The Brothers Karamazov 1732 Studios

Russian · Book IV — Lacerations

VII. И на чистом воздухе

And in the Open Air

217 sentences · 449 notes

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  1. 1

    — The air is fresh, sir, while in my halls things really are none too fresh — in every sense of the word.

    Воздухthe airвоздух · noun, nominative, masculine, singularsubject of the sentence
    чистыйfreshчистый · adjective, nominative, masculine, singularpredicate adjective describing Воздух
    сsirс · particledeferential particle attached to чистый
    аwhileа · conjunctionlinks the coordination
    вinв · prepositionpreposition marking хоромах
    хоромахmy hallsхоромы · noun, locative, pluraloblique complement of несвежо
    тоas for thatто · particletopicalizing particle attached to хоромах
    уatу · prepositionpreposition marking меня
    меняmyя · pronoun, genitive, singularpossessor, idiom у меня = 'my'
    иindeedи · particleintensifies впрямь
    впрямьtrulyвпрямь · adverbmodifies несвежо
    несвежоnot freshнесвежо · predicative adverbpredicate of the second clause
    воinв · prepositionpreposition marking смыслах
    всехeveryвесь · determiner, locative, pluraldeterminer of смыслах
    дажеevenдаже · particlemodifies смыслах
    смыслахsenseсмысл · noun, locative, masculine, pluraloblique complement of несвежо
  2. 2

    Let us walk on, sir, at a gentle pace.

  3. 3

    I should very much like to interest you in something, sir.

  4. 4

    — I too have a certain extraordinary matter to put to you… — Alyosha remarked — only I do not know how to begin.

  5. 5

    — How could I fail to see that you have business with me, sir?

  6. 6

    Without some business you would never have looked in on me at all.

  7. 7

    Or did you truly come only to complain about the boy, sir?

  8. 8

    Why, that would be quite incredible, sir.

  9. 9

    And by the way, about the boy, sir: back there I could not explain it all to you, but here and now I will describe that scene for you, sir.

  10. 10

    You see, sir, the wisp of tow was thicker only a week ago — I am speaking of my poor little beard, sir; it was my poor little beard they nicknamed 'the wisp of tow,' the schoolboys chiefly, sir.

  11. 11

    Well then, sir, your brother Dmitri Fyodorovich is dragging me by my poor little beard, hauled me out of the tavern into the square, and just then the schoolboys are coming out of school, and Ilyusha among them.

  12. 12

    The moment he saw me in such a state, sir, he flung himself at me: 'Papa,' he cries, 'papa!'

  13. 13

    He clutches at me, throws his arms around me, tries to pull me free, cries out to my offender: 'Let go, let go, this is my papa, papa, forgive him' — that is the very word he cries: 'Forgive'; and with his little hands he seized hold of him too, and that hand of his, that very hand, he takes and kisses, sir…

  14. 14

    I remember what his dear little face was like in that moment, sir — I have not forgotten it, sir, and I never shall, sir!..

  15. 15

    — I swear it, — Alyosha exclaimed, — my brother will express his repentance to you in the most sincere, the fullest way, even on his knees in that very square… I will make him do it, or else he is no brother of mine!

  16. 16

    — Aha, so it is still only at the planning stage.

  17. 17

    It does not come straight from him, but only from the nobility of your own ardent heart, sir.

  18. 18

    You should have said as much, sir.

  19. 19

    No, in that case let me finish telling you about the loftiest knightly and officerly nobility your brother showed, for he did show it then, sir.

  20. 20

    When he had done dragging me about by the wisp of tow, he let me go free, sir: 'You,' he says, 'are an officer, and I am an officer; if you can find a second, a decent man, then send him along — I will give you satisfaction, scoundrel though you are!'

  21. 21

    That is what he said, sir.

  22. 22

    A truly knightly spirit!

  23. 23

    Ilyusha and I withdrew then, but that whole ancestral, family scene was stamped forever upon Ilyusha's very soul.

  24. 24

    No indeed, what business have we to go on calling ourselves gentlemen, sir.

  25. 25

    And judge for yourself, sir — you deigned to be in my halls just now — what did you see, sir?

  26. 26

    Three women sitting there, sir: one legless and feeble-minded, another legless and hunchbacked, and the third with the use of her legs but altogether too clever, a girl student, sir, forever straining to get back to Petersburg, to seek out the rights of Russian womanhood there on the banks of the Neva.

  27. 27

    Of Ilyusha I say nothing, sir — only nine years old, sir, and alone as a single finger, for if I were to die, what would become of all these dependents of mine? — that is the one thing alone I would ask of you, sir.

  28. 28

    And if that is so, then suppose I were to call him out to a duel — and what if he killed me on the spot — well, what then?

  29. 29

    What would become of all of them then, sir?

  30. 30

    Or worse still: if he did not kill me, but only crippled me — I could not work, and yet the mouth still stays open to be fed, so who would feed it then, my mouth, and who would feed all of them then, sir?

  31. 31

    Or am I to send Ilyusha out begging for alms every day instead of to school?

  32. 32

    So that is what it means for me, sir, to call him out to a duel — it is a foolish word, sir, and nothing more.

  33. 33

    — He will beg your forgiveness, he will bow down at your feet in the middle of the square, — Alyosha cried out again, his eyes alight.

  34. 34

    — I thought of taking him to court, — the staff-captain went on, — but open up our legal code: how much satisfaction shall I get from my offender for a personal insult, sir?

  35. 35

    And then suddenly Agrafena Alexandrovna summons me and shouts: 'Don't you dare even think of it!

  36. 36

    If you take him to court, I will so contrive matters that it will come out publicly before all the world that he beat you for your own swindling, and then they will haul you yourself before the court.'

  37. 37

    And the Lord alone sees from whom that swindling really came, sir, and by whose order I, a petty little cog, was acting in it, sir — was it not by her own direction and Fyodor Pavlovich's?

  38. 38

    'And besides,' she adds, 'I will drive you off forever, and you will earn nothing more from me henceforth.

  39. 39

    I'll tell my merchant too (that is what she calls him, the old man: my merchant), and he will turn you out as well.'

  40. 40

    So I think to myself: if the merchant too turns me out, then what then, from whom shall I earn anything?

  41. 41

    For those two are all that is left to me, since your father Fyodor Pavlovich has not only ceased to trust me, on account of one extraneous matter, sir, but is himself bent, armed with my own promissory notes, on dragging me into court.

  42. 42

    In consequence of all this I have grown meek, sir, and you have seen my innermost recesses, sir.

  43. 43

    And now allow me to ask: did he bite your finger hard just now, Ilyusha did?

  44. 44

    Back in my halls, in front of him, I did not venture to go into that detail.

  45. 45

    — Yes, very hard, and he was very much enraged.

  46. 46

    He was avenging you on me, as a Karamazov — that is clear to me now.

  47. 47

    But if you had seen how he was pelting stones at his schoolfellows!

  48. 48

    It is very dangerous; they could kill him — they are children, foolish, a stone flies and may crack a skull open.

  49. 49

    — And indeed he was hit, sir — not on the head, but on the chest, sir, just above the heart, sir; today the blow of a stone, a bruise, sir — he came home crying, moaning, and now he has fallen ill.

  50. 50

    — And you know, he is the very first to attack them all out there; he grew embittered on your account, and they say that just now he stabbed one boy, Krasotkin, in the side with a penknife…

  51. 51

    — I heard about that too — it is dangerous, sir: this Krasotkin is a local official, there may yet be trouble over it, sir..

  52. 52

    — I would advise you, — Alyosha went on fervently, — not to send him to school at all for a while, until he calms down… and this anger in him passes…

  53. 53

    — Anger, sir! — the staff-captain caught him up — anger indeed, sir.

  54. 54

    In a little creature, and yet a great anger, sir.

  55. 55

    You do not know the whole of it, sir.

  56. 56

    Allow me to set out this tale to you in particular.

  57. 57

    The thing is that after that affair all the schoolboys at school began taunting him with the wisp of tow.

  58. 58

    Children in schools are a merciless lot: singly they are angels of God, but together, and especially in schools, they are very often merciless.

  59. 59

    They began to taunt him, and a noble spirit rose up in Ilyusha.

  60. 60

    An ordinary boy, a weak son, would have given in, would have grown ashamed of his own father, but this one stood up alone against them all for his father.

  61. 61

    For his father and for the truth, sir, for what is right, sir.

  62. 62

    For what he endured then, when he kissed your brother's hands and cried out to him: 'Forgive my dear papa, forgive my dear papa' — that, sir, God alone knows, and I.

  63. 63

    And so it is that our little ones — not yours, that is, but ours, sir, the little ones of despised but noble paupers, sir — come to learn the truth on earth while still only nine years old, sir.

  64. 64

    How should the rich? They never sound such depths in all their lives, while my Ilyushka, in that very minute on the square, sir, as he kissed his hands, in that very minute passed through the whole truth, sir.

  65. 65

    That truth entered into him, sir, and crushed him forever, sir — hotly, and again as if in a kind of frenzy, the staff-captain pronounced this, and as he did so he struck his right fist into his left palm, as though wishing to make plain in the flesh how the 'truth' had crushed his Ilyusha.

  66. 66

    — That very day he lay in a fever at my place, sir, and was delirious all night.

  67. 67

    All that day he spoke little to me, was even quite silent, only I noticed: he watches me, watches me from his corner, and yet keeps leaning toward the window, pretending he is learning his lessons, while I see that it is not lessons that are on his mind.

  68. 68

    The next day I drank, sir, and remember little, sir — sinful man that I am — out of grief, sir.

  69. 69

    My dear wife began to cry too just then, sir — I love my dear wife very much, sir — well, out of grief I tippled away on our last few coins, sir.

  70. 70

    Do not despise me, sir: in Russia the drunken folk among us are the very kindest.

  71. 71

    The kindest people among us are also the most given to drink.

  72. 72

    So there I lie, and I did not much take in about Ilyusha that day, but it was on that very day that the boys made a mock of him at school from the morning on, sir: 'Wisp of tow,' they shout at him, 'they dragged your father out of the tavern by the wisp of tow, and you ran alongside begging forgiveness.'

  73. 73

    On the third day he came home from school again, and I look — there is no face left on him, he had gone pale.

  74. 74

    What is it, I say?

  75. 75

    He is silent.

  76. 76

    Well, there was no talking it over in my halls, or my dear wife and the girls would take part at once — and the girls, what is more, already knew it all, even from that first day.

  77. 77

    Varvara Nikolavna had already begun to grumble: 'Buffoons, clowns, can anything sensible ever come from the lot of you?'

  78. 78

    — 'Just so, I say, Varvara Nikolavna, can anything sensible ever come from us?'

  79. 79

    And with that I got off for the time.

  80. 80

    So toward evening, sir, I took the boy out for a walk.

  81. 81

    And the two of us, you should know, sir, used to go out walking every evening even before that, by the very same route along which we are going with you now, from our own gate to that great big stone yonder, the one that lies there on the road like an orphan by the wattle fence, where the town common begins: a deserted and lovely spot, sir.

  82. 82

    Ilyusha and I are walking, his little hand in mine, as usual; a tiny hand he has, the little fingers thin and cold — it is his chest, you see, that ails him.

  83. 83

    'Papa,' he says, 'papa!' — 'What?' I say to him; and I see his little eyes are flashing.

  84. 84

    'Papa, the way he treated you that time, papa!' — 'What's to be done, Ilyusha,' I say.

  85. 85

    'Don't make peace with him, papa, don't make peace.

  86. 86

    The schoolboys say he gave you ten roubles for it.'

  87. 87

    — 'No, Ilyusha,' I say, 'I will not take money from him now, not for anything.'

  88. 88

    At that he trembled all over, seized my hand in both his little hands, and kisses it again.

  89. 89

    'Papa,' he says, 'papa, call him out to a duel; at school they taunt me that you are a coward and will not call him out to a duel, but will take ten roubles from him instead.'

  90. 90

    — 'A duel, Ilyusha — I cannot call him out to a duel,' I answer, and I lay out for him in brief all that I have just now laid out for you on this score.

  91. 91

    He heard me out.

  92. 92

    'Papa,' he says, 'papa, all the same do not make peace: I will grow up, I will call him out myself and kill him!'

  93. 93

    His little eyes flashing and burning.

  94. 94

    Well, for all that, I am his father, and a word of truth had to be spoken to him.

  95. 95

    'It is a sin,' I say to him, 'to kill, even in a duel.'

  96. 96

    — 'Papa,' he says, 'papa, I will throw him down when I am grown; I will knock the sabre out of his hand with my own sabre, I will rush at him, throw him down, raise my sabre over him, and say to him: I could kill you this instant, but I forgive you — there, take that!'

  97. 97

    You see, you see, sir, what a little drama played itself out in his small head in these two days; day and night he was brooding on this very vengeance with the sabre, and at night, it must be, he was raving of it in his sleep, sir.

  98. 98

    Only he started coming home from school badly beaten — I learned all of this the day before yesterday, and you are right, sir; I will not send him to that school any longer, sir.

  99. 99

    I learn that he goes alone against the whole class, and challenges them all himself; he had grown embittered himself, his heart had taken fire — and then I grew frightened for him.

  100. 100

    Again we go out, again we walk.

  101. 101

    'Papa,' he asks, 'papa, the rich are the strongest of all in the world, aren't they?' — 'Yes, Ilyusha,' I say, 'there is no one in the world stronger than a rich man.'

  102. 102

    — 'Papa,' he says, 'I will grow rich, I will become an officer and rout them all, the Tsar will reward me, I will come back, and then no one will dare…'

  103. 103

    Then he fell silent a while and says — his little lips still quivering as before: 'Papa,' he says, 'what a bad town ours is, papa!'

  104. 104

    — 'Yes,' I say, 'Ilyushechka, our town is not such a very good one.'

  105. 105

    — 'Papa, let us move to another town, to a good one,' he says, 'a town where they know nothing about us.'

  106. 106

    — 'We will move, I say, we will move, Ilyusha — just as soon as I have saved up the money.'

  107. 107

    I was glad of the chance to draw him away from dark thoughts, and we began to dream together of how we would move to another town, buy a little horse of our own and a cart.

  108. 108

    We would seat my dear wife and the sisters, tuck them in, while we ourselves walked alongside; now and then I would lift you up, but I'd walk here beside you, since the little horse must be spared — not everyone can ride — and so off we would set.

  109. 109

    He was delighted with all this, and most of all that there would be a horse of his own and that he himself would ride on it.

  110. 110

    And as is well known, a Russian boy is born already wedded to a horse.

  111. 111

    We chattered on a long while; thank God, I think to myself, I have distracted him, comforted him.

  112. 112

    That was the day before yesterday, in the evening, but yesterday evening it turned out otherwise.

  113. 113

    Again he went off to that school in the morning, and came back gloomy, very gloomy indeed.

  114. 114

    In the evening I took him by the little hand and led him out to walk; he is silent, he does not speak.

  115. 115

    A little wind had got up by then, the sun had darkened, there was a breath of autumn in the air, and dusk was already falling — we walk on, and both of us feel sad.

  116. 116

    'Well, my boy, how are we, I say, going to get ready for our journey, you and I?' — thinking to lead him back to yesterday's talk.

  117. 117

    He is silent.

  118. 118

    Only his little fingers, I feel, trembled in my hand.

  119. 119

    'Ah,' I think, 'this is bad, there is something new.'

  120. 120

    We reached, just as we have now, this very stone; I sat down on this stone, and up in the heavens kites were all let loose, droning and rattling — some thirty kites in sight.

  121. 121

    After all, sir, it's snake season now.

  122. 122

    'Look here, Ilyusha,' I say, 'it's high time we got last year's kite up again.'

  123. 123

    'Let me mend it for you — now where have you hidden it away?'

  124. 124

    My boy says nothing, looks off to the side, stands turned away from me.

  125. 125

    And just then the wind suddenly began to howl, carrying the sand along… All at once he flung himself against me, threw both little arms around my neck, and clutched me tight.

  126. 126

    You know how it is with children — the silent, proud ones who hold their tears back in themselves a long while, and then, when some great grief comes, suddenly burst: it isn't that the tears trickle out, sir, they gush, like little streams.

  127. 127

    And with those warm streams of his he drenched my whole face all at once.

  128. 128

    He sobbed as though in a fit, shook all over, pressed himself to me — I was sitting on a stone — 'Papa,' he cries out, 'papa, dear papa, how he humiliated you!'

  129. 129

    And then I broke into sobs too, sir, and we sat there shaking, locked in each other's arms.

  130. 130

    'Papa,' he says, 'papa!' — 'Ilyusha,' I say to him, 'Ilyushechka!'

  131. 131

    No one saw us then, sir, God alone saw — perhaps He'll set it down on my record, sir.

  132. 132

    Give your brother my thanks, Alexei Fyodorovich.

  133. 133

    No, sir, I will not flog my boy for your satisfaction, sir!

  134. 134

    He finished once again with that same spiteful, buffoonish twist as before.

  135. 135

    Alyosha sensed, all the same, that the man now trusted him, and that in someone else's place this man would not have 'talked' that way to another, nor told him what he had just told him.

  136. 136

    This heartened Alyosha, whose own soul was trembling on the verge of tears.

  137. 137

    "Ah, how I should like to make peace with your boy!" he exclaimed. "If only you could arrange it."

  138. 138

    "Just so, sir," muttered the staff captain.

  139. 139

    "But that's not the point now, not at all the point — listen," Alyosha went on exclaiming, "listen."

  140. 140

    I've come on an errand: that very brother of mine, that Dmitri, also insulted his own betrothed, a girl of the noblest sort — one of whom you have surely heard.

  141. 141

    I have the right to tell you of the insult done to her — indeed I am bound to do it — because, on learning of the wrong done to you, and learning all about your wretched circumstances, she charged me just now… a moment ago… to bring you this assistance from her… but only from her alone, not from Dmitri, who abandoned her too, by no means, and not from me, his brother, and not from anyone else, but from her, from her alone!

  142. 142

    She implores you to accept her help… you have both been wronged by one and the same man…

  143. 143

    And she only remembered you when she had suffered a wrong from him just as great (in the measure of the wrong) as the one you suffered from him!

  144. 144

    It means a sister is coming to a brother's aid..

  145. 145

    She charged me expressly to persuade you to take these two hundred roubles from her, as you would from a sister.

  146. 146

    No one will ever know of it, no unjust gossip can come of it — these two hundred roubles — and, I swear, you must take them, or else… or else it would mean that everyone in this world is bound to be enemies of one another!

  147. 147

    But surely there are brothers in the world too…

  148. 148

    You have a noble soul — you must understand this, you must!

  149. 149

    And Alyosha held out to him two crisp, brand-new rainbow hundred-rouble notes.

  150. 150

    The two of them were standing just then beside the big stone, by the fence, with no one anywhere around.

  151. 151

    The banknotes seemed to make a terrible impression on the staff captain: he gave a start, but at first as if from sheer astonishment — nothing of the kind had ever crossed his mind, and such an outcome he had not anticipated in the least.

  152. 152

    Help from anyone at all, and so substantial besides, he had not dreamed of even in his sleep.

  153. 153

    He took the notes and for nearly a minute could scarcely even answer; something altogether new flickered across his face.

  154. 154

    "This, for me — for me, sir — all this money, two hundred roubles!"

  155. 155

    Good heavens!

  156. 156

    Why, it's been four years since I've seen money like this, Lord!

  157. 157

    And you say it's the sister… and it's true, is it, really true?

  158. 158

    "I swear to you that everything I've told you is the truth!" Alyosha cried out.

  159. 159

    The staff captain blushed.

  160. 160

    "Listen, sir, my dear fellow, listen, sir — if I do take it, then I won't be a scoundrel, will I?"

  161. 161

    In your eyes, Alexei Fyodorovich, I won't be — I won't be a scoundrel, will I?

  162. 162

    No, sir, Alexei Fyodorovich, hear me out, hear me out, sir," he hurried on, every moment touching Alyosha with both hands, "you're urging me to take it on the grounds that 'a sister' is sending it — but inwardly, deep down within yourself — won't you feel contempt for me if I accept, sir, eh?

  163. 163

    "Why no, no!"

  164. 164

    I swear it to you by my salvation, that I won't!

  165. 165

    And no one will ever know — only we: I, you, and she, and one other lady besides, a great friend of hers…

  166. 166

    "What of the lady!"

  167. 167

    Listen, Alexei Fyodorovich, hear me out, sir — for now a moment has come, sir, that I must be heard out, since you cannot even comprehend what these two hundred roubles can mean to me now," the poor man went on, gradually working himself up into a kind of disordered, almost wild rapture.

  168. 168

    He was, as it were, knocked off his bearings, and spoke with extraordinary haste and hurry, as though afraid he would not be allowed to get it all out.

  169. 169

    "Besides the fact that this is honourably come by, from so respected and holy a 'sister,' sir, do you know that I can now have my mama and my Ninochka — my hunchbacked angel, my little daughter — treated by a doctor?"

  170. 170

    Doctor Herzenstube came to see me, out of the goodness of his heart, and examined them both for a whole hour: 'I understand nothing of it,' he says — but all the same, the mineral water they have at the chemist's here (which he prescribed for her) will do her undoubted good, and he also prescribed her medicinal foot baths.

  171. 171

    The mineral water costs thirty kopecks, and she'd have to drink, perhaps, forty jugfuls of it.

  172. 172

    So I just took the prescription and laid it on the shelf under the icons, and there it lies.

  173. 173

    And for Ninochka he prescribed bathing in some sort of solution, in hot baths of that kind, every day, morning and evening — but where were we to contrive such a course of treatment, sir, here, in these mansions of ours, with no servants, no help, no vessels, and no water, sir?

  174. 174

    And Ninochka is racked with rheumatism all over — I haven't told you that yet — at night her whole right side aches, she's in torment, and, would you believe it, the angel of God bears it stoically so as not to disturb us, doesn't groan so as not to wake us.

  175. 175

    We eat whatever comes to hand, whatever can be got, and yet she'll take the very last scrap — the kind you'd only toss to a dog: 'I'm not worth this morsel,' she means to say, 'I'm taking it from you, I sit here a burden on you.'

  176. 176

    That is what her angelic gaze means to convey.

  177. 177

    We wait on her, and to her it's a torment: 'I'm not worth it, I'm not worth it, an unworthy cripple, useless' — and how could she not be worth it, sir, when by her angelic meekness she has won all of us our place with God; without her, without her quiet word, our home would be a hell, sir — she even softened Varya.

  178. 178

    And don't condemn Varvara Nikolavna either, sir — she too is an angel, she too has been wronged.

  179. 179

    She came to us in the summer, and had sixteen roubles with her, earned by giving lessons and put aside for her journey back, so that in September — that is, just about now — she could return on it to Petersburg.

  180. 180

    But we took her bit of money and spent it, and now she's nothing to go back on, that's how it is, sir.

  181. 181

    And she can't go back anyway, because she slaves for us like a convict — for we've harnessed and saddled her like a nag: she waits on us all, mends, washes, sweeps the floor, puts mama to bed — and mama is capricious, sir, and mama is tearful, sir, and mama is mad, sir!..

  182. 182

    And so now, with these two hundred roubles, I can hire a servant, sir — do you understand, Alexei Fyodorovich — I can undertake the treatment of these dear creatures, sir, I can send the student off to Petersburg, sir, buy beef, sir, set up a new diet, sir.

  183. 183

    Lord, why, it's a dream!

  184. 184

    Alyosha was terribly glad that he had brought so much happiness, and that the poor man had consented to be made happy.

  185. 185

    "Wait, Alexei Fyodorovich, wait," the staff captain broke in, seizing all at once on a new dream that had suddenly presented itself to him, and rattling on again in a frenzied patter, "why, do you know that Ilyushka and I may now, perhaps, really make a dream come true: we'll buy a little horse and a covered cart, and a black little horse at that — he insisted it absolutely had to be black — and we'll set off, just as we were planning the day before yesterday."

  186. 186

    I have an acquaintance, a lawyer, in K—— province, sir, a friend from childhood, sir — word was passed to me through a trustworthy man that if I came, he'd supposedly give me a clerk's post in his office, sir; well, who knows, perhaps he really will.

  187. 187

    So we'd seat mama, and seat Ninochka, set Ilyushechka to drive, and I'd go on foot, on foot beside them, and carry the whole lot along, sir.

  188. 188

    Lord, if I could only collect one lost debt of mine here, then maybe there'd even be enough for that, sir!

  189. 189

    "There will be, there will be!" exclaimed Alyosha. "Katerina Ivanovna will send you more, as much as you like, and you know, I have money too — take however much you need, as from a brother, as from a friend, you'll pay it back later… (You'll grow rich, you'll grow rich!)"

  190. 190

    And you know, you could never even think of anything better than this move to another province!

  191. 191

    In it lies your salvation, and above all your boy's — and you know, the sooner the better, before winter, before the cold, and you'd write to us from there, and we'd remain brothers… No, this is no dream!

  192. 192

    Alyosha was on the point of embracing him, so pleased was he.

  193. 193

    But, glancing at him, he suddenly stopped short: the man stood there, his neck craned forward, his lips thrust out, his face frenzied and gone pale, whispering something with his lips as if trying to bring out some word; there was no sound, yet he kept whispering with his lips — it was somehow strange.

  194. 194

    "What's the matter with you!" Alyosha gave a start, for some reason, all at once.

  195. 195

    "Alexei Fyodorovich… I… you…" the staff captain mumbled and faltered, staring at him fixedly, strangely and wildly, with the look of a man resolved to fling himself off a cliff, and at the same time as if smiling with his lips, "I, sir… you, sir… How about it — shall I show you a little trick right now, sir!" he whispered suddenly in a rapid, firm whisper, his speech no longer faltering.

  196. 196

    "What little trick?"

  197. 197

    "A little trick, a hocus-pocus of a kind," the staff captain kept whispering; his mouth twisted to the left, his left eye narrowed, and, without taking his eyes off Alyosha, he kept staring at him as though riveted to him.

  198. 198

    "But what's wrong with you, what trick?" the other cried out, now thoroughly alarmed.

  199. 199

    "Here's what kind — look!" the staff captain shrieked suddenly.

  200. 200

    And showing him both rainbow notes, which throughout the whole conversation he had held together by one corner between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand, he suddenly seized them with a kind of fury, crumpled them, and gripped them tight in the fist of his right hand.

  201. 201

    "You saw, sir, you saw!" he shrieked at Alyosha, pale and frenzied, and suddenly, raising his fist aloft, he hurled both crumpled notes down onto the sand with all his might — "you saw, sir?" he shrieked again, pointing at them with his finger, "well then, there it is, sir!.."

  202. 202

    And suddenly, lifting his right foot, he set to trampling them under his heel with savage rage, crying out and gasping for breath with each stamp of his foot.

  203. 203

    "There's your money, sir! There's your money, sir! There's your money, sir! There's your money, sir!"

  204. 204

    Suddenly he sprang back and drew himself up straight before Alyosha.

  205. 205

    His whole bearing expressed an inexpressible pride.

  206. 206

    "Report to those who sent you that the bath-rag does not sell his honour, sir!" he cried out, flinging his arm up into the air.

  207. 207

    Then he turned sharply and rushed off at a run; but he had not run five paces when, turning right round again, he suddenly gave Alyosha a wave of the hand.

  208. 208

    And again, before he had run five paces, he turned back this one last time, his face now without the contorted laugh upon it but, on the contrary, all of it shaking with tears.

  209. 209

    In a weeping, faltering, choking patter he cried out:

  210. 210

    "And what would I have told my boy, if I'd taken your money for our disgrace?" — and, having said this, he rushed off at a run, this time without turning back at all.

  211. 211

    Alyosha gazed after him with inexpressible sorrow.

  212. 212

    Oh, he understood that the man had not himself known, until the very last instant, that he would crumple and fling away the notes.

  213. 213

    The one who had fled never once looked back, and Alyosha knew he would not look back.

  214. 214

    He had no wish to pursue him or call after him — he knew why.

  215. 215

    When the man had vanished from sight, Alyosha picked up both notes.

  216. 216

    They were only badly crumpled, flattened, and pressed into the sand, but quite intact, and even crackled like new ones as Alyosha unfolded and smoothed them out.

  217. 217

    Having smoothed them, he folded them up, slipped them into his pocket, and went off to Katerina Ivanovna to report on the success of her errand.

The particulars

The text
Братья Карамазовы, Fyodor Dostoevsky. Book IV — Lacerations.
Translation
Public-domain Russian (Dostoevsky, d. 1881). Translation © 2026 1732 Studios.
Words
Every word of the text, by letter.
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Two whoopie pies and a pine. An inside joke.