IV. Гимн и секрет

Dusk was even beginning to fall.

But Alyosha knew he would be let through to Mitya without any obstacle.

With us, in our little town, all this goes much as it does everywhere.

At first, of course, once the whole preliminary inquiry had been concluded, access to Mitya for visits from relatives and certain other persons was still hedged about with a number of necessary formalities; but later the formalities did not so much relax as, of their own accord, give way to certain exceptions for some of the visitors — at least for those who came to Mitya.

So much so that now and then a visit with the prisoner, in the room set aside for the purpose, took place almost privately, face to face.

There were, however, very few such people: only Grushenka, Alyosha, and Rakitin.

But toward Grushenka the police captain Mikhail Makarovich himself was very well disposed.

The old man had it weighing on his heart, the way he had shouted at her in Mokroye.

Afterward, having learned the whole truth of it, he changed his opinion of her entirely.

And a strange thing: though he was firmly convinced of Mitya's guilt, ever since the man's imprisonment he had somehow come to look on him more and more gently. "A man with a good soul, perhaps, and look how he came to ruin, gone like a Swede, through drink and disorder!"

The earlier horror had given way, in his heart, to a kind of pity.

As for Alyosha, the police captain was very fond of him and had long been acquainted with him; and Rakitin, who had taken to coming very often to the prisoner of late, was one of the closest acquaintances of the "police captain's young ladies," as he called them, and was forever hanging about their house.

And at the house of the prison warden — a good-natured old fellow, though a stickler in his duties — he gave lessons.

Alyosha, again, was an old and particular acquaintance of the warden too, who loved to talk with him about "higher wisdom" in general.

Ivan Fyodorovich, for instance, the warden did not so much respect as positively fear — chiefly his judgments — though the warden was himself a great philosopher, having "reached it by his own wits," of course.

But for Alyosha he felt a kind of unconquerable affection.

In the past year the old man had taken to poring over the apocryphal gospels, and was constantly reporting his impressions to his young friend.

Before, he had even gone to see Alyosha at the monastery and talked for hours on end with him and with the hieromonks.

In a word, even if Alyosha arrived at the prison late, he had only to go up to the warden, and the matter always got smoothed over.

Besides, everyone at the prison, down to the lowest watchman, had grown used to Alyosha.

The guard, of course, raised no difficulty, so long as there was permission from the authorities.

Mitya, when he was summoned from his cell, always came down to the place appointed for visits.

On entering the room, Alyosha ran straight into Rakitin, who was already leaving Mitya.

Both of them were talking loudly.

Mitya, seeing him off, was laughing hard at something, while Rakitin seemed to be grumbling.

Rakitin, especially of late, did not like meeting Alyosha; he scarcely spoke to him, and even bowed to him grudgingly.

Catching sight now of Alyosha coming in, he knit his brows pointedly and turned his eyes aside, as though wholly taken up with buttoning his big warm overcoat with the fur collar.

Then at once he set about hunting for his umbrella.

"Mustn't forget anything of my own," he muttered, merely for the sake of saying something.

"Mind you don't forget anything of someone else's!" Mitya quipped, and burst out laughing at his own joke.

Rakitin flared up in an instant.

"You go recommend that to your Karamazovs, you serf-bred brood, not to a Rakitin!" he shouted all at once, fairly shaking with rage.

"What's the matter with you? I was joking!" Mitya cried. "Ugh, devil take it!

There, they're all like that," he said, turning to Alyosha and nodding after the swiftly departing Rakitin. "He was sitting here laughing, in good spirits, and then all at once he boils over!

He didn't even give you a nod — have the two of you fallen out altogether, or what?

Why are you so late?

I didn't just wait for you — I've thirsted for you all morning.

Well, never mind! We'll make up for it."

"Why has he taken to coming to you so often? Have you made friends with him, or what?" Alyosha asked, nodding too at the door through which Rakitin had cleared off.

"Friends with Mikhail? No, not exactly.

And why should I — the swine!

He reckons I'm... a scoundrel.

They don't understand a joke, either — that's the main thing about them.

They never will catch a joke.

And their souls are dry — flat and dry, just as it was when I drove up to the prison that time and looked at the prison walls.

But he's a clever man, clever.

Well, Alexei, it's all up with me now!"

He sat down on the bench and made Alyosha sit beside him.

"Yes, the trial's tomorrow. Surely you haven't given up all hope, brother?" Alyosha said with a timid feeling.

"What are you talking about?" Mitya glanced at him somewhat vaguely. "Ah, you mean the trial!

Well, the devil!

Up to now you and I have kept talking of trifles, all about this trial of mine, and I've been silent with you about the chief thing.

Yes, the trial's tomorrow, only it wasn't the trial I meant when I said it's all up with me. My head isn't done for — what was in my head, that's what's done for.

Why do you look at me with such criticism in your face?"

"What do you mean, Mitya?"

"Ideas, ideas, that's what! Ethics. What is this thing, ethics?"

"Ethics?" Alyosha said, surprised.

"Yes — some sort of science, is it?"

"Yes, there is such a science... only... I confess, I can't explain to you just what sort of science it is."

"Rakitin knows. Rakitin knows a great deal, devil take him!

He won't go in for the monastery.

He's getting ready for Petersburg.

There, he says, in the section for criticism — but with a high-minded tendency.

Well, he may do some good and make himself a career.

Ugh, they're masters at making careers!

To the devil with ethics! As for me, I'm done for, Alexei, I am, you man of God!

I love you more than anyone.

My heart trembles for you, that's what.

Who was that Karl Bernard?"

"Karl Bernard?" Alyosha said, surprised again.

"No, not Karl — wait, I got it wrong: Claude Bernard.

What is that? Chemistry, is it?"

"He must be some scholar," Alyosha answered, "only, I confess to you, I can't say much about him either.

I've only heard he's a scholar, but what sort, I don't know."

"Well, the devil take him, I don't know either," Mitya swore.

"Some scoundrel, most likely — and anyway they're all scoundrels.

And Rakitin will wriggle through; Rakitin will squeeze through any crack — he's a Bernard too.

Ugh, these Bernards! They've bred no end of them!"

"But what is the matter with you?" Alyosha asked insistently.

"He wants to write an article about me, about my case, and so launch his own role in literature — that's why he comes, he explained it himself.

He wants to give it some sort of slant: 'You see, he couldn't help killing, he was eaten up by his environment,' and so on — he explained it to me.

It will have a tinge of socialism, he says.

Well, the devil take him — a tinge, then a tinge, it's all the same to me.

He doesn't like brother Ivan, he hates him, and he doesn't think much of you either.

Well, but I don't drive him off, because the man is clever.

Gives himself airs, though, the way he does.

I said to him just now: 'The Karamazovs aren't scoundrels, they're philosophers, because all genuine Russians are philosophers, but you, though you've studied, are no philosopher — you're a boor.'

He laughs, spitefully too.

And I to him: de myslibus non est disputandum — a fine bit of wit, eh?

At least I've stepped into classicism too," Mitya suddenly roared with laughter.

"Why are you done for? You just said it," Alyosha broke in.

"Why am I done for? Hm! In essence... if you take the whole of it — it's God I'm sorry for, that's why!"

"How do you mean, sorry for God?"

"Just imagine: it's all there in the nerves, in the head — that is, there are these nerves in the brain (oh, the devil take them!)... there are little sorts of tails, these nerves have little tails, and the moment they go quivering there... that is, you see, I look at something with my eyes, like this, and they quiver, the little tails... and once they quiver, an image appears — not at once, but after a moment, a second goes by, and there appears a kind of, as it were, moment — that is, not a moment, devil take the moment — but an image, that is, an object or an occurrence, well, devil take it — and that's why I contemplate, and then I think... because of the little tails, and not at all because I have a soul or because I'm some image and likeness — all that's nonsense.