IV. У Хохлаковых

Although Madame Hohlakov lived for the greater part in another province, where she had an estate, or in Moscow, where she owned a house of her own, she also had her own house here in our little town, one that had come down to her from her fathers and grandfathers.

And indeed the estate she owned in our district was the largest of all three of her estates, yet she had until now come to our province only very rarely.

She ran out to meet Alyosha while he was still in the entrance hall.

"Did you get it, did you get the letter about the new miracle?" she began rapidly, nervously.

"Yes, I got it."

"Have you passed it round, shown it to everyone?

He gave a son back to his mother!"

"He will die today," said Alyosha.

"I heard it, I know, oh, how I long to talk with you!

With you, or with someone, about all of this.

No, with you, with you!

And what a pity that there is no way at all for me to see him!

The whole town is stirred up, everyone is in suspense.

But now... do you know who is sitting with us at this moment? Katerina Ivanovna!"

"Ah, how fortunate!" exclaimed Alyosha. "Then I shall see her here at your house; she told me yesterday that I must come to her without fail today."

"I know everything, everything.

I have heard every detail of what happened at her place yesterday... and about all those horrors with that... creature.

C’est tragique,<ref>It is tragic (French).</ref> and in her place I—I do not know what I would do in her place!

But your brother too, that Dmitri Fyodorovich of yours, what a man—oh God!

Alexei Fyodorovich, I am getting muddled, only imagine: your brother is sitting in there now—that is, not that one, not the dreadful one from yesterday, but the other, Ivan Fyodorovich—he is sitting and talking with her, and theirs is a solemn conversation...

And if only you could believe what is passing between them now—it is dreadful, it is, I tell you, a laceration, it is a dreadful tale that one simply cannot believe: the two of them are destroying themselves no one knows why, they know it themselves and they themselves take pleasure in it.

I was waiting for you!

I was thirsting for you!

The chief thing is, I cannot bear it.

I will tell you everything presently, but now there is something else, and the most important thing of all—ah, why, I had even forgotten that this is the most important thing: tell me, why has Lise had a fit of hysterics?"

"The moment she heard you were coming, she fell straight into hysterics!"

"Maman, it's you who are in hysterics now, not me," a little voice chirped suddenly through a crack in the door—Lise's voice, from the adjoining room.

The crack was a tiny one, and the little voice was strained, exactly the way it sounds when one terribly wants to laugh but is fighting back the laughter with all one's might.

Alyosha noticed the little crack at once, and Lise, no doubt, was peering out at him through it from her chair, but that much he could not make out.

"No wonder, Lise, no wonder... your whims will give me hysterics too. But for all that she really is ill, Alexei Fyodorovich, she was so ill all night, feverish, moaning!

I could hardly wait for morning and for Herzenstube.

He says he can make nothing of it and that we must wait.

This Herzenstube always comes and says he can make nothing of it.

The instant you came up to the house she shrieked and had an attack, and ordered herself carried here, into her old room..."

"Mama, I had no idea at all that he was coming; it wasn't to get away from him that I wanted to move into this room."

"That isn't true, Lise; Yulia ran to tell you that Alexei Fyodorovich was coming—she was standing watch for you."

"My darling little mama, that was terribly unwitty of you.

And if you want to make up for it and say something very clever right now, then tell our newly arrived gracious lord Alexei Fyodorovich, dear mama, that by the mere fact of resolving to come to us today, after yesterday, and in spite of everyone laughing at him, he has already proved that he is no wit at all."

"Lise, you take too many liberties, and I assure you that I shall finally be driven to stern measures."

"Who is laughing at him? I am so glad he has come; I need him, I cannot do without him."

"Oh, Alexei Fyodorovich, I am extraordinarily unhappy!"

"Why, what is the matter with you, mama dear?"

"Ah, these whims of yours, Lise, your inconstancy, your illness, that dreadful night in a fever, this dreadful and everlasting Herzenstube, everlasting above all, everlasting, everlasting, and everlasting!

And then everything, everything... And then, on top of it all, this miracle!

Oh, how it struck me, how it shook me, this miracle, dear Alexei Fyodorovich!

And there is this tragedy now in the drawing room, which I cannot endure, I cannot; I tell you in advance that I cannot.

A comedy, perhaps, rather than a tragedy.

Tell me, will the elder Zosima live until tomorrow, will he live?

Oh my God!

What is happening to me—every minute I close my eyes and see that it is all nonsense, all nonsense."

"I would very much like to ask you," Alyosha suddenly broke in, "to give me some clean rag to bind up my finger.

I have hurt it badly, and it is aching torments now."

Alyosha unwound his bitten finger.

The handkerchief was thickly soaked with blood.

Madame Hohlakov shrieked and screwed her eyes shut.

"Good heavens, what a wound, it is dreadful!"

But Lise, the instant she caught sight of Alyosha's finger through the crack, flung the door wide open with all her might.

"Come in, come in here to me," she cried insistently and imperiously, "and now, no more foolishness!

Oh, Lord, why did you stand there and say nothing all that time?

He might have bled to death, mama!

Where did you do it, how did you do it?

Water first of all, water!

The wound must be washed, simply held in cold water so the pain will stop, and held there, kept there... Quick, quick, water, mama, in a rinsing bowl.

Be quick, then," she finished nervously.

She was in utter terror; Alyosha's wound had shaken her dreadfully.

"Hadn't we better send for Herzenstube?" Madame Hohlakov was about to exclaim.

"Mama, you will be the death of me.

Your Herzenstube will come and say he can make nothing of it!

Water, water!

Mama, for God's sake, go yourself, hurry up Yulia, who has got stuck somewhere out there and can never come quickly!

Be quick, then, mama, or I shall die..."

"Why, it's a mere trifle!" exclaimed Alyosha, alarmed at their alarm.

Yulia came running with the water.

Alyosha lowered his finger into the water.

"Mama, for God's sake, bring lint; lint and that biting, cloudy water for cuts—oh, what is it called!

We have some, we have, we have... Mama, you know yourself where the bottle is, in your bedroom, in the little cupboard on the right; there is a big bottle there, and lint..."

"I'll bring everything at once, Lise, only don't shout and don't fret.

See how firmly Alexei Fyodorovich bears his misfortune.

And wherever did you manage to hurt yourself so dreadfully, Alexei Fyodorovich?"

Madame Hohlakov hurried out.

That was just what Lise had been waiting for.

"First of all, answer the question," she began rapidly to Alyosha, "wherever did you deign to hurt yourself so?

And afterward I shall talk with you about something quite different.

Well!"

Sensing by instinct that for her the time until her mother's return was precious, Alyosha hurriedly—leaving much out and cutting it short, yet exactly and clearly—told her of his puzzling encounter with the schoolboys.

When she had heard him out, Lise threw up her hands:

"Well, how could you, how could you, and in that cassock too, get into a scuffle with little boys!" she cried out angrily, as though she even had some sort of right over him. "Why, after that you are a little boy yourself, the very smallest boy there could possibly be!

All the same, you must find out for me somehow about that nasty little boy and tell me everything, because there is some sort of secret in it.

Now the second thing, but first a question: can you, Alexei Fyodorovich, in spite of the suffering from the pain, talk about utter trifles, and talk sensibly?"

"I can perfectly well, and besides, I no longer feel such pain now."

"That is because your finger is in the water.

It must be changed right now, because it will warm up in an instant.

Yulia, fetch a lump of ice from the cellar this instant, and a fresh rinsing bowl with water.

Now that she has gone, to business: this instant, dear Alexei Fyodorovich, be so good as to give me back my letter, the one I sent you yesterday—this instant, because mama may come in at any moment, and I don't want..."