give me the money!…’ She couldn’t hold out, she choked, she was frightened, her voice broke off, and the corners of her lips and the lines around her lips trembled. Alyoshka, are you listening, or are you asleep?”

“Mitya, I know you will tell the whole truth,” Alyosha said in agitation.

“That is exactly what I’ll tell. If the whole truth, then here is how it was; I won’t spare myself. My first thought was—a Karamazov thought. Once, brother, I was bitten by a phalanga spider, and I lay in a fever from it for two weeks; well, now too, I feel, a phalanga suddenly bit me in the heart, a wicked insect, you understand? I measured her with my eye. Have you seen her? She’s a beauty, after all. But it wasn’t for that that she was beautiful then. She was beautiful at that moment because she was noble and I was a scoundrel, because she was in the grandeur of her magnanimity and of her sacrifice for her father, and I was a bedbug. And on me, a bedbug and a scoundrel, she depends entirely, entirely, all around, both soul and body. Encircled. I’ll tell you straight: that thought, the phalanga’s thought, so seized my heart that it nearly bled away from sheer languishing. It would seem there could no longer be any struggle at all: just act like a bedbug, like a wicked tarantula, without any pity… It even took my breath away. Listen: of course I would have come the very next day to ask for her hand, so as to end it all in the noblest manner, so to speak, and so that nobody, therefore, would know of it or could know. Because, after all, though I’m a man of low desires, I am honest. And then suddenly, at that same second, someone whispered in my ear: ‘But tomorrow a girl like that, when you come to propose, won’t even come out to you, but will order the coachman to throw you out of the yard. Spread it all over town, she’ll say, I’m not afraid of you!’ I glanced at the girl, and my voice hadn’t lied: of course, that’s how it would be. They’d throw me out by the scruff of the neck; you could judge by her face already. Spite began to boil up in me; I felt like playing the vilest, piggish, shopkeeper’s trick: to look at her with a sneer, and right there, while she stands before you, to stun her with the intonation that only a shopkeeper knows how to use:

“‘Four thousand, is it? Why, I was joking, ma’am, what are you thinking? You counted on it too trustingly, madam. Two hundred or so I might, with real pleasure and readiness even, but four thousand, that’s not the kind of money, miss, to throw away on such frivolity. You have been pleased to trouble yourself for nothing.’

“You see, of course I would have lost everything, she would have run away, but then it would have come out infernal, vengeful, it would have been worth all the rest. I’d have howled with remorse all my life afterward, but just to pull off that little stunt now! Would you believe it, it had never happened to me with any woman, not with a single one, that at such a moment I looked at her with hatred—and here I cross myself: I looked at that one then for three seconds, or five, with terrible hatred—with that very hatred which is a single hair away from love, from the maddest love! I walked over to the window, pressed my forehead to the frozen glass, and I remember that the ice burned my forehead like fire. I didn’t keep her long, don’t worry; I turned around, went to the table, opened the drawer, and took out a five-thousand-ruble five-percent bearer bond (it was lying in my French dictionary). Then I showed it to her in silence, folded it, gave it to her, myself opened the door to the entryway for her, and, stepping back a pace, bowed to her from the waist with a most respectful, most heartfelt bow, believe me! She trembled all over, looked at me intently for a second, turned terribly pale, well, white as a tablecloth, and suddenly, also without saying a word, not impulsively but softly, deeply, quietly, she bent down all the way and right at my feet—her forehead to the ground, not like an institute girl, but in the Russian way! She jumped up and ran off. When she ran out, I was wearing my sword; I drew my sword and wanted to stab myself right there, what for I don’t know; it was terrible foolishness, of course, but it must have been from rapture. Do you understand that one can kill oneself from a certain kind of rapture? But I didn’t stab myself; I only kissed the sword and put it back in its sheath—which, however, I needn’t even have mentioned to you. And it seems to me that even now, telling about all those struggles, I laid it on a bit thick to praise myself. But let it be, let it be so, and devil take all the spies of the human heart! That’s the whole of my former ‘incident’ with Katerina Ivanovna. So now brother Ivan knows about it, and you—and that’s all!”

Dmitri Fyodorovich stood up, took a step and then another in agitation, took out his handkerchief, wiped the sweat from his forehead, then sat down again, but not where he had been sitting before; in another place, on the bench opposite, by the other wall, so that Alyosha had to turn all the way around toward him.