“The realism of actual life, madame, that’s what it is! Allow me, however, to explain ...”
“Realism precisely, Dmitri Fyodorovich. I’m all for realism now, I’ve been taught a good lesson about miracles. Have you heard that Zosima died?”
“No, madame, this is the first I’ve heard of it,” Mitya was a little surprised. Alyosha’s image flashed through his mind.
“Last night, and just imagine...”
“Madame,” Mitya interrupted, “I can imagine only that I am in a most desperate position, and that if you do not help me, everything will fall through, and I will fall through first of all. Forgive the triviality of the expression, but I feel hot, I am in a fever...”
“I know, I know you’re in a fever, I know everything, and you could hardly be in any other state of spirit, and whatever you may say, I know everything beforehand. I took your fate into consideration long ago, Dmitri Fyodorovich, I’ve been following it, studying it ... Oh, believe me, I am an experienced doctor of souls, Dmitri Fyodorovich.”
“Madame, if you are an experienced doctor, I am an experienced patient,” Mitya forced himself into pleasantry, “and I have a feeling that if you have been following my fate as you say, you will help it in its ruination, but for that allow me, finally, to explain the plan with which I’ve ventured to come ... and what I expect from you ... I’ve come, madame ...”
“Don’t explain, it’s secondary. As for helping, you will not be the first I’ve helped, Dmitri Fyodorovich. You’ve probably heard about my cousin, Madame Belmesov, her husband was ruined, he fell through, as you so characteristically expressed it, Dmitri Fyodorovich, and what did I do ... ? I sent him into horse-breeding, and now he’s flourishing. Do you have any notion of horse-breeding, Dmitri Fyodorovich?”
“Not the slightest, madame—oh, madame, not the slightest!” Mitya exclaimed in nervous impatience, and even rose from his seat. “I only beg you, madame, to listen to me, allow me just two minutes to speak freely, so that I can first of all explain everything to you, the whole project with which I have come. Besides, I’m short of time, I’m in a terrible hurry!” Mitya shouted hysterically, feeling that she was about to start talking again and hoping to out-shout her. “I’ve come in despair ... in the last degree of despair, to ask you to lend me money, three thousand, but to lend it on a sure, on the surest pledge, madame, on the surest security! Only let me explain...”
“All of that later, later!” Madame Khokhlakov waved her hand at him in turn, “and whatever you are going to say, I know it all beforehand, I’ve already told you that. You are asking for a certain sum, you need three thousand, but I will give you more, infinitely more, I will save you, Dmitri Fyodorovich, but you must do as I say!”
Mitya reared up from his seat again.
“Madame, can you possibly be so kind!” he cried with extreme feeling. “Oh, Lord, you’ve saved me. You are saving a man from a violent death, madame, from a bullet ... My eternal gratitude...”
“I will give you more, infinitely more than three thousand!” Madame Khokhlakov cried, gazing at Mitya’s rapture with a beaming smile.
“Infinitely? But I don’t need so much. All that’s necessary is that fatal three thousand, and I, for my part, am prepared to guarantee the sum to you, with infinite gratitude, and I’ve come to offer you a plan that...”
“Enough, Dmitri Fyodorovich, it’s said and done,” Madame Khokhlakov spoke abruptly, with the virtuous triumph of a benefactress. “I’ve promised to save you, and I will save you. I will save you as I did Belmesov. What do you think about gold mines, Dmitri Fyodorovich?”
“Gold mines, madame! I’ve never thought anything about them.”
“But I have thought for you! I’ve thought and thought about it! I’ve been watching you for a whole month with that in mind. I’ve looked at you a hundred times as you walked by, saying to myself: here is an energetic man who must go to the mines. I even studied your gait and decided: this man will find many mines.”
“From my gait, madame?” Mitya smiled.
“And why not from your gait? What, do you deny that it’s possible to tell a man’s character from his gait, Dmitri Fyodorovich? Natural science confirms it. Oh, I’m a realist now, Dmitri Fyodorovich. From this day on, after all that story in the monastery, which upset me so, I’m a complete realist, and want to throw myself into practical activity. I am cured. Enough! as Turgenev said.”[237]
“But, madame, this three thousand, which you have so generously promised to lend me...”
“You will get it, Dmitri Fyodorovich,” Madame Khokhlakov at once cut him short, “you may consider it as good as in your pocket, and not three thousand, but three million, Dmitri Fyodorovich, and in no time! I shall tell you your idea: you will discover mines, make millions, return and become an active figure, and you will stir us, too, leading us towards the good. Should everything be left to the Jews? You’ll build buildings, start various enterprises. You will help the poor, and they will bless you. This is the age of railroads, Dmitri Fyodorovich. You will become known and indispensable to the Ministry of Finance, which is in such need now. The decline of the paper rouble allows me no sleep, Dmitri Fyodorovich, few know this side of me...”
“Madame, madame!” Dmitri Fyodorovich again interrupted with a certain uneasy foreboding. “Perhaps I will really and truly follow your advice, your sound advice, and go there, perhaps ... to these mines ... we can talk more about it ... I’ll come again ... even many times ... but about this three thousand, which you have so generously ... Oh, it would set me free, today if possible ... That is, you see, I don’t have any time now, not a moment...”
“Enough, Dmitri Fyodorovich, enough!” Madame Khokhlakov interrupted insistently. “The question is: are you going to the mines or not? Have you fully decided? Answer mathematically.”
“I will go, madame, later ... I’ll go wherever you like, madame, but now...”
“Wait, then!” cried Madame Khokhlakov, and, jumping up, she rushed to her magnificent bureau with numerous little drawers and began pulling out one drawer after another, looking for something and in a terrible hurry.
“The three thousand!” Mitya’s heart froze, “and just like that, without any papers, without any deed ... oh, but how gentlemanly! A splendid woman, if only she weren’t so talkative...”
“Here!” Madame Khokhlakov cried joyfully, coming back to Mitya. “Here is what I was looking for!”
It was a tiny silver icon on a string, of the kind sometimes worn around the neck together with a cross.
“It’s from Kiev, Dmitri Fyodorovich,” she continued reverently, “from the relics of the great martyr Varvara.[238] Allow me personally to put it around your neck and thereby bless you for a new life and new deeds.”
And she indeed put the icon around his neck and began tucking it in. Mitya, in great embarrassment, leaned forward and tried to help her, and finally got the icon past his tie and collar and onto his chest.
“Now you can go!” Madame Khokhlakov uttered, solemnly resuming her seat.
“Madame, I am so touched ... I don’t know how to thank ... for such kindness, but ... if you knew how precious time is to me now...! That sum, which I am so much expecting from your generosity ... Oh, madame, since you are so kind, so touchingly generous to me,” Mitya suddenly exclaimed inspiredly, “allow me to reveal to you ... what you, however, have long known ... that I love a certain person here ... I’ve betrayed Katya ... Katerina Ivanovna, I mean. Oh, I was inhuman and dishonorable towards her, but here I’ve come to love another ... a woman you perhaps despise, madame, for you already know everything, but whom I absolutely cannot part with, absolutely, and therefore, now, this three thousand...”