II. Лягавый

But lying at home he had an old silver watch that had long since stopped running.

He snatched it up and carried it off to the Jewish watchmaker, who kept a little stall in the marketplace.

The man gave six roubles for it.

"I never expected even that much!" — cried Mitya, delighted (he was still in a state of rapture), and grabbing his six roubles he ran home.

At home he made up the sum by borrowing three roubles from his landlord and landlady, who gave it to him gladly, even though they were parting with the last of their money — so much did they love him.

Mitya, in his exalted state, disclosed to them then and there that his fate was being decided, and recounted to them — hurrying frightfully, of course — almost his entire "plan," which he had just laid before Samsonov, then Samsonov's decision, his hopes for the future, and so on, and so on.

The landlord and his wife had already been let in on many of his secrets even before this, and for that reason looked on him as ''one of their own'' — not at all a haughty gentleman.

Having thus scraped together nine roubles, Mitya sent for post-horses to take him to the Volovya station.

But in this way, too, a fact got fixed and noted — that "on the eve of a certain event, at midday, Mitya did not have a single copeck, and that to get hold of money he sold his watch and borrowed three roubles from his landlord, and all of it before witnesses."

I set down this fact in advance; later it will become clear why I do so.

Galloping toward the Volovya station, Mitya, even as he glowed with the joyful presentiment that he would at last finish off and untangle "all these affairs," nonetheless trembled with fear as well: what would become of Grushenka now, in his absence?

What if it were this very day that she at last made up her mind to go to Fyodor Pavlovich?

That was why he had set off without telling her, and had ordered his landlord on no account to reveal where he had gone, should anyone come from any quarter asking after him.

"Without fail, without fail I must be back by this evening," — he kept repeating, jolting along in the cart, — "and this Lyagavy, perhaps, I'll have to drag here too… for the carrying-out of this transaction…" — so, his soul sinking within him, Mitya dreamed; but alas, his dreamings were far too little destined to come about according to his "plan."

In the first place, he was delayed, having set out from the Volovya station by a country road.

The country road turned out to be not twelve but eighteen versts.

In the second place, he did not find the priest of Ilyinskoye at home; the man had gone off to a neighboring village.

By the time Mitya had tracked him down there, having set off to that neighboring village on the same horses, already worn out, night had almost fallen.

The priest, a timid and gentle-looking little man, explained to him at once that this Lyagavy, though he had indeed stopped at first with him, was now in Sukhoy Posyolok and was spending the night there in the forester's hut, because he was trading for timber there too.

To Mitya's urgent entreaties to take him to Lyagavy at once and "thereby, so to speak, save him," the priest, though he wavered at first, nevertheless consented to escort him to Sukhoy Posyolok — evidently feeling some curiosity; but, as ill luck would have it, he advised going "on foot," since it was only a verst or so, "with a little to spare."

Mitya, of course, agreed, and strode off with his yard-long strides, so that the poor priest almost had to run after him.

He was a little man, still not old and very cautious.

Mitya at once fell to talking with him too about his plans, hotly and nervously demanding advice about Lyagavy, and he kept talking the whole way.

The priest listened attentively but gave little counsel.

To Mitya's questions he answered evasively: "I don't know, oh, I don't know — how should I know that?" and so forth.

When Mitya began to speak of his quarrels with his father over the inheritance, the priest grew positively frightened, because he stood in some sort of dependent relation to Fyodor Pavlovich.

He inquired, with surprise, however, why Mitya called this trading peasant Gorstkin by the name Lyagavy, and explained obligingly to Mitya that, although the man was indeed Lyagavy, yet he was also not Lyagavy, because he took cruel offense at the name, and that one must without fail call him Gorstkin — "otherwise you'll get nowhere with him, and he won't even listen," — the priest concluded.

Mitya was somewhat and hastily surprised, and explained that it was Samsonov himself who had called him by that name.

Hearing of this circumstance, the priest at once let the conversation drop, though he would have done well had he then explained to Dmitri Fyodorovich his own surmise: that if Samsonov himself had sent him to this little peasant as to "Lyagavy," then might he not have done so for some reason as a joke, and might there not be something amiss here?

But Mitya had no time to dwell "on such trifles."

He hurried on, striding, and only on reaching Sukhoy Posyolok did he realize that they had walked not a verst, nor a verst and a half, but surely three; this vexed him, but he bore it.

They entered the hut.

The forester, an acquaintance of the priest's, lodged in one half of the hut, while in the other, cleaner half, across the entryway, Gorstkin had settled himself.

They went into this cleaner room and lit a tallow candle.

The hut had been heated to a fierce warmth.

On the deal table stood a samovar gone cold, and beside it a tray with cups, an emptied bottle of rum, a not-quite-finished flask of vodka, and the crusts of a wheaten loaf.

The visitor himself lay stretched out on a bench, his crumpled outer coat bunched under his head in place of a pillow, and snored heavily.

Mitya stopped short, at a loss.

"Of course I must wake him: my business is too important, I hurried so, I must get back this very day," — Mitya began to fret; but the priest and the forester stood in silence, offering no opinion.

Mitya went over and set about waking him himself, set about it energetically, but the sleeper would not rouse.

"He's drunk," — Mitya decided, — "but what am I to do, Lord, what am I to do!"

And suddenly, in a frightful impatience, he began tugging at the sleeper by the arms, by the legs, rocking him by the head, lifting him up and sitting him on the bench — and after very long efforts achieved only this much: that the man began to mumble absurdly and, swearing thickly though indistinctly, to curse.

"No, you had better wait a while," — the priest pronounced at last, — "for he is evidently in no state for it."

"He drank all day," — the forester put in.

"Good God!" — Mitya cried out, — "if you only knew how badly I need this, and what despair I am in now!"

"No, you'd better wait till morning," — the priest repeated.

"Till morning? Have mercy, that's impossible!" — And in his despair he very nearly flung himself again at waking the drunkard, but at once gave it up, grasping the utter futility of the effort.

The priest was silent; the sleepy forester looked grim.

"What dreadful tragedies realism arranges for people!" — Mitya brought out in utter despair.

The sweat poured down his face.

Seizing the moment, the priest very reasonably set forth that, even if one did manage to wake the sleeper, he was still, being drunk, incapable of any conversation, "and your business is important, so it would surely be safer to leave it till morning…" Mitya spread his hands and consented.

"I'll stay here, Father, with the candle, and watch for the right moment. He'll wake, and then I'll begin… For the candle I'll pay you," — he turned to the forester, — "for the lodging too; you'll remember Dmitri Karamazov. Only with you, Father, I don't know now what to do: where are you going to lie down?"

"No, I'll be off home, sir. I'll just ride there on his mare," — he pointed at the forester. — "And so good-bye, sir; I wish you the fullest satisfaction."

And so it was settled.

The priest set off on the mare, glad that he had finally gotten away, yet still shaking his head in confusion and pondering: ought he not, betimes tomorrow, to notify his benefactor Fyodor Pavlovich of this curious case, "for, who knows, he might find out, take offense, and cut off his favors."

The forester, scratching himself, went off in silence to his own room, while Mitya sat down on the bench to watch, as he put it, for the moment.

A deep anguish settled, like a heavy fog, upon his soul.

A deep, dreadful anguish!

He sat, he thought, but think anything through he could not.

The candle was burning down, a cricket began to chirp, and in the overheated room it was growing unbearably stifling.

Suddenly there rose before him the garden, the passage behind the garden, the door in his father's house opening mysteriously, and Grushenka slipping in through it…

He jumped up from the bench.

"Tragedy!" — he said, grinding his teeth, and mechanically went up to the sleeper and began to stare at his face.

He was a lean peasant, still not old, with a very long face, light-brown curls, and a long, thin, reddish little beard, in a print shirt and a black waistcoat, from whose pocket peeped the chain of a silver watch.