The Brothers Karamazov: A Novel in Four Parts With Epilogue

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

ladies in fact called him a naughty boy, and he seemed to like it very much. However, he was of quite good society, good family, good upbringing, and good feelings, a bon vivant but quite an innocent one, and always proper. Physically, he was short and of weak, delicate constitution. Several extremely large rings always flashed on his thin and pale fingers. When performing his duties, he became remarkably solemn, as though he conceived of his significance and responsibility as sacred. He was especially good at throwing murderers and other low-class criminals off guard in interrogations, and actually aroused in them, if not respect for himself, at least a certain astonishment.

No unusual disorder was noted in the room where Fyodor Pavlovich was lying, but behind the screen near his bed they picked up a big envelope from the floor, made of heavy paper, of official size, inscribed: “A little treat of three thousand roubles for my angel Grushenka, if she wants to come,” and below that was added, most likely later, by Fyodor Pavlovich himself: “And to my chicky.” There were three big seals of red wax on the envelope, but it had already been torn open and was empty: the money was gone.

The doctor stayed behind in Fyodor Pavlovich’s house with the object of performing a postmortem in the morning on the body of the murdered man, but above all he had become particularly interested in the condition of the sick servant Smerdyakov: “Such severe and protracted fits of the falling sickness, recurring uninterruptedly over two days, are rarely met with: this case belongs to science,” he said excitedly to his departing companions, and they laughingly congratulated him on his find.

“It’s me, me, the cursed one, I am guilty!” she cried in a heartrending howl, all in tears, stretching her arms out to everyone, “it’s because of me that he killed him … ! I tormented him and drove him to it! I tormented that poor old dead man, too, out of spite, and drove things to this! I am the guilty one, first and most of all, I am the guilty one!”

“Judge us together!” Grushenka went on exclaiming frenziedly, still on her knees. “Punish us together, I’ll go with him now even to execution!”

“I drank some, gentlemen, I drank some … but … come, gentlemen, crush me, punish me, decide my fate!” Mitya exclaimed, staring with horribly fixed, bulging eyes at the district attorney.

“Not guilty! I’m guilty of other blood, of another old man’s blood, but not of my father’s. And I weep for it! I killed, I killed the old man, killed him and struck him down … But it’s hard to have to answer for that blood with this other blood, this terrible blood, which I’m not guilty of … A terrible accusation, gentlemen, as if you’d stunned me on the head! But who killed my father, who killed him? Who could have killed him if not me? It’s a wonder, an absurdity, an impossibility … !”

Let us note, incidentally, that when he first came to our town, Mitya was warmly received at the police chief’s house, but later, especially during the last month, Mitya hardly ever visited him, and the police chief, meeting him in the street, for example, frowned deeply and bowed to him only out of politeness, which circumstance Mitya noted very well. His acquaintance with the prosecutor was even more distant, but to the prosecutor’s wife, a nervous and fantastic lady, he sometimes paid visits, most respectful visits, by the way, himself not even quite knowing why he was calling on her, and she always received him kindly, taking an interest in him for some reason, until quite recently.

Wait, wait, write it down like this: ‘Of violence—guilty; of inflicting a savage beating on a poor old man—guilty.’ And then, within himself, too, inside, at the bottom of his heart, he is guilty—but there’s no need to write that down,” he turned suddenly to the clerk, “that is my private life, gentlemen, that doesn’t concern you now, the bottom of my heart, I mean … But of the murder of his old father—not guilty!

even testify against myself. Do you hear, against myself! You see, gentlemen, you seem to be taking me for quite a different man from what I am,” he suddenly added, glumly and sadly. “It is a noble man you are speaking with, a most noble person; above all—do not lose sight of this—a man who has done a world of mean things, but who always was and remained a most noble being, as a being, inside, in his depths, well, in short, I don’t know how to say it … This is precisely what has tormented me all my life, that I thirsted for nobility, that I was, so to speak, a sufferer for nobility, seeking it with a lantern, Diogenes’ lantern,2 and meanwhile all my life I’ve been doing only dirty things, as we all do, gentlemen … I mean, me alone, gentlemen, not all but me alone, I made a mistake, me alone, alone … !

He was almost the only man who believed unconditionally in the remarkable psychological and oratorical talents of our “overlooked” Ippolit Kirillovich, and also fully believed that he had indeed been overlooked. He had heard of him while still in Petersburg. And in turn the young Nikolai Parfenovich happened to be the only man in the whole world whom our “overlooked” prosecutor came sincerely to love.

I’ll end precisely with a request: you, gentlemen, must unlearn this official method of interrogation, I mean, first you begin, say, with something measly and insignificant: how did you get up, what did you eat, how did you spit, and ‘having lulled the criminal’s attention,’ you suddenly catch him with a stunning question: ‘Whom did you kill, whom did you rob?’ Ha, ha! That’s your official method, that’s your rule, that’s what all your cleverness is based on! You can lull peasants with your cleverness, but not me. I understand the system, I was in the service myself, ha, ha, ha! You’re not angry, are you, gentlemen?

“Are you familiar with this object?” he showed it to Mitya. “Ah, yes!” Mitya grinned gloomily, “indeed I am! Let me see it … Or don’t, devil take it!” “You forgot to mention it,” the district attorney observed. “Ah, the devil! I wouldn’t hide it from you, we certainly couldn’t get along without it, don’t you agree? It just escaped my memory.”

Because Smerdyakov is a man of the most abject nature and a coward. Not just a coward, but a conjunction of all cowardice in the world taken together, walking on two legs. He was born of a chicken. Every time he talked with me, he trembled for fear I might kill him, though I never even raised my hand. He fell at my feet and wept, he kissed these very boots of mine, literally, begging me not to ‘scare’ him. ‘Scare,’ do you hear?—what sort of word is that? And I even gave him presents. He’s a sickly, epileptic, feebleminded chicken, who could be thrashed by an eight-year-old boy. What sort of a character is that? No, not Smerdyakov, gentlemen—and he doesn’t care about money either, he never would take my presents … Anyway, why would he kill the old man? You see, he may be his son, his natural son, do you know that?”

to such scoffers as you, who do not see anything and do not believe anything, blind moles and scoffers, even if it would save me from your accusation?

Believe me, gentlemen, what tormented

me most this night was not that I had killed the old servant, and that I was threatened with Siberia, and all of that when?—when my love had been crowned and heaven was open to me again! Oh, that was a torment, but not so great, still not so great as the cursed awareness that I had finally torn that cursed money off my chest and spent it, and therefore was now a final thief! Oh, gentlemen, I repeat to you in my heart’s blood: I learned a lot this night! I learned that it is impossible not only to live a scoundrel, but also to die a scoundrel … No, gentlemen, one must die honestly …

Nikolai Parfenovich, though he did put it in the record, also displayed, on this unpleasant occasion, a most praiseworthy efficiency and administrative skill: after severely reprimanding Mitya, he at once put an end to all further inquiry into the romantic side of the case and quickly moved on to the essential.

The prosecutor simply fastened on this evidence: it was becoming clear to the investigation (as was indeed concluded afterwards) that half or a part of the three thousand that had come into Mitya’s hands might indeed have been hidden somewhere in town, or perhaps even somewhere there, in Mokroye, thus clarifying the circumstance, so ticklish for the investigation, that only eight hundred roubles had been found in Mitya’s possession—the one circumstance, though the only one and rather negligible at that, that so far had been some sort of evidence in Mitya’s favor.

Nikolai Parfenovich even got somewhat “carried away” at once. He himself admitted, talking about it afterwards in one place or another, that he had only then perceived how “good-looking” this woman was, and that before, the few times he had seen her, he had always regarded her as something of a “provincial hetaera.” “She has the manners of the highest society,” he once blurted out rapturously in some ladies’ circle. But this was received with the utmost indignation, and he was at once dubbed “a naughty boy” for it, which pleased him no end.

“Thank the Lord!” she said in an ardent, emotional voice, and turning to Nikolai Parfenovich before sitting down, she added: “What he has just said, you must believe! I know him: when he babbles, he babbles, whether it’s for fun or out of stubbornness, but if it’s something against his conscience, he will never deceive you. He will speak the truth directly, you must believe that!” “Thank

Grushenka was finally dismissed, Nikolai Parfenovich impetuously announcing to her that she could even return to town at once, and that if he, for his part, could be of any assistance to her, for example, in connection with the horses, or if, for example, she wished to be accompanied, then he … for his part

he wants to weep, he wants to do something for them all, so that the wee one will no longer cry, so that the blackened, dried-up mother of the wee one will not cry either, so that there will be no more tears in anyone from that moment on, and it must be done at once, at once, without delay and despite everything, with all his Karamazov unrestraint. “And I am with you, too, I won’t leave you now, I will go with you for the rest of my life,” the dear, deeply felt words of Grushenka came from somewhere near him. And his whole heart blazed up and turned towards some sort of light, and he wanted to live and live, to go on and on along some path, towards the new, beckoning light, and to hurry, hurry, right now, at once!

Mitya, having listened attentively, merely shrugged. “Well, gentlemen, I don’t blame you, I’m ready … I understand that you have no other choice.”

I want to suffer and be purified by suffering! And perhaps I will be purified, eh, gentlemen? But hear me, all the same, for the last time: I am not guilty of my father’s blood! I accept punishment not because I killed him, but because I wanted to kill him, and might well have killed him

“I’ve told you that I am yours, and I will be yours, I will go with you forever, wherever they doom you to go. Farewell, guiltless man, who have been your own ruin.” Her lips trembled, tears flowed from her eyes. “Forgive me, Grusha, for my love, that I’ve ruined you, too, with my love!” Mitya wanted to say something more, but suddenly stopped himself short and walked out.

Kalganov ran back into the front hall, sat down in a corner, bent his head, covered his face with his hands, and began to cry. He sat like that and cried for a long time—cried as though he were still a little boy and not a man of twenty. Oh, he believed almost completely in Mitya’s guilt! “What are these people, what sort of people can there be after this!” he kept exclaiming incoherently, in bitter dejection, almost in despair. At that moment he did not even want to live in the world. “Is it worth it, is it worth it!” the grieved young man kept exclaiming.

she had devoted herself entirely to the upbringing of her treasure, her boy Kolya, and though she had loved him to distraction all those fourteen years, she had of course endured incomparably more suffering than joy on account of him, trembling and dying of fear almost every day lest he become ill, catch cold, be naughty, climb on a chair and fall off, and so on and so forth.

Above all, he knew where to draw the line, could restrain himself when need be, and in relation to the authorities never overstepped that final and inscrutable limit beyond which a misdeed turns into disorder, rebellion, and lawlessness, and can no longer be tolerated. Yet he never minded getting into mischief at the first opportunity, any more than the worst boy, not so much for the sake of mischief as to do something whimsical, eccentric, to add some “extra spice,” to dazzle, to show off. Above all, he was extremely vain. He even managed to make his mama submit to him and treated her almost despotically.

Yet it was not deliberate on his part, but involuntary—such was his nature. His mother was mistaken: he loved her very much, only he did not like “sentimental slop,” as he said in his schoolboy’s language.

Kolya’s mad prank seemed to have broken the ice, and Dardanelov, in return for his intercession, received a hint with regard to his hopes, though a very remote one; but Dardanelov himself was a miracle of purity and delicacy, and therefore it sufficed at the time for the fullness of his happiness.

He tyrannized over him terribly, teaching him all sorts of tricks and skills, and drove the poor dog so far that he howled in his absence, when he was away at school, and when he came home, squealed with delight, jumped madly, stood on his hind legs, fell down and played dead, and so on; in short, he did all the tricks he had been taught, not on command, but solely from the ardor of his rapturous feelings and grateful heart.

decidedly have drowned herself in the tears of that grief. And now it so happened, as if to crown all the adversities of fate, that Katerina, the doctor’s wife’s only maid, suddenly, and quite unexpectedly for her mistress, announced to her that very night, on Saturday, that she intended to give birth to a baby the next morning.

“Nastya, what a fool you are,” he said at last, firmly and without excitement. “Where could Katerina get a baby if she’s not married?” Nastya grew terribly excited.

“Doctors, and all medical scum, generally speaking, and, of course, in particular as well. I reject medicine. A useless institution. But I’m still looking into all that. Anyway, what are these sentimentalities you’ve got going? Seems like your whole class is sitting there.” “Not the whole class, but about ten of us always go there, every day. It’s all right.” “What surprises me in all this is the role of Alexei Karamazov: his brother is going on trial tomorrow or the day after for such a crime, and he still finds so much time for sentimentalizing with boys!”

I am a socialist, Smurov.” “And what is a socialist?” asked Smurov. “It’s when everyone is equal, everyone has property in common, there are no marriages, and each one has whatever religion and laws he likes, and all the rest. You’re not grown up enough for that yet, you’re too young. It is cold, by the way.”

“How do I know? They’ll go on shouting till nighttime now. I like stirring up fools in all strata of society. There stands another dolt, that peasant there. People say, ‘There’s no one stupider than a stupid Frenchman,’ but note how the Russian physiognomy betrays itself. Isn’t it written all over that peasant’s face that he’s a fool, eh?”

He had heard a lot about him from the boys, but so far had always ostensibly displayed an air of scornful indifference whenever anyone spoke to him about Alyosha, and even “criticized” him as he listened to what was told about him.

“Ah, no, there are people who feel deeply but are somehow beaten down. Their buffoonery is something like a spiteful irony against those to whom they dare not speak the truth directly because of a long-standing, humiliating timidity before them. Believe me, Krasotkin, such buffoonery is sometimes extremely tragic. For him,

Alyosha replied with a most guileless look, and the insecure

with some sort of fear. “Yes, world history. It is the study of the succession of human follies, and nothing more. I only respect mathematics and natural science,” Kolya swaggered, and glanced at Alyosha: his was the only opinion in the room that he feared.

pressed his hand. “I’ve long learned to respect the rare being in you,” Kolya muttered again, faltering and becoming confused. “I’ve heard you are a mystic and were in the monastery.

“On the contrary, I have nothing against God. Of course God is only a hypothesis … but … I admit, he is necessary, for the sake of order … for the order of the world and so on … and if there were no God, he would have to be invented,”

Sometimes I imagine God knows what, that everyone is laughing at me, the whole world, and then I … then I’m quite ready to destroy the whole order of things.”

But in Alyosha’s opinion her face had become even more attractive, as it were, and he loved meeting her eyes when he entered her room. Something firm and aware seemed to have settled in her eyes. Some spiritual turnabout told in her; a certain steadfast, humble, but good and irrevocable resolution appeared.

The object of that anxiety was ever the same: Katerina Ivanovna, whom Grushenka even spoke of in her delirium when she was still lying sick.

Having returned with Grushenka from Mokroye about two months before, the homeless old man had simply stayed on with her and by her and never left.

wandering sponger

from Mitya at Mokroye had quickly disappeared somewhere. Grushenka found it surprising, however, that both pans met her with haughty pomposity and independence, with the greatest ceremony, with high-flown speeches.

Alyoshenka, that’s what, you don’t understand anything about it, for all your intelligence, that’s what. What