“Wait, brother,” Alyosha interrupted again, deeply troubled, “you still haven’t explained one thing to me: are you her fiancé, are you really her fiancé? How can you want to break it off if she, your fiancée, doesn’t want to?”
“I am her fiancé, formally and with blessings; it all happened in Moscow after my arrival, with pomp, with icons, in the proper manner. The general’s widow gave the blessing, and—would you believe it?—even congratulated Katya: you have chosen well, she said, I can see inside him. And would you believe that she disliked Ivan and did not congratulate him? In Moscow I talked a lot with Katya, I painted myself in my true colors, nobly, precisely, in all sincerity. She listened to it all.
There was sweet confusion, There were tender words . . . [89]
Well, there were some proud words, too. She extorted from me, then, a great promise to reform. I gave my promise. And now ...” “What now?” “And now I’ve called you and dragged you here today, this very day—remember that!—in order to send you, again this very day, to Katerina Ivanovna, and...”
“And what?”
“And tell her that I shall never come to her again, that I—tell her that I bow to her.”
“But is it possible?”
“But that’s why I’m sending you instead of going myself, because it’s impossible. How could I say that to her myself?”
“But where will you go?”
“To my back lane.”
“You mean to Grushenka!” Alyosha exclaimed ruefully, clasping his hands. “Can it be that Rakitin was really speaking the truth? And I thought you just saw her a few times and stopped.”
“How can a fiancé just see another woman? And with such a fiancée, and before everyone’s eyes? It’s impossible! I have my honor, haven’t I? As soon as I began seeing Grushenka, I at once ceased to be a fiancé and an honest man, of course I know that. Why do you stare at me? You see, first of all I went to give her a beating. I had heard, and now know for certain, that this Grushenka had gotten from this captain, father’s agent, a promissory note in my name, so that she could demand payment and that would stop me and shut me up. They wanted to frighten me. So I set out to give Grushenka a beating. I’d seen her before around town. Nothing striking. I knew about the old merchant, who on top of everything else is lying sick now, paralyzed, but still will leave her a nice sum. I also knew that she likes making money, that she does make it, loans it out at wicked rates of interest, a sly fox, a rogue, merciless. I went to give her a beating, and stayed. A thunderstorm struck, a plague broke out, I got infected and am infected even now, and I know that everything is over and there will never be anything else. The wheel has come full circle. That’s how it is for me. And then suddenly, as if on purpose, in my beggar’s pocket, three thousand roubles turned up. We went from here to Mokroye, it’s fifteen miles away, I got some gypsies to join us, gypsy women, champagne, got all the peasants drunk on champagne, all the village women and girls, thousands were flying around. In three days I was broke, but a hero. And did he get anywhere , this hero? She didn’t even show it to him from a distance. A curve, I tell you! That rogue Grushenka has a certain curve to her body, it even shows in her foot, it’s even echoed in her little left toe. I saw it and kissed it, but that’s all—I swear! She said, ‘I’ll marry you if you like, though you’re a beggar. Tell me you won’t beat me and will let me do anything I want, and then maybe I’ll marry you,’ she laughed. And she’s laughing still.” Dmitri Fyodorovich rose from his place, almost in a sort of fury. He seemed suddenly as if he were drunk. His eyes suddenly became bloodshot.
“And do you really want to marry her?”
“At once, if she will, and if she won’t, I’ll stay anyway, I’ll be a caretaker in her yard. You ... you, Alyosha ... ,” he stopped suddenly in front of him and, grasping his shoulders, suddenly began shaking him violently, “but do you know, you innocent boy, that all of this is raving, impossible raving, because there’s a tragedy here! I tell you, Alexei: I can be a mean man, with passions mean and ruinous, but a thief, a pickpocket, a pilferer, that Dmitri Karamazov can never be! And now let me tell you that I am a little thief, a pickpocket and pilferer! Just before I went to give Grushenka a beating, that very morning, Katerina Ivanovna sent for me and, in terrible secrecy, so that for the time being no one would know (I have no idea why, but that’s evidently how she wanted it), she asked me to go to the provincial capital and from there post three thousand roubles to Agafya Ivanovna in Moscow, so that nobody here in town would know about it. And with those three thousand roubles in my pocket, I then found myself at Grushenka’s, and on them we went to Mokroye. Later I pretended that I had raced to the capital and back, but I didn’t present her with a postal receipt; I told her I’d sent the money and would bring her the receipt, but so far I haven’t brought it, I’ve forgotten, if you like. Now, what if you go today and say to her: ‘He bows to you,’ and she says, And the money?’ You could tell her: ‘He’s a base sensualist, a mean creature with irrepressible passions. He did not send your money that time, he spent it, because he couldn’t help himself, like an animal,’ and then you could add: ‘But he is not a thief, here are your three thousand roubles, he returns them to you, send them to Agafya Ivanovna yourself, and he says he bows to you.’ But then what if she suddenly says: And where is the money?’”
“Mitya, you’re unhappy, yes! But not as unhappy as you think. Don’t kill yourself with despair, don’t do it!”
“What do you think, that I’ll shoot myself if I can’t find three thousand roubles to give back to her? That’s just the thing: I won’t shoot myself. It’s beyond my strength right now—later, maybe, but right now I’ll go to Grushenka ... Let my flesh rot!”
“And what then?”
“I’ll be her husband, I’ll have the honor of being her spouse, and if a lover comes, I’ll go to another room. I’ll clean her friends’ dirty galoshes, I’ll heat up the samovar, I’ll run errands ...”
“Katerina Ivanovna will understand everything,” Alyosha all of a sudden said solemnly. “She will understand all the depths of all this grief and be reconciled. She has a lofty mind, because it’s impossible to be unhappier than you are, she will see that.”
“She will not be reconciled to everything,” Mitya grinned. “There’s something here, brother, that no woman can be reconciled to. Do you know what the best thing would be?”
“What?”
“To give her back the three thousand.”
“But where can we get it? Listen, I have two thousand, Ivan will give a thousand, that makes three—take it and give it to her.”
“And how soon will we get your three thousand? Besides, you’re not of age yet, and you must, you must go today and make that bow to her, with the money or without it, because I can’t drag on any longer, that’s what it’s come to. Tomorrow will already be too late, too late. I’ll send you to father.”
“To father?”
“Yes, to father, and then to her. Ask him for three thousand.”
“But, Mitya, he won’t give it.”
“Of course he won’t, I know he won’t. Alexei, do you know what despair is?”
“I do.”
“Listen: legally he owes me nothing. I’ve already gotten everything out of him, everything, I know that. But morally he surely owes me something, doesn’t he? He started with my mother’s twenty-eight thousand and made a hundred thousand out of it. Let him give me only three of those twenty-eight thousands, only three, and bring up my life from the Pit, [90]and it will be reckoned unto him for his many sins! And I’ll stop at those three thousands, I give you my solemn word on it, and he’ll never hear of me again. For the last time I give him a chance to be my father. Tell him that God himself sends him this chance.”
“Mitya, he won’t do it for anything.”
“I know he won’t do it, I know perfectly well he won’t. Not now, especially. Moreover, I know something else: recently, only the other day, just yesterday maybe, he learned for the first time seriously—underline seriously—that Grushenka indeed may not be joking and could very well up and marry me. He knows her nature, he knows the cat in her. And can he really give me money to help make that happen, when he himself has lost his mind over her? And that’s still not all, I can present you with something more: I know that about five days ago he withdrew three thousand roubles in hundred-rouble notes and packed them into a big envelope, sealed with five seals and tied crisscross with a red ribbon. See what detailed knowledge I have! And written on the envelope is: ‘To my angel Grushenka, if she wants to come.’ He scribbled it himself in silence and secrecy, and no one knows he’s keeping the money except the lackey Smerdyakov, whose honesty he trusts like himself. For three or four days now he’s been waiting for Grushenka, hoping she’ll come for the envelope. He sent her word of it, and she sent word back saying, ‘Maybe I’ll come.’ But if she comes to the old man, could I marry her then? Do you understand, now, why I’m keeping a secret watch here, and what precisely I’m watching for?”