The Brothers Karamazov 1732 Studios

Russian · Book VIII — Mitya

VII. Прежний и бесспорный

The First and Rightful Lover

294 sentences · 572 notes

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  1. 1

    With his quick, long strides Mitya came right up to the table.

    МитяMityaМитя · proper noun, nominative, masculine, singularsubject of подступил
    скорымиquickскорый · adjective, instrumental, masculine, pluralmodifies шагами
    иandи · conjunctionlinks the coordination
    длиннымиlongдлинный · adjective, instrumental, masculine, pluralcoordinated with скорыми
    своимиhisсвой · determiner, instrumental, masculine, pluraldeterminer of шагами
    шагамиstridesшаг · noun, instrumental, masculine, pluraloblique complement of подступил
    подступилcame upподступить · verb, past, indicative, active, singular, perfectivemain verb of the sentence
    вплотьright upвплоть · adverbpart of the phrase вплоть к (right up to)

    вплоть к is a fixed phrase meaning 'right up to.'

    кtoк · prepositionpreposition marking столу
    столуthe tableстол · noun, dative, masculine, singularoblique complement of подступил
  2. 2

    "Gentlemen," he began loudly, almost shouting, yet stammering on every word, "I... I mean nothing by it! Don't be afraid," he exclaimed, "I really mean nothing, nothing at all" — and he suddenly turned to Grushenka, who had leaned aside in her chair toward Kalganov and was clutching his arm tightly. "I... I'm here too. I'll stay till morning. Gentlemen, may a passing traveler... may I stay with you till morning? Only till morning, this one last time, in this very room?"

  3. 3

    This last he finished by turning to address the plump little man sitting on the sofa with a pipe.

  4. 4

    That one gravely took the pipe from his lips and pronounced sternly:

  5. 5

    "Panie, we are here privately. There are other rooms to be had."

  6. 6

    "Why, is that you, Dmitri Fyodorovich? What's all this?" Kalganov suddenly spoke up. "Sit down with us, hello!"

  7. 7

    "Hello, my dear man... my precious one! I always respected you..." Mitya answered joyfully and impetuously, at once thrusting his hand to him across the table.

  8. 8

    "Ow, what a grip you've got! You've quite crushed my fingers," Kalganov laughed.

  9. 9

    "That's how he always squeezes, always like that!" Grushenka answered cheerfully, still smiling timidly, seeming all at once to have satisfied herself from Mitya's look that he would not make a scene, yet peering at him with dreadful curiosity and lingering unease.

  10. 10

    There was something in him that struck her enormously, and she had hardly expected that at such a moment he would come in and speak in just this way.

  11. 11

    "How d'you do, sir," came the sugary greeting from the left as well, from the landowner Maximov.

  12. 12

    Mitya rushed at him too:

  13. 13

    "Hello, you're here too — how glad I am that you're here as well! Gentlemen, gentlemen, I..." He turned again to the pan with the pipe, evidently taking him for the chief person here. "I came flying... I wanted to spend my last day and my last hour in this room, in this very room... where I too adored... my queen!.. Forgive me, panie!" he cried frantically. "I came flying and swore an oath... Oh, don't be afraid, it's my last night! Let us drink, panie, to peace between us! They'll bring the wine directly... I've brought this, look..." For some reason he suddenly pulled out his bundle of banknotes. "Allow me, panie! I want music, thunder, an uproar, everything as before... But a worm, a useless worm, will crawl over the earth and be gone! On this last night of mine I'll commemorate my day of joy!.."

  14. 14

    He was almost out of breath; he had so very much he wanted to say, but only these strange exclamations came tumbling out.

  15. 15

    The pan looked at him without stirring, at his bundle of banknotes, looked at Grushenka, and was plainly at a loss.

  16. 16

    "If my krulewa will permit it..." he began.

  17. 17

    "What's this 'krulewa' — do you mean 'queen,' or what?" Grushenka suddenly broke in. "It makes me laugh, the way you all talk. Sit down, Mitya, and what is it you're going on about? Don't frighten anyone, please. You won't frighten us, will you? If you won't, then I'm glad of you..."

  18. 18

    "Me — me frighten anyone?" Mitya suddenly cried out, flinging up his hands. "Oh, pass me by, walk on past, I won't get in your way!.." And suddenly, quite unexpectedly to everyone and, of course, to himself most of all, he threw himself onto a chair and dissolved into tears, turning his head to the opposite wall and gripping the back of the chair tightly with his arms, as though he were embracing it.

  19. 19

    "Now, now, what a fellow you are!" Grushenka exclaimed reproachfully. "This is just how he used to come to me — he'd start talking all of a sudden and I'd understand nothing. And once he cried just like this, and now here's a second time — for shame! What is it you're crying about? As if there were anything to cry about!" she added, suddenly enigmatic, leaning with a kind of irritation on her little phrase.

  20. 20

    "I... I'm not crying... Well, hello!" He whirled around on the chair in an instant and suddenly laughed, but not with his usual wooden, abrupt laugh — with some inaudible, drawn-out, nervous, shuddering laughter.

  21. 21

    "There, there it is again... Come, cheer up, cheer up!" Grushenka coaxed him. "I'm very glad you've come, very glad, Mitya, do you hear me, that I'm very glad? I want him to sit here with us," she announced imperiously, as if addressing them all, though her words were plainly aimed at the man sitting on the sofa. "I want it, I want it! And if he leaves, then I'll leave too, so there!" she added, her eyes suddenly blazing.

  22. 22

    "Whatever my queen pleases — that is the law!" pronounced the pan, gallantly kissing Grushenka's little hand. "I beg the pan to join our company!" he said amiably, turning to Mitya. Mitya started up again, with the evident intention of bursting into another tirade, but something else came out.

  23. 23

    "Let us drink, panie!" he broke off suddenly, instead of making a speech. Everyone laughed.

  24. 24

    "Lord! And I thought he wanted to start talking again," Grushenka exclaimed nervously. "Listen, Mitya," she added insistently, "don't jump up like that anymore — but it's splendid that you've brought champagne. I'll drink some myself; I can't bear the fruit liqueurs. But best of all is that you've come yourself, or it was deadly dull here... So have you come to make a spree of it again, then? Put that money back in your pocket! Wherever did you get so much?"

  25. 25

    Mitya, who still had the crumpled banknotes in his hand — much noticed by everyone, and especially by the pans — quickly and sheepishly stuffed them into his pocket.

  26. 26

    He blushed.

  27. 27

    At that very moment the landlord brought in an uncorked bottle of champagne on a tray, with glasses.

  28. 28

    Mitya seized the bottle, but was so flustered that he forgot what to do with it.

  29. 29

    Kalganov took it from him and poured out the wine on his behalf.

  30. 30

    "More, another bottle!" Mitya shouted to the landlord, and, forgetting to clink glasses with the pan whom he had so solemnly invited to drink to peace with him, he suddenly drained his whole glass alone, without waiting for anyone.

  31. 31

    His whole face suddenly changed.

  32. 32

    In place of the solemn and tragic expression with which he had come in, something almost childlike appeared in him.

  33. 33

    He suddenly seemed wholly humbled and subdued.

  34. 34

    He looked at them all timidly and joyfully, giggling often and nervously, with the grateful air of a guilty little dog that has been petted and let back in again.

  35. 35

    It was as if he had forgotten everything and was gazing round at them all with delight, with a childlike smile.

  36. 36

    At Grushenka he gazed, laughing without pause, and he drew his chair right up against her armchair.

  37. 37

    Little by little he made out the two pans as well, though he had as yet given little thought to them.

  38. 38

    The pan on the sofa impressed him by his bearing, by his Polish accent, and above all by his pipe.

  39. 39

    "Well, what of it — and a good thing, too, that he smokes a pipe," Mitya contemplated.

  40. 40

    The pan's somewhat flabby, nearly forty-year-old face, with its very small nose, beneath which could be seen two exceedingly thin, sharp little mustaches, waxed and impudent, raised not the slightest question in Mitya either, for now.

  41. 41

    Even the pan's wretched little wig, made in Siberia, with its temple-locks combed absurdly forward, did not particularly strike Mitya: "If he wears a wig, then it must be the thing to do," he went on contemplating blissfully.

  42. 42

    The other pan, who sat by the wall, younger than the pan on the sofa, who surveyed the whole company with insolent bravado and listened to the general conversation with silent contempt — he too struck Mitya only by his very great height, dreadfully out of proportion with the pan sitting on the sofa.

  43. 43

    "If he stood up, he'd be eleven vershoks," flashed through Mitya's head.

  44. 44

    It flashed across him too that this tall pan was probably the friend and henchman of the pan on the sofa, a sort of "bodyguard" to him, and that the little pan with the pipe was, of course, the one who commanded the tall one.

  45. 45

    But all this, too, struck Mitya as terribly fine and beyond all dispute.

  46. 46

    In the little dog every trace of rivalry had died away.

  47. 47

    Of Grushenka and the enigmatic tone of several of her phrases he understood nothing as yet; he understood only, his whole heart shaking, that she was kind to him, that she had "forgiven" him and seated him at her side.

  48. 48

    He was beside himself with rapture when he saw her take a sip of wine from her glass.

  49. 49

    The silence of the company suddenly struck him, however, and he began to run his eyes over them all expectantly: "What are we sitting about for, though — why don't you start something, gentlemen?" his grinning gaze seemed to say.

  50. 50

    "He keeps telling tall tales, and we've all been laughing," Kalganov suddenly began, as if guessing his thought, and pointing at Maximov.

  51. 51

    Mitya stared eagerly at Kalganov and then at once at Maximov.

  52. 52

    "Tall tales?" He burst out with his short, wooden laugh, instantly delighted by something. "Ha-ha!"

  53. 53

    "Yes. Imagine, he insists that in the twenties our whole cavalry supposedly married Polish women; but that's dreadful nonsense, isn't it?"

  54. 54

    "Polish women?" Mitya caught it up again, now in downright rapture.

  55. 55

    Kalganov understood very well the relations between Mitya and Grushenka, and he guessed about the pan too, but none of it interested him much — perhaps did not interest him at all — for what interested him most of all was Maximov.

  56. 56

    He had come here with Maximov by chance, and he had met the pans here at the inn for the first time in his life.

  57. 57

    Grushenka he had known before, and had even once been to see her with someone; on that occasion she had not taken to him.

  58. 58

    But here she looked at him very kindly; before Mitya's arrival she had even been making much of him, but he somehow remained unmoved.

  59. 59

    He was a young man, no more than twenty, foppishly dressed, with a very sweet, fair little face and beautiful thick light-brown hair.

  60. 60

    But in that fair little face were lovely pale-blue eyes, with an intelligent and at times even profound expression, beyond his years, even though the young man sometimes spoke and looked exactly like a child and was not in the least embarrassed by it, even being aware of it himself.

  61. 61

    On the whole he was very singular, even capricious, though always gentle.

  62. 62

    Sometimes there flickered in the expression of his face something fixed and stubborn: he would look at you, listen, and yet seem all the while to be obstinately dreaming of something of his own.

  63. 63

    Now he would turn listless and lazy, now he would suddenly grow agitated, sometimes, it appeared, from the most trifling cause.

  64. 64

    "Imagine, I've been dragging him about with me for four days now," he went on, drawing his words out a little, lazily, but without any swagger, quite naturally. "Do you remember, ever since your brother shoved him out of the carriage that time and he went flying? He interested me very much by that, then, and I took him off to the country, but now he tells nothing but tall tales, so that I'm ashamed to be with him. I'm taking him back..."

  65. 65

    "The pan never saw a Polish lady and says what could not be," remarked the pan with the pipe to Maximov.

  66. 66

    The pan with the pipe spoke Russian tolerably well — at any rate much better than he pretended to.

  67. 67

    Russian words, if he did use them, he mangled in the Polish fashion.

  68. 68

    "Why, I myself was married to a Polish lady, sir," Maximov tittered in reply.

  69. 69

    "Well, did you serve in the cavalry, then? It was the cavalry you were talking about. So were you a cavalryman?" Kalganov broke in at once.

  70. 70

    "Yes, of course — was he a cavalryman? Ha-ha!" cried Mitya, who was listening greedily and quickly shifting his questioning gaze to each person who spoke, as though God knows what he expected to hear from each of them.

  71. 71

    "No, sir — you see, sir," Maximov turned to him, "what I mean, sir, is that those little panienki over there... the pretty ones, sir... once they dance a mazurka with one of our lancers... once she's danced the mazurka through with him, she hops straight up onto his knees like a little kitten, sir... a fair little thing, sir... and the pan-father and the pani-mother look on and allow it... they allow it, sir... and the next day the lancer goes and offers his hand... there it is, sir... offers his hand, hee-hee!" Maximov tittered as he finished.

  72. 72

    "The pan is a scoundrel!" the tall pan on the chair suddenly muttered, and crossed one leg over the other.

  73. 73

    All that caught Mitya's eye was his enormous greased boot with its thick, dirty sole.

  74. 74

    And on the whole both pans were dressed rather greasily.

  75. 75

    "There, so he's a scoundrel! What's he abusing him for?" Grushenka suddenly grew angry.

  76. 76

    "Pani Agrippina, the pan saw peasant girls in the Polish land, not well-born ladies," the pan with the pipe remarked to Grushenka.

  77. 77

    "You can count on that!" the tall pan on the chair cut in scornfully.

  78. 78

    "What next! Let him talk! When people are talking, why interfere? They're good company," Grushenka snapped.

  79. 79

    "I am not interfering, pani," the pan in the wig observed pointedly, with a lingering look at Grushenka, and, falling gravely silent, he began once more to suck at his pipe.

  80. 80

    "No, no, the pan has just told the truth," Kalganov flared up again, as though God knows what were at stake. "After all, he's never been to Poland — so how can he talk about Poland? You weren't married in Poland, were you, now?"

  81. 81

    "No, sir, in the Smolensk province, sir. Only her hussar had carried her off even before that, sir — my future wife, that is, sir — along with the pani-mother, and an aunt, and another female relation with a grown son; that was straight from Poland itself, from Poland itself... and he gave her up to me. He was one of our lieutenants, a very fine young man. At first he meant to marry her himself, but then he didn't, because she turned out to be lame..."

  82. 82

    "So you married a lame woman?" exclaimed Kalganov.

  83. 83

    "A lame one, sir. They both deceived me a little at the time and kept it hidden. I thought she was skipping... she kept skipping along, and I thought it was out of high spirits..."

  84. 84

    "Out of joy at marrying you?" Kalganov cried in a sort of childishly ringing voice.

  85. 85

    "Yes, sir, out of joy, sir. But it turned out to be from quite another cause, sir. Afterward, when we'd been married, she confessed to me that very evening, after the ceremony, and asked my pardon very feelingly: as a girl, she said, she'd once jumped over a puddle and so injured her little leg, hee-hee!"

  86. 86

    Kalganov fairly dissolved into the most childlike laughter and almost fell over onto the sofa.

  87. 87

    Grushenka laughed too.

  88. 88

    As for Mitya, he was at the height of bliss.

  89. 89

    "You know, you know, now he's telling the truth, now he isn't lying!" Kalganov exclaimed, turning to Mitya. "And you know, he's been married twice — it's his first wife he's talking about — but his second wife, you know, ran off and is alive to this day. Did you know that?"

  90. 90

    "Is that so?" Mitya turned quickly to Maximov, his face expressing extraordinary astonishment.

  91. 91

    "Yes, sir, she ran off, sir — I had that unpleasantness," Maximov confirmed modestly. "With a certain monsieur, sir. And the main thing was, she first of all had my whole little estate signed over to herself alone, in advance. You, she says, are an educated man, you'll find yourself a crust well enough. And with that she packed me off. A worthy bishop once remarked to me: one of your wives was lame, and the other was a bit too light on her feet, hee-hee!"

  92. 92

    "Listen, listen!" Kalganov fairly boiled over. "Even if he is lying — and he often lies — he lies solely to give everyone pleasure: now, that isn't base, is it, isn't base? You know, I'm fond of him sometimes. He's very base, but he's base in a natural way, eh? What do you think? Another man plays the rogue for some reason, to get some advantage out of it, but he does it simply, out of his very nature... Imagine, for instance, he claims (he argued about it the whole way yesterday) that Gogol wrote about him in 'Dead Souls.' Do you remember, there's a landowner Maximov in it whom Nozdryov thrashed and was put on trial 'for inflicting personal injury with birch-rods upon the landowner Maximov while drunk' — you remember? Well, then, just imagine — he claims it was he, and that it was he who got the thrashing! Now, can that be? Chichikov did his traveling, at the very latest, in the twenties, at the beginning, so the years don't fit at all. He couldn't have been thrashed then. He couldn't have been, could he, could he?"

  93. 93

    It was hard to imagine why Kalganov was getting so worked up, but worked up he was, and sincerely.

  94. 94

    Mitya entered into his interests wholeheartedly.

  95. 95

    "Well, but suppose they did thrash him!" he cried, roaring with laughter.

  96. 96

    "It wasn't exactly that they thrashed me, sir, but something of the sort," Maximov suddenly put in.

  97. 97

    "How do you mean? Either they thrashed you or they didn't?"

  98. 98

    "Ktura godzina, panie? (what time is it?)" the pan with the pipe asked the tall pan on the chair, with a bored air.

  99. 99

    The other shrugged his shoulders in reply: neither of them had a watch.

  100. 100

    "Why shouldn't they talk? Let others talk too. If you're bored, that's no reason others shouldn't speak," Grushenka flared up again, plainly picking a quarrel on purpose.

  101. 101

    Something seemed to dawn on Mitya, as if for the first time.

  102. 102

    This time the pan answered with evident irritation:

  103. 103

    "Pani, I say nothing against it, I said nothing. (I am not contradicting, I said nothing.)"

  104. 104

    "Well, all right, then — and you, go on with your story," Grushenka cried to Maximov. "Why have you all fallen silent?"

  105. 105

    "Why, there's nothing to tell, sir, since it's all nonsense," Maximov took it up at once with evident pleasure, simpering a little, "and besides, in Gogol it's all only in an allegorical form, since he made all the surnames allegorical: Nozdryov wasn't Nozdryov at all, but Nosov, and Kuvshinnikov — well, that's not even alike, since he was Shkvornyov. But Fenardi really was Fenardi, only not an Italian, but a Russian, Petrov, sir, and Mademoiselle Fenardi was a pretty thing, sir, with pretty little legs in tights, sir, and a short little spangled skirt, and she was the one who spun round — only not for four hours, but altogether just four little minutes, sir... and she enchanted everyone..."

  106. 106

    "But what were you thrashed for — what were you thrashed for?" Kalganov kept wailing.

  107. 107

    "On account of Piron, sir," answered Maximov.

  108. 108

    "On account of what Piron?" cried Mitya.

  109. 109

    "On account of the famous French writer, Piron, sir. We were all drinking wine then, in a large party, at a tavern, at that very fair. They invited me, and first of all I began reciting epigrams: 'Is that you, Boileau — what a comical getup.' And Boileau answers that he's getting ready for a masquerade — that is, for the bathhouse, sir, hee-hee — and they took it as aimed at themselves. So I quickly recited another, a very well-known one, biting, sir, familiar to all educated people:

  110. 110

    You're Sappho, I'm Phaon — I'll not dispute that part, / But here is, to my sorrow, the trouble in your heart: / The way down to the sea you cannot chart.

  111. 111

    They took even greater offense and began abusing me indecently for it, and just then, to my own misfortune, in order to set things right, I went and told a very erudite anecdote about Piron — how he wasn't admitted to the French Academy, and how, to avenge himself, he composed his own epitaph for his gravestone:

  112. 112

    Ci-gît Piron qui ne fut rien / Pas même académicien.

  113. 113

    And they up and thrashed me.

  114. 114

    "But what for, what for?"

  115. 115

    "For my education. There are plenty of reasons people may thrash a man for," Maximov concluded meekly and sententiously.

  116. 116

    "Eh, enough, this is all vile, I don't want to listen — I thought it would be merry," Grushenka suddenly broke in. Mitya started up and at once stopped laughing.

  117. 117

    The tall pan rose from his seat and, with the haughty air of a man bored in company not his own, began pacing the room from corner to corner, his hands clasped behind his back.

  118. 118

    "Look at him, off pacing about!" Grushenka eyed him scornfully.

  119. 119

    Mitya grew uneasy; besides, he noticed that the pan on the sofa was glancing at him with an irritated look.

  120. 120

    "Pan!" Mitya cried, "let us drink, panie! And with the other pan too: let us drink, panowie!" In an instant he drew three glasses together and poured the champagne into them.

  121. 121

    "To Poland, panowie, I drink to your Poland, to the Polish land!" cried Mitya.

  122. 122

    "Bardzo mi to miło, panie, wypijem (this is very pleasant to me, sir, let us drink)," the Pole on the sofa pronounced gravely and graciously, and took up his glass.

  123. 123

    "And the other gentleman, what's his name, hey, jaśnie wielmożny, take a glass!" Mitya bustled.

  124. 124

    "Pan Wróblewski," the Pole on the sofa prompted.

  125. 125

    Pan Wróblewski, swaying as he came, approached the table and took his glass standing.

  126. 126

    "To Poland, panowie, hurrah!" Mitya shouted, raising his glass.

  127. 127

    All three drank.

  128. 128

    Mitya seized the bottle and at once poured out three more glasses.

  129. 129

    "Now to Russia, panowie, and let us be brothers!"

  130. 130

    "Pour for us too," said Grushenka, "I want to drink to Russia as well."

  131. 131

    "And so do I," said Kalganov.

  132. 132

    "Why, and I would too, sir... to little mother Russia, the dear old granny," Maksimov tittered.

  133. 133

    "Everyone, everyone!" Mitya exclaimed. "Landlord, more bottles!"

  134. 134

    They brought in all three remaining bottles of those Mitya had carried with him.

  135. 135

    Mitya poured them out.

  136. 136

    "To Russia, hurrah!" he proclaimed once more.

  137. 137

    Everyone except the Poles drank, and Grushenka tossed off her whole glass at a single draught.

  138. 138

    The Poles, however, did not so much as touch theirs.

  139. 139

    "What's the matter with you, panowie?" cried Mitya. "So that's how it is with you?"

  140. 140

    Pan Wróblewski took up his glass, raised it, and in a booming voice declared:

  141. 141

    "To Russia within her borders before the year seventeen seventy-two!"

  142. 142

    "Oto bardzo pięknie! (Now that's good!)" cried the other Pole, and the two of them drained their glasses at one go.

  143. 143

    "What fools you are, panowie!" burst suddenly from Mitya.

  144. 144

    "Pa-nie!!" the two Poles shouted threateningly, bristling at Mitya like a pair of fighting cocks.

  145. 145

    Pan Wróblewski in particular boiled over.

  146. 146

    "Ale nie można nie mieć słabości do swego kraju?" he proclaimed. (Surely a man may love his own country?)

  147. 147

    "Be quiet! No quarreling! I won't have any quarrels!" Grushenka cried imperiously, and stamped her little foot on the floor.

  148. 148

    Her face was flushed, her eyes flashing.

  149. 149

    The glass she had just drunk was telling on her.

  150. 150

    Mitya was terribly frightened.

  151. 151

    "Panowie, forgive me! It's my fault, I won't do it again. Wróblewski, Pan Wróblewski, I won't do it again!.."

  152. 152

    "Oh do hold your tongue, you at least, sit down, you silly man!" Grushenka snapped at him with angry vexation.

  153. 153

    They all sat down, all fell silent, all looked at one another.

  154. 154

    "Gentlemen, I'm the cause of it all!" Mitya started up again, understanding nothing of Grushenka's outburst. "Well, why are we just sitting here? Well, what shall we do... to make it gay again, gay once more?"

  155. 155

    "Ah, it really is dreadfully dull," Kalganov drawled lazily.

  156. 156

    "We might have a little game of faro, sir, like before..." Maksimov suddenly giggled.

  157. 157

    "Faro? Splendid!" Mitya caught him up. "If only the panowie..."

  158. 158

    "Późno, panie!" the Pole on the sofa responded, as if reluctantly...

  159. 159

    "That's true," Pan Wróblewski chimed in too.

  160. 160

    "Późno? What does that mean, późno?" Grushenka asked.

  161. 161

    "It means late, pani, late, the hour is late," the Pole on the sofa explained.

  162. 162

    "Everything's late with them, everything's not allowed with them!" Grushenka almost shrieked in vexation. "They sit there dull themselves, so everyone else has to be dull too. Before you came, Mitya, they kept silent just like this and put on airs at me..."

  163. 163

    "My goddess!" cried the Pole on the sofa, "co mówisz, to się stanie. Widzę niełaskę, i jestem smutny. (I see your displeasure, and so I am sad.) Jestem gotów (I am ready), panie," he finished, turning to Mitya.

  164. 164

    "Begin, panie!" Mitya caught him up, snatching his banknotes out of his pocket and laying two hundred-rouble notes from among them on the table.

  165. 165

    "I want to lose a lot to you, pan. Take the cards, hold the bank!"

  166. 166

    "The cards must come from the landlord, panie," the little Pole said insistently and earnestly.

  167. 167

    "To najlepszy sposób (that's the best way)," Pan Wróblewski chimed in.

  168. 168

    "From the landlord? Fine, I understand, let it be from the landlord, that's a good idea of yours, panowie! Cards!" Mitya commanded the landlord.

  169. 169

    The landlord brought an unopened pack of cards and announced to Mitya that the girls were already gathering, that the Jews with their cimbalom would probably arrive soon too, but that the troika with the provisions had not yet managed to get there.

  170. 170

    Mitya jumped up from the table and ran into the next room to give his orders at once.

  171. 171

    But only three girls had come in all, and Marya was not there yet either.

  172. 172

    And indeed he himself did not know what orders to give or why he had run out: he merely told them to fetch some treats from the chest — fruit drops and toffees — and to share them out among the girls.

  173. 173

    "And vodka for Andrei, vodka for Andrei!" he ordered hurriedly. "I've offended Andrei!"

  174. 174

    Just then Maksimov, who had run out after him, suddenly touched him on the shoulder.

  175. 175

    "Give me five roubles," he whispered to Mitya, "I'd like to take a turn at faro too, hee-hee!"

  176. 176

    "Wonderful, splendid! Take ten, here!" He pulled all his banknotes out of his pocket again and found ten roubles. "And if you lose, come again, come again..."

  177. 177

    "Very good, sir," Maksimov whispered joyfully, and ran back into the hall.

  178. 178

    Mitya returned at once too, and apologized for having kept them waiting.

  179. 179

    The Poles had already sat down and broken open the pack.

  180. 180

    They were looking far more cordial now, almost affable.

  181. 181

    The Pole on the sofa lit a fresh pipe and prepared to deal; a certain solemnity even showed itself on his face.

  182. 182

    "To your places, panowie!" Pan Wróblewski proclaimed.

  183. 183

    "No, I shan't play anymore," Kalganov responded, "I already lost fifty roubles to them earlier."

  184. 184

    "Pan was unlucky, pan may be lucky again," the Pole on the sofa remarked in his direction.

  185. 185

    "How much is in the bank? Will it cover? " Mitya was getting heated.

  186. 186

    "Słucham, panie, perhaps a hundred, perhaps two hundred, however much you care to stake."

  187. 187

    "A million!" Mitya burst out laughing.

  188. 188

    "Pan captain has perhaps heard of Pan Podwysocki?"

  189. 189

    "What Podwysocki?"

  190. 190

    "In Warsaw the bank covers whoever comes against it. Podwysocki comes up, sees a thousand złotys, and stakes: va banque. The banker says: 'Panie Podwysocki, do you put down the gold, or na honor?' — 'Na honor, panie,' says Podwysocki. 'So much the better, panie.' The banker deals the round, Podwysocki takes the thousand złotys. 'Wait, panie,' says the banker, drew out a strongbox and hands over a million — 'take it, panie, oto jest twój rachunek (this is your account)!' The bank held a million. 'I didn't know that,' says Podwysocki. 'Panie Podwysocki,' says the banker, 'you staked na honor, and so did we.' Podwysocki took the million."

  191. 191

    "That isn't true," said Kalganov.

  192. 192

    "Panie Kalganov, w szlachetnej kompanii tak mówić nie przystoi (in decent society one does not talk like that)."

  193. 193

    "As if a Polish gambler would just hand you a million!" Mitya cried, but checked himself at once. "Forgive me, panie, I'm in the wrong, in the wrong again, he'd hand it over, he'd hand over a million, na honor, on Polish honor! See how I talk Polish, ha-ha! There, I stake ten roubles — the jack goes."

  194. 194

    "And I'll put a little rouble on the lady, on the red one, on the pretty one, on the little miss, hee-hee!" Maksimov tittered, pushing forward his queen, and, as if wishing to hide it from everyone, drew right up to the table and hastily crossed himself under it.

  195. 195

    Mitya won. The little rouble won too.

  196. 196

    "A corner!" cried Mitya.

  197. 197

    "And I'll put another little rouble, just a simple stake, a little one, a tiny little simple stake," Maksimov muttered blissfully, in tremendous joy at having won a rouble.

  198. 198

    "Beaten!" cried Mitya. "The seven doubled!"

  199. 199

    The doubled stake was killed too.

  200. 200

    "Stop," Kalganov said suddenly.

  201. 201

    "Doubled, doubled," Mitya kept doubling his stakes, and whatever he doubled was all killed.

  202. 202

    But the little roubles kept winning.

  203. 203

    "Doubled!" Mitya barked in a fury.

  204. 204

    "You've lost two hundred, panie. Will you stake another two hundred?" the Pole on the sofa inquired.

  205. 205

    "What, I've lost two hundred already? Then another two hundred! All two hundred doubled!" And, snatching the money out of his pocket, Mitya was about to throw two hundred roubles on the queen, when Kalganov suddenly covered it with his hand.

  206. 206

    "Enough!" he cried in his ringing voice.

  207. 207

    "What are you doing?" Mitya stared at him.

  208. 208

    "Enough, I won't have it! You shan't play anymore."

  209. 209

    "Why?"

  210. 210

    "Just because. Spit on it and walk away, that's why. I won't let you play anymore!"

  211. 211

    Mitya gazed at him in astonishment.

  212. 212

    "Drop it, Mitya, perhaps he's telling the truth; you've lost a lot as it is," Grushenka said too, with a strange note in her voice.

  213. 213

    Both Poles suddenly rose from their places with a terribly offended air.

  214. 214

    "Żartujesz (are you joking), panie?" the little Pole said, eyeing Kalganov sternly.

  215. 215

    "Jak się poważasz to robić, panie! (How dare you do that!)" Pan Wróblewski barked at Kalganov too.

  216. 216

    "Don't you dare, don't you dare shout!" Grushenka cried. "Ah, you turkey-cocks!"

  217. 217

    Mitya looked at them all in turn; but something in Grushenka's face suddenly struck him, and at that same instant something quite new flashed through his mind too — a strange new thought!

  218. 218

    "Pani Agrippina!" the little Pole was beginning, crimson all over with anger, when suddenly Mitya, stepping up to him, clapped him on the shoulder.

  219. 219

    "Jaśnie wielmożny, a couple of words."

  220. 220

    "Czego chcesz, panie? (What do you want?)"

  221. 221

    "Into that room, into that chamber, I'll say a couple of words to you — good ones, the very best, you'll be satisfied."

  222. 222

    The little Pole was surprised and looked warily at Mitya.

  223. 223

    He agreed at once, however, but on the strict condition that Pan Wróblewski come with him.

  224. 224

    "Your bodyguard? Let him come too, we need him! We even need him absolutely!" cried Mitya. "March, panowie!"

  225. 225

    "Where are you off to?" Grushenka asked anxiously.

  226. 226

    "We'll be back in a moment," Mitya answered.

  227. 227

    A kind of boldness, a kind of unexpected vigor, was flashing in his face; it was not at all with that face that he had entered this room an hour before.

  228. 228

    He led the Poles into a little room to the right — not into the big one where the chorus of girls was gathering and the table was being laid, but into a bedroom in which stood trunks, packing cases, and two large beds, each piled high with a mound of cotton-print pillows.

  229. 229

    Here, on a little deal table in the very corner, a candle was burning.

  230. 230

    The Pole and Mitya settled themselves at this little table facing each other, while the enormous Pan Wróblewski stood to one side of them, his hands clasped behind his back.

  231. 231

    The Poles looked stern, but with evident curiosity.

  232. 232

    "Czym mogę służyć panu? (How can I be of service to you?)" the little Pole lisped.

  233. 233

    "Here's how, panie, I won't say much: here's money for you," he pulled out his banknotes, "if you want three thousand, take it and clear off wherever you please."

  234. 234

    The Pole looked searchingly, with all his eyes, fairly fastening his gaze on Mitya's face.

  235. 235

    "Trzy tysiące, panie?" He exchanged a glance with Wróblewski.

  236. 236

    "Three, panowie, three! Listen, panie, I see you're a sensible man. Take three thousand and go to the devil, and take Wróblewski with you — do you hear me? But right now, this very minute, and it's forever, do you understand, panie, forever, you'll go out through this very door. What have you got there: an overcoat, a fur coat? I'll bring it out to you. They'll harness the troika for you this very second and — do widzenia, panie! Well?"

  237. 237

    Mitya waited confidently for the answer.

  238. 238

    He had no doubts.

  239. 239

    Something extraordinarily resolute flickered across the Pole's face.

  240. 240

    "And the roubles, panie?"

  241. 241

    "Here is how the rubles stand, sir: five hundred rubles this very minute, into your hand, for the cab and as a deposit, and the other two thousand five hundred tomorrow, in town — on my honor I swear it, they'll be there, I'll dig them up from under the ground!" Mitya cried.

  242. 242

    The Poles exchanged glances once more.

  243. 243

    The gentleman's face began to change for the worse.

  244. 244

    "Seven hundred, seven hundred, not five hundred, right now, this very minute, into your hands!" Mitya raised the offer, sensing something amiss. "What's wrong, sir? Don't you believe me? I can't very well hand you all three thousand at once. I'll give it, and you'll be back at her side by tomorrow… The thing is, I haven't got all three thousand on me just now — it's lying back in town, at my place," Mitya babbled, growing more cowed and losing heart with every word he spoke, "by God, it's lying there, hidden away…"

  245. 245

    In an instant a feeling of extraordinary self-importance lit up the little gentleman's face:

  246. 246

    "Will you be wanting anything more?" he asked ironically. "Pfui! Pfui to you! (shame, disgrace!)" — And he spat.

  247. 247

    Pan Wróblewski spat as well.

  248. 248

    "The reason you're spitting, sir," said Mitya like a man in despair, having grasped that it was all over, "is that you think you can wring more out of Grushenka. Capons, the pair of you, that's what!"

  249. 249

    "I am cut to the quick! (I am insulted to the last degree)" — the little gentleman suddenly flushed red as a crab and briskly, in dreadful indignation, as though refusing to hear another word, walked out of the room.

  250. 250

    Wróblewski followed after him, swaying, and after the two of them came Mitya, abashed and bewildered.

  251. 251

    He was afraid of Grushenka; he had a foreboding that the gentleman would start shouting any moment.

  252. 252

    And so it happened.

  253. 253

    The gentleman walked into the parlor and struck a theatrical pose before Grushenka.

  254. 254

    "Pani Agrippina, I am cut to the quick!" he started to exclaim, but Grushenka all at once seemed to lose every shred of patience, as though he had touched her on her sorest spot.

  255. 255

    "In Russian, speak in Russian, and not one Polish word!" she shouted at him. "You used to speak Russian before — don't tell me you've forgotten it in five years!" — She had gone scarlet all over with anger.

  256. 256

    "Pani Agrippina…"

  257. 257

    "I'm Agrafena, I'm Grushenka, speak Russian or I won't listen!" — The gentleman puffed up with wounded pride and, mangling his Russian, pronounced rapidly and pompously:

  258. 258

    "Pani Agrafena, I have come to forget the old grievances and to forgive them, to forget what happened before today…"

  259. 259

    "Forgive? You've come to forgive me, of all things?" Grushenka cut in and sprang up from her place.

  260. 260

    "Just so, pani (precisely so, pani), I am not faint-hearted, I am magnanimous. But I was astonished (I was astounded) when I saw your lovers. Pan Mitya in that other room offered me three thousand to clear off. I spat in the gentleman's face."

  261. 261

    "What? He offered you money for me?" Grushenka shrieked hysterically. "Is it true, Mitya? How dared you! Am I something to be sold?"

  262. 262

    "Sir, sir," Mitya wailed, "she is pure and radiant, and I have never been her lover! That's a lie you've told…"

  263. 263

    "How dare you defend me in front of him," Grushenka cried out, "it wasn't out of virtue that I stayed pure, and not because I was afraid of Kuzma, but so that I could stand proud before him and have the right to call him a scoundrel when I met him. And do you mean to say he really didn't take money from you?"

  264. 264

    "He took it, all right, he took it!" Mitya exclaimed, "only he wanted the whole three thousand at once, and all I was offering was seven hundred as a deposit."

  265. 265

    "Well, that explains it: he caught wind that I have money, and that's why he came to marry me!"

  266. 266

    "Pani Agrippina," the gentleman shouted, "I am a knight, I am a nobleman, not some scoundrel! I came to take you for my wife, but I find a new pani, not the one of before, but a willful and shameless one (headstrong and brazen)."

  267. 267

    "Be off, then, back to wherever you came from! I'll have you driven out this instant, and out you'll go!" Grushenka cried in a frenzy. "A fool, a fool I was, to torment myself five years over this! And it wasn't even over him that I tormented myself — I tormented myself out of spite! And this isn't even him at all! Was he ever like this? This is some father of his! Where did you order yourself that wig? The one before was a falcon, and this is a drake. The one before laughed, and sang me songs… And I — I went and drowned myself in tears for five years, cursed fool that I am, low and shameless!"

  268. 268

    She sank into her armchair and buried her face in her hands.

  269. 269

    At that very moment, in the next room to the left, the chorus of Mokroye girls — gathered together at last — suddenly struck up a rollicking dance song.

  270. 270

    "This is sheer bedlam!" Pan Wróblewski bellowed all at once. "Landlord, drive these shameless creatures out!"

  271. 271

    The landlord, who had long been peering curiously through the door, hearing the shouting and sensing that his guests had fallen out, at once stepped into the room.

  272. 272

    "What are you bawling about, splitting your throat like that?" he addressed Wróblewski with a rudeness that was somehow even baffling.

  273. 273

    "You brute!" Pan Wróblewski started to roar.

  274. 274

    "A brute, am I? And what kind of cards were you playing just now? I handed you a deck, and you hid it away! You were playing with marked cards! I can have you packed off to Siberia for marked cards — do you know that? — because it's all one and the same as forged banknotes…" — And, stepping over to the sofa, he thrust his fingers in between the back and the cushion of the sofa and pulled out from there an unopened deck of cards.

  275. 275

    "Here it is, my deck, still sealed!" — He held it up and showed it round to everyone. "You see, I watched from over there how he stuffed my deck into the crack and swapped in his own — you're a cheat, you are, and no gentleman!"

  276. 276

    "And I saw how that gentleman palmed his cards twice," Kalganov cried out.

  277. 277

    "Oh, the shame of it, oh, the shame!" Grushenka exclaimed, throwing up her hands, and she truly did blush with shame. "Lord, what — what a man he's become!"

  278. 278

    "That's just what I was thinking," Mitya cried.

  279. 279

    But he had no sooner got the words out than Pan Wróblewski, abashed and infuriated, turned to Grushenka and, shaking his fist at her, shouted:

  280. 280

    "Public hussy!" — But he had no sooner managed to exclaim it than Mitya flung himself at him, seized him in both arms, lifted him into the air, and in an instant carried him out of the parlor into the room on the right, the very one into which he had just led the two of them.

  281. 281

    "I laid him out flat on the floor in there!" he announced, returning at once and gasping with agitation, "he's putting up a fight, the scoundrel, but he won't be coming out of there, never fear!.." — He shut one half of the door and, holding the other wide open, called out to the little gentleman:

  282. 282

    "Your Excellency, would you care to join him in there? If you please!"

  283. 283

    "My dear fellow, Dmitri Fyodorovich," Trifon Borisych pronounced, "take back the money you lost to them, the money! After all, it's no different from their having robbed you of it."

  284. 284

    "I don't want my fifty rubles back," Kalganov suddenly spoke up.

  285. 285

    "And I don't want my two hundred either!" Mitya exclaimed, "nothing on earth would make me take it back — let it stay with him for his consolation."

  286. 286

    "Bravo, Mitya! Good for you, Mitya!" Grushenka cried, and a terribly spiteful note rang out in her exclamation.

  287. 287

    The little gentleman, crimson with fury but not in the least having lost his dignified bearing, started toward the door, then stopped and suddenly pronounced, turning to Grushenka:

  288. 288

    "Pani, if you wish to come away with me, then let us go; if not — farewell to you! (Pani, if you want to come with me, then come; and if not — then goodbye!)"

  289. 289

    And with an air of importance, puffing with indignation and pretension, he passed through the door.

  290. 290

    The man had character: even after all that had happened, he had not given up hope that the pani would follow him — so high did he rate himself.

  291. 291

    Mitya slammed the door shut behind him.

  292. 292

    "Lock them in," said Kalganov.

  293. 293

    But the lock clicked from their side — they had locked themselves in.

  294. 294

    "Splendid!" Grushenka cried again, spitefully and mercilessly. "Splendid! Good riddance to them!"

The particulars

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