“It can’t be! Where and how did they write it?”
“I’ll show you right now. I received it yesterday and read it yesterday. Here, in the newspaper Rumors, from Petersburg. These Rumors just started coming out this year, I’m terribly fond of rumors, so I subscribed, and now I’ve been paid back for it, this is the sort of rumors they turned out to be. Here, this passage, read it.”
And she handed Alyosha a page from a newspaper that had been under her pillow.
She was not really upset, but somehow all in pieces, and it was perhaps possible that everything had indeed become mixed into a lump in her head. The newspaper item was a typical one and, of course, must have had a rather ticklish effect on her, but, fortunately, at that moment she was perhaps unable to concentrate on any one point, and could therefore even forget about the newspaper in a moment and jump on to something quite different. Alyosha had known for some time that the rumor of a terrible trial had spread everywhere throughout Russia, and, God, what wild reports and articles he had read in the course of those two months, along with other, accurate items, about his brother, about the Karamazovs in general, and even about himself. In one newspaper it was even stated that he had become a monk from fear, following his brother’s crime, and gone into seclusion; this was denied in another, where it was written that, on the contrary, he and his elder Zosima had robbed the monastery cash box and “skipped from the monastery.” Today’s item in the newspaper Rumors was entitled “From Skotoprigonyevsk”[287] (alas, that is the name of our town; I have been concealing it all this time) “Concerning the Trial of Karamazov.” It was brief, and there was no direct mention of Madame Khokhlakov, and generally all the names were concealed. It was simply reported that the criminal whose forthcoming trial was causing so much noise was a retired army officer, of an insolent sort, an idler and serf-owner, who devoted all his time to amorous affairs, and had a particular influence with certain “bored and solitary ladies.” And that one such lady, “a bored widow,” rather girlish, though she already had a grown-up daughter, took such a fancy to him that only two hours before the crime she had offered him three thousand roubles if he would run away with her at once to the gold mines. But the villain still preferred better to kill his father and rob him precisely of three thousand, counting on doing it with impunity, rather than drag himself off to Siberia with the forty-year-old charms of his bored lady. This playful communication ended, quite properly, with noble indignation at the immorality of parricide and the former serfdom. Having read it with curiosity, Alyosha folded the page and handed it back to Madame Khokhlakov.
“Well, who else is it but me?” she started prattling again. “It’s me, I offered him gold mines almost an hour before, and suddenly those ‘forty-year-old charms’! But it wasn’t that! He says it on purpose! May the eternal judge forgive him those forty-year-old charms, as I forgive him, but this ... do you know who it is? It’s your friend Rakitin.”
“Perhaps,” said Alyosha, “though I’ve heard nothing about it.”
“It’s him, him, and no ‘perhaps’! Because I turned him out ... Do you know that whole story?”
“I know you suggested that he not visit you in the future, but precisely why, I haven’t heard ... at least, not from you.”
“Ah, so you heard it from him! And what, does he abuse me, does he abuse me very much?”
“Yes, he abuses you, but he abuses everybody. But why you closed your door to him—that he didn’t tell me. And in fact I see him very seldom. We are not friends.”
“Well, then I’ll reveal it all to you and—since there’s no help for it—I’ll confess, because there’s a point here that may be my own fault. Just a tiny, little point, the tiniest, so tiny it may not even exist. You see, my dear,” Madame Khokhlakov suddenly acquired a sort of playful look, and a lovely, though mysterious, little smile flashed on her lips, “you see, I suspect ... you’ll forgive me, Alyosha, I’m speaking to you as a mother ... oh, no, no, on the contrary, I’m speaking to you now as my father ... because mother doesn’t fit here at all ... Well, just as to Father Zosima in confession, that’s the most accurate, that fits very welclass="underline" I did just call you a monk—well, so that poor young man, your friend Rakitin (oh, God, I simply cannot be angry with him! I’m angry and cross, but not very much), in short, that frivolous young man, just imagine, suddenly seems to have decided to fall in love with me. I only noticed it later, suddenly, but at first, that is, about a month ago, he started visiting me more often, almost every day, though we were acquainted before then. I didn’t suspect a thing ... and then suddenly it dawned on me, as it were, and I began noticing, to my surprise. You know, two months ago I began to receive that modest, nice, and worthy young man Pyotr Ilyich Perkhotin, who is in service here. You’ve met him so many times yourself. A worthy, serious man, isn’t it so? He comes once every three days, not every day (though why not every day?), and is always so well dressed, and generally I like young people, Alyosha, talented, modest, like you, and he has almost the mind of a statesman, he speaks so nicely, I shall certainly, certainly put in a word for him. He is a future diplomat. He all but saved me from death on that horrible day, when he came to me at night. Well, and then your friend Rakitin always comes in such boots, and drags them on the carpet ... in short, he even began dropping some hints, and suddenly once, as he was leaving, he squeezed my hand terribly. As soon as he squeezed my hand, my foot suddenly started to hurt. He had met Pyotr Ilyich in my house before, and would you believe it, he was constantly nagging him, nagging him, just grumbling at him for some reason. I used to look at the two of them, when they got together, and laugh to myself. Then suddenly, as I was sitting alone, that is, no, I was already lying down then, suddenly, as I was lying alone, Mikhail Ivanovich came and, imagine, brought me a poem of his, a very short one, on my ailing foot, that is, he described my ailing foot in the poem. Wait, how did it go?
This little foot, this little foot, Is hurting now a little bit ... or something like that—I can never remember poetry—I have it here—but I’ll show it to you later, it’s charming, charming, and, you know, it’s not just about my foot, it’s edifying, too, with a charming idea, only I’ve forgotten it, in short, it’s just right for an album. Well, naturally I thanked him, and he was obviously flattered. I had only just thanked him when Pyotr Ilyich also came in, and Mikhail Ivanovich suddenly looked black as night. I could see that Pyotr Ilyich had hampered him in something, because Mikhail Ivanovich certainly wanted to say something right after the poem, I already anticipated it, and then Pyotr Ilyich walked in. I suddenly showed Pyotr Ilyich the poem, and didn’t tell him who wrote it. But I’m sure, I’m sure he guessed at once, though he still hasn’t admitted it and says he didn’t guess; but he says it on purpose. Pyotr Ilyich immediately laughed and started criticizing: worthless doggerel, he said, some seminarian must have written it—and you know, he said it with such passion, such passion! Here your friend, instead of laughing, suddenly got completely furious ... Lord, I thought, they’re going to start fighting. ‘I wrote it,’ he said. ‘I wrote it as a joke,’ he said, ‘because I consider it base to write poetry ... Only my poem is good. They want to setup a monument to your Pushkin for women’s little feet,[288] but my poem has a tendency, and you,’ he said, ‘are a serf-owner; you have no humaneness at all,’ he said, ‘you don’t feel any of today’s enlightened feelings, progress hasn’t touched you; you are an official,’ he said, ‘and you take bribes!’ At that point I began shouting and pleading with them. And Pyotr Ilyich, you know, is not timid at all, and he suddenly assumed the most noble tone: he looked at him mockingly, listened, and apologized: I did not know,’ he said. ‘If I had known, I should not have said it, I should have praised it,’ he said ... ‘Poets,’ he said, ‘are all so irritable . . In short, it was that sort of taunting in the guise of the most noble tone. He himself explained to me later that he was just taunting him, and I thought he was in earnest. Only suddenly I was lying there, just as I am before you now, and I thought: would it be noble, or would it not, if I suddenly turned Mikhail Ivanovich out for shouting so rudely at a guest in my house? And, would you believe it, I lay there, I closed my eyes and thought: would it or would it not be noble, and I couldn’t decide, and I was tormented, tormented, and my heart was pounding: should I shout, or shouldn’t I? One voice said: shout, and the other said: no, don’t shout! And no sooner had that other voice spoken than I suddenly shouted and suddenly fainted. Well, naturally there was a commotion. I suddenly stood up and said to Mikhail Ivanovich: ‘It grieves me to say this to you, but I no longer wish to receive you in my house.’ So I turned him out. Ah, Alexei Fyodorovich! I know myself that I did a bad thing, it was all a lie, I wasn’t angry with him at all, but I suddenly— the main thing is, I suddenly fancied that it would be so nice, that scene ... Only, believe me, it was quite a natural scene, because I even burst into tears, and cried for several days afterwards, and then suddenly after dinner I forgot it all. So he stopped coming, it’s been two weeks now, and I wondered: will he really not come ever again? That was just yesterday, and suddenly in the evening these Rumors came. I read it and gasped, who could have written it, he wrote it, he went home that time, sat down—and wrote it; he sent it—they printed it. Because it happened two weeks ago. Only, Alyosha, it’s terrible what I’m saying, and I’m not at all saying what I should be saying! Ah, it comes out by itself!”