II. У отца

As he drew near, he remembered that the evening before his father had insisted very firmly that he should somehow come in quietly, unseen by his brother Ivan.

"But why?" it suddenly occurred to Alyosha now. "If father wants to tell me something in private, on the quiet, then why should I have to slip in on the quiet?

Surely, in his agitation yesterday, he meant to say something else and never got it out," he decided.

All the same he was very glad when Marfa Ignatyevna, who opened the gate for him (Grigory, it turned out, had fallen ill and was laid up in the lodge), told him in answer to his question that Ivan Fyodorovich had already gone out a good two hours since.

"And my father?"

"He is up, taking his coffee," Marfa Ignatyevna answered rather dryly.

Alyosha went in.

The old man sat alone at the table, in slippers and a worn old overcoat, looking over some accounts to pass the time, though without much attention.

He was quite alone in the whole house (Smerdyakov had also gone out to fetch provisions for dinner). But it was not the accounts that occupied him.

Though he had risen early that morning and was keeping his spirits up, he nonetheless looked tired and weak.

His forehead, on which huge purple bruises had spread overnight, was bound up with a red handkerchief.

His nose, too, had swollen badly during the night, and on it likewise several blotchy bruises had formed which, though slight, gave his whole face a peculiarly spiteful and irritable look.

The old man was aware of this himself, and he glanced unkindly at Alyosha as he came in.

"The coffee's cold," he barked sharply, "I shan't offer you any.

I'm sitting down to nothing but a Lenten fish-soup myself today, brother, and I'm inviting no one.

What brings you?"

"To ask after your health," said Alyosha.

"Yes.

And besides, I told you myself yesterday to come.

It's all nonsense.

You needn't have troubled yourself.

Still, I knew you'd come trailing over here at once..."

He said this with the most hostile feeling.

Meanwhile he got up from his place and anxiously studied his nose in the mirror (perhaps for the fortieth time since morning).

He also began arranging his red handkerchief more becomingly on his forehead.

"The red one's better; in white it looks too much like a hospital," he remarked sententiously. "Well, what is it with you?

How's that elder of yours?"

"He is very bad; he may die today," answered Alyosha, but his father did not even take it in, and forgot his own question the moment he had asked it.

"Ivan has gone out," he said suddenly. "He's doing everything in his power to cut Mitka's bride out from under him — that's the reason he's living here," he added spitefully, and twisting his mouth, looked at Alyosha.

"Surely he didn't tell you so himself?" asked Alyosha.

"Yes, and he said it long ago.

Imagine: he said it some three weeks back.

He didn't come down here just to knife me on the sly, did he?

He came for some reason or other, didn't he?"

"What do you mean! Why do you say such things?" Alyosha was terribly upset.

"He isn't asking for money, true, but all the same he won't get a single kopeck out of me.

I intend, my dear Alexey Fyodorovich, to live on this earth as long as I possibly can — let that be known to you — and so every kopeck is precious to me, and the longer I live, the more precious it will be," he went on, pacing the room from corner to corner, his hands thrust into the pockets of his greasy, loose-fitting overcoat of yellow summer twill.

"For now I'm still a man, only fifty-five all told, but I mean to rank as a man another twenty years yet; once I grow old I'll turn foul, and then they won't come to me of their own free will, and that's exactly when my little sums of money will come in handy.

So now I keep laying by more and more, for myself alone, sir, my dear son Alexey Fyodorovich — let that be known to you — because I mean to live in my filthiness to the very end, let that be known to you as well.

Filthiness is the sweeter for it: everybody reviles it, yet everybody lives in it, only everyone does it on the sly, while I do it openly.

And it's just for that openheartedness of mine that all the filthy lot of them have set upon me.

And as for that paradise of yours, Alexey Fyodorovich, I don't want it — let that be known to you — indeed, for a decent man your paradise is downright unseemly, even supposing it exists at all.

To my mind, you fall asleep and don't wake up, and there's nothing more; remember me if you like, and if you don't care to, then the devil take the lot of you.

There's my philosophy.

Ivan spoke well here yesterday, though we were all drunk.

Ivan's a braggart, and he hasn't any great learning either... nor any special education to speak of; he holds his tongue and smirks at you in silence — that's the only thing that carries him along."

Alyosha listened to him and said nothing.

"Why won't he talk to me?

And when he does talk, he puts on airs; he's a scoundrel, that Ivan of yours!

As for Grushka, I'll marry her in a moment, the instant I choose.

Because with money one need only choose to, sir, Alexey Fyodorovich, and everything follows.

That's the very thing Ivan's afraid of, and he keeps watch over me to stop my marrying, and to that end he eggs Mitka on to marry Grushka himself: so he hopes both to guard me from Grushka (as if I'd leave him money if I don't marry Grushka!) and, on the other hand, that if Mitka marries Grushka then Ivan can take Mitka's rich bride for himself — there's the calculation behind him!

He's a scoundrel, that Ivan of yours!"

"How irritable you are. It's from yesterday; you ought to go and lie down," said Alyosha.

"There you are, you say that," the old man remarked suddenly, as though it had only just for the first time entered his head, "you say it, and I'm not angry with you, but if Ivan had said that very same thing to me, I would have been angry.

It's only with you that I've ever had any good little moments; otherwise I'm a wicked man, you know."

"You're not a wicked man, only a warped one," smiled Alyosha.

"Listen, I'd meant to have that brigand Mitka locked up today, and even now I don't know how I'll decide.

Of course, in these fashionable modern times it's accepted to count fathers and mothers a prejudice, but surely even by the laws of our day it isn't permitted to drag old fathers about by the hair, to kick them in the face with one's heels on the floor of their own house, and to threaten to come back and kill them outright — all of it before witnesses, sir.

If I chose to, I'd bend him double and could have him locked up this minute for what happened yesterday."

"So you don't mean to lodge a complaint, no?"

"Ivan talked me out of it. I'd snap my fingers at Ivan, but I have a little trick of my own up my sleeve..."

And bending toward Alyosha, he went on in a confidential half-whisper:

"If I have him locked up, the scoundrel, she'll hear that I've had him locked up, and she'll run to him at once.

But if she hears today that he beat me, a feeble old man, half to death, then she may well throw him over and come to visit me instead...

That's the kind of natures we're endowed with — bent only on doing the contrary.

I know her through and through!

Well, won't you have a drop of brandy?

Take a little cold coffee, and I'll pour you a quarter-glass into it; it's good, brother, for the flavor."

"No, I don't want any, thank you.

I'll take this roll with me, though, if you'll let me," said Alyosha, and taking a three-kopeck French roll, he put it in the pocket of his cassock. "And you'd do better not to drink brandy either," he advised warily, peering into the old man's face.

"You're right, it does irritate me and gives me no peace.

But only one little glass... I'll just get it from the cupboard..."

He unlocked the "cupboard" with a key, poured out a glass, drank it off, then locked the cupboard again and put the key back in his pocket.

"And that's enough; one glass won't be the death of me."

"There, you've grown kinder already," smiled Alyosha.

"Hm! I love you even without the brandy, but with scoundrels I'm a scoundrel too.

Vanka isn't going to Chermashnya — why is that?

He has to spy: how much I'll give Grushenka if she comes.

They're all scoundrels!

And as for Ivan, I don't acknowledge him at all.

Where did such a fellow come from?

His soul is no kin of ours at all.

And do I really mean to leave him anything?

Why, I shan't even leave a will, let that be known to you.

And Mitka I'll crush like a cockroach.

At night I squash the black cockroaches with my slipper: they go off with a crack when you step on them.

That Mitka of yours will crack too.

Your Mitka, because you love him.