EPILOGUE Chapter I. Plans For Mitya's Escape

Very early, at nine o'clock in the morning, five days after the trial,
Alyosha went to Katerina Ivanovna's to talk over a matter of great
importance to both of them, and to give her a message. She sat and talked
to him in the very room in which she had once received Grushenka. In the
next room Ivan Fyodorovitch lay unconscious in a high fever. Katerina
Ivanovna had immediately after the scene at the trial ordered the sick and
unconscious man to be carried to her house, disregarding the inevitable
gossip and general disapproval of the public. One of the two relations who
lived with her had departed to Moscow immediately after the scene in
court, the other remained. But if both had gone away, Katerina Ivanovna
would have adhered to her resolution, and would have gone on nursing the
sick man and sitting by him day and night. Varvinsky and Herzenstube were
attending him. The famous doctor had gone back to Moscow, refusing to give
an opinion as to the probable end of the illness. Though the doctors
encouraged Katerina Ivanovna and Alyosha, it was evident that they could
not yet give them positive hopes of recovery.

Alyosha came to see his sick brother twice a day. But this time he had
specially urgent business, and he foresaw how difficult it would be to
approach the subject, yet he was in great haste. He had another engagement
that could not be put off for that same morning, and there was need of
haste.

They had been talking for a quarter of an hour. Katerina Ivanovna was pale
and terribly fatigued, yet at the same time in a state of hysterical
excitement. She had a presentiment of the reason why Alyosha had come to
her.

"Don't worry about his decision," she said, with confident emphasis to
Alyosha. "One way or another he is bound to come to it. He must escape.
That unhappy man, that hero of honor and principle--not he, not Dmitri
Fyodorovitch, but the man lying the other side of that door, who has
sacrificed himself for his brother," Katya added, with flashing eyes--"told
me the whole plan of escape long ago. You know he has already entered into
negotiations.... I've told you something already.... You see, it will
probably come off at the third _etape_ from here, when the party of
prisoners is being taken to Siberia. Oh, it's a long way off yet. Ivan
Fyodorovitch has already visited the superintendent of the third _etape_.
But we don't know yet who will be in charge of the party, and it's
impossible to find that out so long beforehand. To-morrow perhaps I will
show you in detail the whole plan which Ivan Fyodorovitch left me on the
eve of the trial in case of need.... That was when--do you remember?--you
found us quarreling. He had just gone down-stairs, but seeing you I made
him come back; do you remember? Do you know what we were quarreling about
then?"

"No, I don't," said Alyosha.

"Of course he did not tell you. It was about that plan of escape. He had
told me the main idea three days before, and we began quarreling about it
at once and quarreled for three days. We quarreled because, when he told
me that if Dmitri Fyodorovitch were convicted he would escape abroad with
that creature, I felt furious at once--I can't tell you why, I don't know
myself why.... Oh, of course, I was furious then about that creature, and
that she, too, should go abroad with Dmitri!" Katerina Ivanovna exclaimed
suddenly, her lips quivering with anger. "As soon as Ivan Fyodorovitch saw
that I was furious about that woman, he instantly imagined I was jealous
of Dmitri and that I still loved Dmitri. That is how our first quarrel
began. I would not give an explanation, I could not ask forgiveness. I
could not bear to think that such a man could suspect me of still loving
that ... and when I myself had told him long before that I did not love
Dmitri, that I loved no one but him! It was only resentment against that
creature that made me angry with him. Three days later, on the evening you
came, he brought me a sealed envelope, which I was to open at once, if
anything happened to him. Oh, he foresaw his illness! He told me that the
envelope contained the details of the escape, and that if he died or was
taken dangerously ill, I was to save Mitya alone. Then he left me money,
nearly ten thousand--those notes to which the prosecutor referred in his
speech, having learnt from some one that he had sent them to be changed. I
was tremendously impressed to find that Ivan Fyodorovitch had not given up
his idea of saving his brother, and was confiding this plan of escape to
me, though he was still jealous of me and still convinced that I loved
Mitya. Oh, that was a sacrifice! No, you cannot understand the greatness
of such self-sacrifice, Alexey Fyodorovitch. I wanted to fall at his feet
in reverence, but I thought at once that he would take it only for my joy
at the thought of Mitya's being saved (and he certainly would have
imagined that!), and I was so exasperated at the mere possibility of such
an unjust thought on his part that I lost my temper again, and instead of
kissing his feet, flew into a fury again! Oh, I am unhappy! It's my
character, my awful, unhappy character! Oh, you will see, I shall end by
driving him, too, to abandon me for another with whom he can get on
better, like Dmitri. But ... no, I could not bear it, I should kill
myself. And when you came in then, and when I called to you and told him
to come back, I was so enraged by the look of contempt and hatred he
turned on me that--do you remember?--I cried out to you that it was he, he
alone who had persuaded me that his brother Dmitri was a murderer! I said
that malicious thing on purpose to wound him again. He had never, never
persuaded me that his brother was a murderer. On the contrary, it was I
who persuaded him! Oh, my vile temper was the cause of everything! I paved
the way to that hideous scene at the trial. He wanted to show me that he
was an honorable man, and that, even if I loved his brother, he would not
ruin him for revenge or jealousy. So he came to the court ... I am the
cause of it all, I alone am to blame!"

Katya never had made such confessions to Alyosha before, and he felt that
she was now at that stage of unbearable suffering when even the proudest
heart painfully crushes its pride and falls vanquished by grief. Oh,
Alyosha knew another terrible reason of her present misery, though she had
carefully concealed it from him during those days since the trial; but it
would have been for some reason too painful to him if she had been brought
so low as to speak to him now about that. She was suffering for her
"treachery" at the trial, and Alyosha felt that her conscience was
impelling her to confess it to him, to him, Alyosha, with tears and cries
and hysterical writhings on the floor. But he dreaded that moment and
longed to spare her. It made the commission on which he had come even more
difficult. He spoke of Mitya again.

"It's all right, it's all right, don't be anxious about him!" she began
again, sharply and stubbornly. "All that is only momentary, I know him, I
know his heart only too well. You may be sure he will consent to escape.
It's not as though it would be immediately; he will have time to make up
his mind to it. Ivan Fyodorovitch will be well by that time and will
manage it all himself, so that I shall have nothing to do with it. Don't
be anxious; he will consent to run away. He has agreed already: do you
suppose he would give up that creature? And they won't let her go to him,
so he is bound to escape. It's you he's most afraid of, he is afraid you
won't approve of his escape on moral grounds. But you must generously
_allow_ it, if your sanction is so necessary," Katya added viciously. She
paused and smiled.

"He talks about some hymn," she went on again, "some cross he has to bear,
some duty; I remember Ivan Fyodorovitch told me a great deal about it, and
if you knew how he talked!" Katya cried suddenly, with feeling she could
not repress, "if you knew how he loved that wretched man at the moment he
told me, and how he hated him, perhaps, at the same moment. And I heard
his story and his tears with sneering disdain. Brute! Yes, I am a brute. I
am responsible for his fever. But that man in prison is incapable of
suffering," Katya concluded irritably. "Can such a man suffer? Men like
him never suffer!"

There was a note of hatred and contemptuous repulsion in her words. And
yet it was she who had betrayed him. "Perhaps because she feels how she's
wronged him she hates him at moments," Alyosha thought to himself. He
hoped that it was only "at moments." In Katya's last words he detected a
challenging note, but he did not take it up.

"I sent for you this morning to make you promise to persuade him yourself.
Or do you, too, consider that to escape would be dishonorable, cowardly,
or something ... unchristian, perhaps?" Katya added, even more defiantly.

"Oh, no. I'll tell him everything," muttered Alyosha. "He asks you to come
and see him to-day," he blurted out suddenly, looking her steadily in the
face. She started, and drew back a little from him on the sofa.

"Me? Can that be?" she faltered, turning pale.

"It can and ought to be!" Alyosha began emphatically, growing more
animated. "He needs you particularly just now. I would not have opened the
subject and worried you, if it were not necessary. He is ill, he is beside
himself, he keeps asking for you. It is not to be reconciled with you that
he wants you, but only that you would go and show yourself at his door. So
much has happened to him since that day. He realizes that he has injured
you beyond all reckoning. He does not ask your forgiveness--'It's
impossible to forgive me,' he says himself--but only that you would show
yourself in his doorway."

"It's so sudden...." faltered Katya. "I've had a presentiment all these
days that you would come with that message. I knew he would ask me to
come. It's impossible!"

"Let it be impossible, but do it. Only think, he realizes for the first
time how he has wounded you, the first time in his life; he had never
grasped it before so fully. He said, 'If she refuses to come I shall be
unhappy all my life.' Do you hear? though he is condemned to penal
servitude for twenty years, he is still planning to be happy--is not that
piteous? Think--you must visit him; though he is ruined, he is innocent,"
broke like a challenge from Alyosha. "His hands are clean, there is no
blood on them! For the sake of his infinite sufferings in the future visit
him now. Go, greet him on his way into the darkness--stand at his door,
that is all.... You ought to do it, you ought to!" Alyosha concluded,
laying immense stress on the word "ought."

"I ought to ... but I cannot...." Katya moaned. "He will look at me.... I
can't."

"Your eyes ought to meet. How will you live all your life, if you don't
make up your mind to do it now?"

"Better suffer all my life."

"You ought to go, you ought to go," Alyosha repeated with merciless
emphasis.

"But why to-day, why at once?... I can't leave our patient--"

"You can for a moment. It will only be a moment. If you don't come, he
will be in delirium by to-night. I would not tell you a lie; have pity on
him!"

"Have pity on _me!_" Katya said, with bitter reproach, and she burst into
tears.

"Then you will come," said Alyosha firmly, seeing her tears. "I'll go and
tell him you will come directly."

"No, don't tell him so on any account," cried Katya in alarm. "I will
come, but don't tell him beforehand, for perhaps I may go, but not go
in.... I don't know yet--"

Her voice failed her. She gasped for breath. Alyosha got up to go.

"And what if I meet any one?" she said suddenly, in a low voice, turning
white again.

"That's just why you must go now, to avoid meeting any one. There will be
no one there, I can tell you that for certain. We will expect you," he
concluded emphatically, and went out of the room.

Chapter II. For A Moment The Lie Becomes Truth

He hurried to the hospital where Mitya was lying now. The day after his
fate was determined, Mitya had fallen ill with nervous fever, and was sent
to the prison division of the town hospital. But at the request of several
persons (Alyosha, Madame Hohlakov, Lise, etc.), Doctor Varvinsky had put
Mitya not with other prisoners, but in a separate little room, the one
where Smerdyakov had been. It is true that there was a sentinel at the
other end of the corridor, and there was a grating over the window, so
that Varvinsky could be at ease about the indulgence he had shown, which
was not quite legal, indeed; but he was a kind-hearted and compassionate
young man. He knew how hard it would be for a man like Mitya to pass at
once so suddenly into the society of robbers and murderers, and that he
must get used to it by degrees. The visits of relations and friends were
informally sanctioned by the doctor and overseer, and even by the police
captain. But only Alyosha and Grushenka had visited Mitya. Rakitin had
tried to force his way in twice, but Mitya persistently begged Varvinsky
not to admit him.

Alyosha found him sitting on his bed in a hospital dressing-gown, rather
feverish, with a towel, soaked in vinegar and water, on his head. He
looked at Alyosha as he came in with an undefined expression, but there
was a shade of something like dread discernible in it. He had become
terribly preoccupied since the trial; sometimes he would be silent for
half an hour together, and seemed to be pondering something heavily and
painfully, oblivious of everything about him. If he roused himself from
his brooding and began to talk, he always spoke with a kind of abruptness
and never of what he really wanted to say. He looked sometimes with a face
of suffering at his brother. He seemed to be more at ease with Grushenka
than with Alyosha. It is true, he scarcely spoke to her at all, but as
soon as she came in, his whole face lighted up with joy.

Alyosha sat down beside him on the bed in silence. This time Mitya was
waiting for Alyosha in suspense, but he did not dare ask him a question.
He felt it almost unthinkable that Katya would consent to come, and at the
same time he felt that if she did not come, something inconceivable would
happen. Alyosha understood his feelings.

"Trifon Borissovitch," Mitya began nervously, "has pulled his whole inn to
pieces, I am told. He's taken up the flooring, pulled apart the planks,
split up all the gallery, I am told. He is seeking treasure all the
time--the fifteen hundred roubles which the prosecutor said I'd hidden
there. He began playing these tricks, they say, as soon as he got home.
Serve him right, the swindler! The guard here told me yesterday; he comes
from there."

"Listen," began Alyosha. "She will come, but I don't know when. Perhaps
to-day, perhaps in a few days, that I can't tell. But she will come, she
will, that's certain."

Mitya started, would have said something, but was silent. The news had a
tremendous effect on him. It was evident that he would have liked terribly
to know what had been said, but he was again afraid to ask. Something
cruel and contemptuous from Katya would have cut him like a knife at that
moment.

"This was what she said among other things; that I must be sure to set
your conscience at rest about escaping. If Ivan is not well by then she
will see to it all herself."

"You've spoken of that already," Mitya observed musingly.

"And you have repeated it to Grusha," observed Alyosha.

"Yes," Mitya admitted. "She won't come this morning." He looked timidly at
his brother. "She won't come till the evening. When I told her yesterday
that Katya was taking measures, she was silent, but she set her mouth. She
only whispered, 'Let her!' She understood that it was important. I did not
dare to try her further. She understands now, I think, that Katya no
longer cares for me, but loves Ivan."

"Does she?" broke from Alyosha.

"Perhaps she does not. Only she is not coming this morning," Mitya
hastened to explain again; "I asked her to do something for me. You know,
Ivan is superior to all of us. He ought to live, not us. He will recover."

"Would you believe it, though Katya is alarmed about him, she scarcely
doubts of his recovery," said Alyosha.

"That means that she is convinced he will die. It's because she is
frightened she's so sure he will get well."

"Ivan has a strong constitution, and I, too, believe there's every hope
that he will get well," Alyosha observed anxiously.

"Yes, he will get well. But she is convinced that he will die. She has a
great deal of sorrow to bear..." A silence followed. A grave anxiety was
fretting Mitya.

"Alyosha, I love Grusha terribly," he said suddenly in a shaking voice,
full of tears.

"They won't let her go out there to you," Alyosha put in at once.

"And there is something else I wanted to tell you," Mitya went on, with a
sudden ring in his voice. "If they beat me on the way or out there, I
won't submit to it. I shall kill some one, and shall be shot for it. And
this will be going on for twenty years! They speak to me rudely as it is.
I've been lying here all night, passing judgment on myself. I am not
ready! I am not able to resign myself. I wanted to sing a 'hymn'; but if a
guard speaks rudely to me, I have not the strength to bear it. For Grusha
I would bear anything ... anything except blows.... But she won't be
allowed to come there."

Alyosha smiled gently.

"Listen, brother, once for all," he said. "This is what I think about it.
And you know that I would not tell you a lie. Listen: you are not ready,
and such a cross is not for you. What's more, you don't need such a
martyr's cross when you are not ready for it. If you had murdered our
father, it would grieve me that you should reject your punishment. But you
are innocent, and such a cross is too much for you. You wanted to make
yourself another man by suffering. I say, only remember that other man
always, all your life and wherever you go; and that will be enough for
you. Your refusal of that great cross will only serve to make you feel all
your life an even greater duty, and that constant feeling will do more to
make you a new man, perhaps, than if you went there. For there you would
not endure it and would repine, and perhaps at last would say: 'I am
quits.' The lawyer was right about that. Such heavy burdens are not for
all men. For some they are impossible. These are my thoughts about it, if
you want them so much. If other men would have to answer for your escape,
officers or soldiers, then I would not have 'allowed' you," smiled
Alyosha. "But they declare--the superintendent of that _etape_ told Ivan
himself--that if it's well managed there will be no great inquiry, and that
they can get off easily. Of course, bribing is dishonest even in such a
case, but I can't undertake to judge about it, because if Ivan and Katya
commissioned me to act for you, I know I should go and give bribes. I must
tell you the truth. And so I can't judge of your own action. But let me
assure you that I shall never condemn you. And it would be a strange thing
if I could judge you in this. Now I think I've gone into everything."

"But I do condemn myself!" cried Mitya. "I shall escape, that was settled
apart from you; could Mitya Karamazov do anything but run away? But I
shall condemn myself, and I will pray for my sin for ever. That's how the
Jesuits talk, isn't it? Just as we are doing?"

"Yes." Alyosha smiled gently.

"I love you for always telling the whole truth and never hiding anything,"
cried Mitya, with a joyful laugh. "So I've caught my Alyosha being
Jesuitical. I must kiss you for that. Now listen to the rest; I'll open
the other side of my heart to you. This is what I planned and decided. If
I run away, even with money and a passport, and even to America, I should
be cheered up by the thought that I am not running away for pleasure, not
for happiness, but to another exile as bad, perhaps, as Siberia. It is as
bad, Alyosha, it is! I hate that America, damn it, already. Even though
Grusha will be with me. Just look at her; is she an American? She is
Russian, Russian to the marrow of her bones; she will be homesick for the
mother country, and I shall see every hour that she is suffering for my
sake, that she has taken up that cross for me. And what harm has she done?
And how shall I, too, put up with the rabble out there, though they may be
better than I, every one of them? I hate that America already! And though
they may be wonderful at machinery, every one of them, damn them, they are
not of my soul. I love Russia, Alyosha, I love the Russian God, though I
am a scoundrel myself. I shall choke there!" he exclaimed, his eyes
suddenly flashing. His voice was trembling with tears. "So this is what
I've decided, Alyosha, listen," he began again, mastering his emotion. "As
soon as I arrive there with Grusha, we will set to work at once on the
land, in solitude, somewhere very remote, with wild bears. There must be
some remote parts even there. I am told there are still Redskins there,
somewhere, on the edge of the horizon. So to the country of the _Last of
the Mohicans_, and there we'll tackle the grammar at once, Grusha and I.
Work and grammar--that's how we'll spend three years. And by that time we
shall speak English like any Englishman. And as soon as we've learnt
it--good-by to America! We'll run here to Russia as American citizens.
Don't be uneasy--we would not come to this little town. We'd hide
somewhere, a long way off, in the north or in the south. I shall be
changed by that time, and she will, too, in America. The doctors shall
make me some sort of wart on my face--what's the use of their being so
mechanical!--or else I'll put out one eye, let my beard grow a yard, and I
shall turn gray, fretting for Russia. I dare say they won't recognize us.
And if they do, let them send us to Siberia. I don't care. It will show
it's our fate. We'll work on the land here, too, somewhere in the wilds,
and I'll make up as an American all my life. But we shall die on our own
soil. That's my plan, and it shan't be altered. Do you approve?"

"Yes," said Alyosha, not wanting to contradict him. Mitya paused for a
minute and said suddenly:

"And how they worked it up at the trial! Didn't they work it up!"

"If they had not, you would have been convicted just the same," said
Alyosha, with a sigh.

"Yes, people are sick of me here! God bless them, but it's hard," Mitya
moaned miserably. Again there was silence for a minute.

"Alyosha, put me out of my misery at once!" he exclaimed suddenly. "Tell
me, is she coming now, or not? Tell me? What did she say? How did she say
it?"

"She said she would come, but I don't know whether she will come to-day.
It's hard for her, you know," Alyosha looked timidly at his brother.

"I should think it is hard for her! Alyosha, it will drive me out of my
mind. Grusha keeps looking at me. She understands. My God, calm my heart:
what is it I want? I want Katya! Do I understand what I want? It's the
headstrong, evil Karamazov spirit! No, I am not fit for suffering. I am a
scoundrel, that's all one can say."

"Here she is!" cried Alyosha.

At that instant Katya appeared in the doorway. For a moment she stood
still, gazing at Mitya with a dazed expression. He leapt impulsively to
his feet, and a scared look came into his face. He turned pale, but a
timid, pleading smile appeared on his lips at once, and with an
irresistible impulse he held out both hands to Katya. Seeing it, she flew
impetuously to him. She seized him by the hands, and almost by force made
him sit down on the bed. She sat down beside him, and still keeping his
hands pressed them violently. Several times they both strove to speak, but
stopped short and again gazed speechless with a strange smile, their eyes
fastened on one another. So passed two minutes.

"Have you forgiven me?" Mitya faltered at last, and at the same moment
turning to Alyosha, his face working with joy, he cried, "Do you hear what
I am asking, do you hear?"

"That's what I loved you for, that you are generous at heart!" broke from
Katya. "My forgiveness is no good to you, nor yours to me; whether you
forgive me or not, you will always be a sore place in my heart, and I in
yours--so it must be...." She stopped to take breath. "What have I come
for?" she began again with nervous haste: "to embrace your feet, to press
your hands like this, till it hurts--you remember how in Moscow I used to
squeeze them--to tell you again that you are my god, my joy, to tell you
that I love you madly," she moaned in anguish, and suddenly pressed his
hand greedily to her lips. Tears streamed from her eyes. Alyosha stood
speechless and confounded; he had never expected what he was seeing.

"Love is over, Mitya!" Katya began again, "but the past is painfully dear
to me. Know that you will always be so. But now let what might have been
come true for one minute," she faltered, with a drawn smile, looking into
his face joyfully again. "You love another woman, and I love another man,
and yet I shall love you for ever, and you will love me; do you know that?
Do you hear? Love me, love me all your life!" she cried, with a quiver
almost of menace in her voice.

"I shall love you, and ... do you know, Katya," Mitya began, drawing a
deep breath at each word, "do you know, five days ago, that same evening,
I loved you.... When you fell down and were carried out ... All my life!
So it will be, so it will always be--"

So they murmured to one another frantic words, almost meaningless, perhaps
not even true, but at that moment it was all true, and they both believed
what they said implicitly.

"Katya," cried Mitya suddenly, "do you believe I murdered him? I know you
don't believe it now, but then ... when you gave evidence.... Surely,
surely you did not believe it!"

"I did not believe it even then. I've never believed it. I hated you, and
for a moment I persuaded myself. While I was giving evidence I persuaded
myself and believed it, but when I'd finished speaking I left off
believing it at once. Don't doubt that! I have forgotten that I came here
to punish myself," she said, with a new expression in her voice, quite
unlike the loving tones of a moment before.

"Woman, yours is a heavy burden," broke, as it were, involuntarily from
Mitya.

"Let me go," she whispered. "I'll come again. It's more than I can bear
now."

She was getting up from her place, but suddenly uttered a loud scream and
staggered back. Grushenka walked suddenly and noiselessly into the room.
No one had expected her. Katya moved swiftly to the door, but when she
reached Grushenka, she stopped suddenly, turned as white as chalk and
moaned softly, almost in a whisper:

"Forgive me!"

Grushenka stared at her and, pausing for an instant, in a vindictive,
venomous voice, answered:

"We are full of hatred, my girl, you and I! We are both full of hatred! As
though we could forgive one another! Save him, and I'll worship you all my
life."

"You won't forgive her!" cried Mitya, with frantic reproach.

"Don't be anxious, I'll save him for you!" Katya whispered rapidly, and
she ran out of the room.

"And you could refuse to forgive her when she begged your forgiveness
herself?" Mitya exclaimed bitterly again.

"Mitya, don't dare to blame her; you have no right to!" Alyosha cried
hotly.

"Her proud lips spoke, not her heart," Grushenka brought out in a tone of
disgust. "If she saves you I'll forgive her everything--"

She stopped speaking, as though suppressing something. She could not yet
recover herself. She had come in, as appeared afterwards, accidentally,
with no suspicion of what she would meet.

"Alyosha, run after her!" Mitya cried to his brother; "tell her ... I
don't know ... don't let her go away like this!"

"I'll come to you again at nightfall," said Alyosha, and he ran after
Katya. He overtook her outside the hospital grounds. She was walking fast,
but as soon as Alyosha caught her up she said quickly:

"No, before that woman I can't punish myself! I asked her forgiveness
because I wanted to punish myself to the bitter end. She would not forgive
me.... I like her for that!" she added, in an unnatural voice, and her
eyes flashed with fierce resentment.

"My brother did not expect this in the least," muttered Alyosha. "He was
sure she would not come--"

"No doubt. Let us leave that," she snapped. "Listen: I can't go with you
to the funeral now. I've sent them flowers. I think they still have money.
If necessary, tell them I'll never abandon them.... Now leave me, leave
me, please. You are late as it is--the bells are ringing for the
service.... Leave me, please!"

Chapter III. Ilusha's Funeral. The Speech At The Stone

He really was late. They had waited for him and had already decided to
bear the pretty flower-decked little coffin to the church without him. It
was the coffin of poor little Ilusha. He had died two days after Mitya was
sentenced. At the gate of the house Alyosha was met by the shouts of the
boys, Ilusha's schoolfellows. They had all been impatiently expecting him
and were glad that he had come at last. There were about twelve of them,
they all had their school-bags or satchels on their shoulders. "Father
will cry, be with father," Ilusha had told them as he lay dying, and the
boys remembered it. Kolya Krassotkin was the foremost of them.

"How glad I am you've come, Karamazov!" he cried, holding out his hand to
Alyosha. "It's awful here. It's really horrible to see it. Snegiryov is
not drunk, we know for a fact he's had nothing to drink to-day, but he
seems as if he were drunk ... I am always manly, but this is awful.
Karamazov, if I am not keeping you, one question before you go in?"

"What is it, Kolya?" said Alyosha.

"Is your brother innocent or guilty? Was it he killed your father or was
it the valet? As you say, so it will be. I haven't slept for the last four
nights for thinking of it."

"The valet killed him, my brother is innocent," answered Alyosha.

"That's what I said," cried Smurov.

"So he will perish an innocent victim!" exclaimed Kolya; "though he is
ruined he is happy! I could envy him!"

"What do you mean? How can you? Why?" cried Alyosha surprised.

"Oh, if I, too, could sacrifice myself some day for truth!" said Kolya
with enthusiasm.

"But not in such a cause, not with such disgrace and such horror!" said
Alyosha.

"Of course ... I should like to die for all humanity, and as for disgrace,
I don't care about that--our names may perish. I respect your brother!"

"And so do I!" the boy, who had once declared that he knew who had founded
Troy, cried suddenly and unexpectedly, and he blushed up to his ears like
a peony as he had done on that occasion.

Alyosha went into the room. Ilusha lay with his hands folded and his eyes
closed in a blue coffin with a white frill round it. His thin face was
hardly changed at all, and strange to say there was no smell of decay from
the corpse. The expression of his face was serious and, as it were,
thoughtful. His hands, crossed over his breast, looked particularly
beautiful, as though chiseled in marble. There were flowers in his hands
and the coffin, inside and out, was decked with flowers, which had been
sent early in the morning by Lise Hohlakov. But there were flowers too
from Katerina Ivanovna, and when Alyosha opened the door, the captain had
a bunch in his trembling hands and was strewing them again over his dear
boy. He scarcely glanced at Alyosha when he came in, and he would not look
at any one, even at his crazy weeping wife, "mamma," who kept trying to
stand on her crippled legs to get a nearer look at her dead boy. Nina had
been pushed in her chair by the boys close up to the coffin. She sat with
her head pressed to it and she too was no doubt quietly weeping.
Snegiryov's face looked eager, yet bewildered and exasperated. There was
something crazy about his gestures and the words that broke from him. "Old
man, dear old man!" he exclaimed every minute, gazing at Ilusha. It was
his habit to call Ilusha "old man," as a term of affection when he was
alive.

"Father, give me a flower, too; take that white one out of his hand and
give it me," the crazy mother begged, whimpering. Either because the
little white rose in Ilusha's hand had caught her fancy or that she wanted
one from his hand to keep in memory of him, she moved restlessly,
stretching out her hands for the flower.

"I won't give it to any one, I won't give you anything," Snegiryov cried
callously. "They are his flowers, not yours! Everything is his, nothing is
yours!"

"Father, give mother a flower!" said Nina, lifting her face wet with
tears.

"I won't give away anything and to her less than any one! She didn't love
Ilusha. She took away his little cannon and he gave it to her," the
captain broke into loud sobs at the thought of how Ilusha had given up his
cannon to his mother. The poor, crazy creature was bathed in noiseless
tears, hiding her face in her hands.

The boys, seeing that the father would not leave the coffin and that it
was time to carry it out, stood round it in a close circle and began to
lift it up.

"I don't want him to be buried in the churchyard," Snegiryov wailed
suddenly; "I'll bury him by the stone, by our stone! Ilusha told me to. I
won't let him be carried out!"

He had been saying for the last three days that he would bury him by the
stone, but Alyosha, Krassotkin, the landlady, her sister and all the boys
interfered.

"What an idea, bury him by an unholy stone, as though he had hanged
himself!" the old landlady said sternly. "There in the churchyard the
ground has been crossed. He'll be prayed for there. One can hear the
singing in church and the deacon reads so plainly and verbally that it
will reach him every time just as though it were read over his grave."

At last the captain made a gesture of despair as though to say, "Take him
where you will." The boys raised the coffin, but as they passed the
mother, they stopped for a moment and lowered it that she might say good-
by to Ilusha. But on seeing that precious little face, which for the last
three days she had only looked at from a distance, she trembled all over
and her gray head began twitching spasmodically over the coffin.

"Mother, make the sign of the cross over him, give him your blessing, kiss
him," Nina cried to her. But her head still twitched like an automaton and
with a face contorted with bitter grief she began, without a word, beating
her breast with her fist. They carried the coffin past her. Nina pressed
her lips to her brother's for the last time as they bore the coffin by
her. As Alyosha went out of the house he begged the landlady to look after
those who were left behind, but she interrupted him before he had
finished.

"To be sure, I'll stay with them, we are Christians, too." The old woman
wept as she said it.

They had not far to carry the coffin to the church, not more than three
hundred paces. It was a still, clear day, with a slight frost. The church
bells were still ringing. Snegiryov ran fussing and distracted after the
coffin, in his short old summer overcoat, with his head bare and his soft,
old, wide-brimmed hat in his hand. He seemed in a state of bewildered
anxiety. At one minute he stretched out his hand to support the head of
the coffin and only hindered the bearers, at another he ran alongside and
tried to find a place for himself there. A flower fell on the snow and he
rushed to pick it up as though everything in the world depended on the
loss of that flower.

"And the crust of bread, we've forgotten the crust!" he cried suddenly in
dismay. But the boys reminded him at once that he had taken the crust of
bread already and that it was in his pocket. He instantly pulled it out
and was reassured.

"Ilusha told me to, Ilusha," he explained at once to Alyosha. "I was
sitting by him one night and he suddenly told me: 'Father, when my grave
is filled up crumble a piece of bread on it so that the sparrows may fly
down, I shall hear and it will cheer me up not to be lying alone.' "

"That's a good thing," said Alyosha, "we must often take some."

"Every day, every day!" said the captain quickly, seeming cheered at the
thought.

They reached the church at last and set the coffin in the middle of it.
The boys surrounded it and remained reverently standing so, all through
the service. It was an old and rather poor church; many of the ikons were
without settings; but such churches are the best for praying in. During
the mass Snegiryov became somewhat calmer, though at times he had
outbursts of the same unconscious and, as it were, incoherent anxiety. At
one moment he went up to the coffin to set straight the cover or the
wreath, when a candle fell out of the candlestick he rushed to replace it
and was a fearful time fumbling over it, then he subsided and stood
quietly by the coffin with a look of blank uneasiness and perplexity.
After the Epistle he suddenly whispered to Alyosha, who was standing
beside him, that the Epistle had not been read properly but did not
explain what he meant. During the prayer, "Like the Cherubim," he joined
in the singing but did not go on to the end. Falling on his knees, he
pressed his forehead to the stone floor and lay so for a long while.

At last came the funeral service itself and candles were distributed. The
distracted father began fussing about again, but the touching and
impressive funeral prayers moved and roused his soul. He seemed suddenly
to shrink together and broke into rapid, short sobs, which he tried at
first to smother, but at last he sobbed aloud. When they began taking
leave of the dead and closing the coffin, he flung his arms about, as
though he would not allow them to cover Ilusha, and began greedily and
persistently kissing his dead boy on the lips. At last they succeeded in
persuading him to come away from the step, but suddenly he impulsively
stretched out his hand and snatched a few flowers from the coffin. He
looked at them and a new idea seemed to dawn upon him, so that he
apparently forgot his grief for a minute. Gradually he seemed to sink into
brooding and did not resist when the coffin was lifted up and carried to
the grave. It was an expensive one in the churchyard close to the church,
Katerina Ivanovna had paid for it. After the customary rites the grave-
diggers lowered the coffin. Snegiryov with his flowers in his hands bent
down so low over the open grave that the boys caught hold of his coat in
alarm and pulled him back. He did not seem to understand fully what was
happening. When they began filling up the grave, he suddenly pointed
anxiously at the falling earth and began trying to say something, but no
one could make out what he meant, and he stopped suddenly. Then he was
reminded that he must crumble the bread and he was awfully excited,
snatched up the bread and began pulling it to pieces and flinging the
morsels on the grave.

"Come, fly down, birds, fly down, sparrows!" he muttered anxiously.

One of the boys observed that it was awkward for him to crumble the bread
with the flowers in his hands and suggested he should give them to some
one to hold for a time. But he would not do this and seemed indeed
suddenly alarmed for his flowers, as though they wanted to take them from
him altogether. And after looking at the grave, and as it were, satisfying
himself that everything had been done and the bread had been crumbled, he
suddenly, to the surprise of every one, turned, quite composedly even, and
made his way homewards. But his steps became more and more hurried, he
almost ran. The boys and Alyosha kept up with him.

"The flowers are for mamma, the flowers are for mamma! I was unkind to
mamma," he began exclaiming suddenly.

Some one called to him to put on his hat as it was cold. But he flung the
hat in the snow as though he were angry and kept repeating, "I won't have
the hat, I won't have the hat." Smurov picked it up and carried it after
him. All the boys were crying, and Kolya and the boy who discovered about
Troy most of all. Though Smurov, with the captain's hat in his hand, was
crying bitterly too, he managed, as he ran, to snatch up a piece of red
brick that lay on the snow of the path, to fling it at the flock of
sparrows that was flying by. He missed them, of course, and went on crying
as he ran. Half-way, Snegiryov suddenly stopped, stood still for half a
minute, as though struck by something, and suddenly turning back to the
church, ran towards the deserted grave. But the boys instantly overtook
him and caught hold of him on all sides. Then he fell helpless on the snow
as though he had been knocked down, and struggling, sobbing, and wailing,
he began crying out, "Ilusha, old man, dear old man!" Alyosha and Kolya
tried to make him get up, soothing and persuading him.

"Captain, give over, a brave man must show fortitude," muttered Kolya.

"You'll spoil the flowers," said Alyosha, "and mamma is expecting them,
she is sitting crying because you would not give her any before. Ilusha's
little bed is still there--"

"Yes, yes, mamma!" Snegiryov suddenly recollected, "they'll take away the
bed, they'll take it away," he added as though alarmed that they really
would. He jumped up and ran homewards again. But it was not far off and
they all arrived together. Snegiryov opened the door hurriedly and called
to his wife with whom he had so cruelly quarreled just before:

"Mamma, poor crippled darling, Ilusha has sent you these flowers," he
cried, holding out to her a little bunch of flowers that had been frozen
and broken while he was struggling in the snow. But at that instant he saw
in the corner, by the little bed, Ilusha's little boots, which the
landlady had put tidily side by side. Seeing the old, patched, rusty-
looking, stiff boots he flung up his hands and rushed to them, fell on his
knees, snatched up one boot and, pressing his lips to it, began kissing it
greedily, crying, "Ilusha, old man, dear old man, where are your little
feet?"

"Where have you taken him away? Where have you taken him?" the lunatic
cried in a heartrending voice. Nina, too, broke into sobs. Kolya ran out
of the room, the boys followed him. At last Alyosha too went out.

"Let them weep," he said to Kolya, "it's no use trying to comfort them
just now. Let us wait a minute and then go back."

"No, it's no use, it's awful," Kolya assented. "Do you know, Karamazov,"
he dropped his voice so that no one could hear them, "I feel dreadfully
sad, and if it were only possible to bring him back, I'd give anything in
the world to do it."

"Ah, so would I," said Alyosha.

"What do you think, Karamazov? Had we better come back here to-night?
He'll be drunk, you know."

"Perhaps he will. Let us come together, you and I, that will be enough, to
spend an hour with them, with the mother and Nina. If we all come together
we shall remind them of everything again," Alyosha suggested.

"The landlady is laying the table for them now--there'll be a funeral
dinner or something, the priest is coming; shall we go back to it,
Karamazov?"

"Of course," said Alyosha.

"It's all so strange, Karamazov, such sorrow and then pancakes after it,
it all seems so unnatural in our religion."

"They are going to have salmon, too," the boy who had discovered about
Troy observed in a loud voice.

"I beg you most earnestly, Kartashov, not to interrupt again with your
idiotic remarks, especially when one is not talking to you and doesn't
care to know whether you exist or not!" Kolya snapped out irritably. The
boy flushed crimson but did not dare to reply.

Meantime they were strolling slowly along the path and suddenly Smurov
exclaimed:

"There's Ilusha's stone, under which they wanted to bury him."

They all stood still by the big stone. Alyosha looked and the whole
picture of what Snegiryov had described to him that day, how Ilusha,
weeping and hugging his father, had cried, "Father, father, how he
insulted you," rose at once before his imagination.

A sudden impulse seemed to come into his soul. With a serious and earnest
expression he looked from one to another of the bright, pleasant faces of
Ilusha's schoolfellows, and suddenly said to them:

"Boys, I should like to say one word to you, here at this place."

The boys stood round him and at once bent attentive and expectant eyes
upon him.

"Boys, we shall soon part. I shall be for some time with my two brothers,
of whom one is going to Siberia and the other is lying at death's door.
But soon I shall leave this town, perhaps for a long time, so we shall
part. Let us make a compact here, at Ilusha's stone, that we will never
forget Ilusha and one another. And whatever happens to us later in life,
if we don't meet for twenty years afterwards, let us always remember how
we buried the poor boy at whom we once threw stones, do you remember, by
the bridge? and afterwards we all grew so fond of him. He was a fine boy,
a kind-hearted, brave boy, he felt for his father's honor and resented the
cruel insult to him and stood up for him. And so in the first place, we
will remember him, boys, all our lives. And even if we are occupied with
most important things, if we attain to honor or fall into great
misfortune--still let us remember how good it was once here, when we were
all together, united by a good and kind feeling which made us, for the
time we were loving that poor boy, better perhaps than we are. My little
doves--let me call you so, for you are very like them, those pretty blue
birds, at this minute as I look at your good dear faces. My dear children,
perhaps you won't understand what I am saying to you, because I often
speak very unintelligibly, but you'll remember it all the same and will
agree with my words some time. You must know that there is nothing higher
and stronger and more wholesome and good for life in the future than some
good memory, especially a memory of childhood, of home. People talk to you
a great deal about your education, but some good, sacred memory, preserved
from childhood, is perhaps the best education. If a man carries many such
memories with him into life, he is safe to the end of his days, and if one
has only one good memory left in one's heart, even that may sometime be
the means of saving us. Perhaps we may even grow wicked later on, may be
unable to refrain from a bad action, may laugh at men's tears and at those
people who say as Kolya did just now, 'I want to suffer for all men,' and
may even jeer spitefully at such people. But however bad we may
become--which God forbid--yet, when we recall how we buried Ilusha, how we
loved him in his last days, and how we have been talking like friends all
together, at this stone, the cruelest and most mocking of us--if we do
become so--will not dare to laugh inwardly at having been kind and good at
this moment! What's more, perhaps, that one memory may keep him from great
evil and he will reflect and say, 'Yes, I was good and brave and honest
then!' Let him laugh to himself, that's no matter, a man often laughs at
what's good and kind. That's only from thoughtlessness. But I assure you,
boys, that as he laughs he will say at once in his heart, 'No, I do wrong
to laugh, for that's not a thing to laugh at.' "

"That will be so, I understand you, Karamazov!" cried Kolya, with flashing
eyes.

The boys were excited and they, too, wanted to say something, but they
restrained themselves, looking with intentness and emotion at the speaker.

"I say this in case we become bad," Alyosha went on, "but there's no
reason why we should become bad, is there, boys? Let us be, first and
above all, kind, then honest and then let us never forget each other! I
say that again. I give you my word for my part that I'll never forget one
of you. Every face looking at me now I shall remember even for thirty
years. Just now Kolya said to Kartashov that we did not care to know
whether he exists or not. But I cannot forget that Kartashov exists and
that he is not blushing now as he did when he discovered the founders of
Troy, but is looking at me with his jolly, kind, dear little eyes. Boys,
my dear boys, let us all be generous and brave like Ilusha, clever, brave
and generous like Kolya (though he will be ever so much cleverer when he
is grown up), and let us all be as modest, as clever and sweet as
Kartashov. But why am I talking about those two? You are all dear to me,
boys, from this day forth, I have a place in my heart for you all, and I
beg you to keep a place in your hearts for me! Well, and who has united us
in this kind, good feeling which we shall remember and intend to remember
all our lives? Who, if not Ilusha, the good boy, the dear boy, precious to
us for ever! Let us never forget him. May his memory live for ever in our
hearts from this time forth!"

"Yes, yes, for ever, for ever!" the boys cried in their ringing voices,
with softened faces.

"Let us remember his face and his clothes and his poor little boots, his
coffin and his unhappy, sinful father, and how boldly he stood up for him
alone against the whole school."

"We will remember, we will remember," cried the boys. "He was brave, he
was good!"

"Ah, how I loved him!" exclaimed Kolya.

"Ah, children, ah, dear friends, don't be afraid of life! How good life is
when one does something good and just!"

"Yes, yes," the boys repeated enthusiastically.

"Karamazov, we love you!" a voice, probably Kartashov's, cried
impulsively.

"We love you, we love you!" they all caught it up. There were tears in the
eyes of many of them.

"Hurrah for Karamazov!" Kolya shouted ecstatically.

"And may the dead boy's memory live for ever!" Alyosha added again with
feeling.

"For ever!" the boys chimed in again.

"Karamazov," cried Kolya, "can it be true what's taught us in religion,
that we shall all rise again from the dead and shall live and see each
other again, all, Ilusha too?"

"Certainly we shall all rise again, certainly we shall see each other and
shall tell each other with joy and gladness all that has happened!"
Alyosha answered, half laughing, half enthusiastic.

"Ah, how splendid it will be!" broke from Kolya.

"Well, now we will finish talking and go to his funeral dinner. Don't be
put out at our eating pancakes--it's a very old custom and there's
something nice in that!" laughed Alyosha. "Well, let us go! And now we go
hand in hand."

"And always so, all our lives hand in hand! Hurrah for Karamazov!" Kolya
cried once more rapturously, and once more the boys took up his
exclamation: "Hurrah for Karamazov!"

THE END

FOOTNOTES

    1 In Russian, "silen."

    2 A proverbial expression in Russia.

    3 Grushenka.

    4 i.e. setter dog.

    5 Probably the public event was the Decabrist plot against the Tsar,
      of December 1825, in which the most distinguished men in Russia were
      concerned.--TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.

    6 When a monk's body is carried out from the cell to the church and
      from the church to the graveyard, the canticle "What earthly joy..."
      is sung. If the deceased was a priest as well as a monk the canticle
      "Our Helper and Defender" is sung instead.

    7 i.e. a chime of bells.

    8 Literally: "Did you get off with a long nose made at you?"--a
      proverbial expression in Russia for failure.

    9 Gogol is meant.

Alyosha visits Katerina, where he finds Ivan feverish and asleep. Katerina tells Alyosha that they are planning to break Dmitri out of prison so he can flee the country, and she needs Alyosha's help. Despite the fact that this will entail bribes and lies, Alyosha agrees with one condition, that Katerina will visit poor Dmitri in prison. When Alyosha visits Dmitri, Dmitri is consumed with a need to repent. He wants to be redeemed through suffering, but he says he needs Grushenka to help him through this difficult time in his life. Alyosha excitedly tells Dmitri of their plans for his escape. Dmitri says he will go along with the plan, but he says he feels a strong desire to return to Russia one day. Katerina visits Dmitri, and they make their peace. Grushenka visits Dmitri, too, and when Katerina sees her, she apologizes to her, too. Grushenka, however, does not forgive Katerina for her actions in the courtroom, which had led to Dmitri's conviction. Ilusha dies. Alyosha goes to his funeral. He talks to all of Ilusha's friends and tells them to remember their friend. The boys all like him very much, and they cheer for their mentor and friend.

This denouement is about redemption. It is not so much about Dmitri's redemption, though he explains how he plans to begin a new life. It is not so much about Ivan's redemption, even though he is being resuscitated in Katerina's arms. This epilogue shows that children are the redemption of Russia. When Alyosha talks to the children, they cheer his hopeful words and ideas, and one can assume that they will go out into the world and incorporate them into their lives. The search for redemption is larger than individuals such as Dmitri or Ivan. When Fyodor dies without redeeming his wicked, licentious life, the most lasting consequence is that the next generation inherits his burdens and debts. His sons, voluntarily or involuntarily, have all learned from him and have lived in his shadow all their lives. If they extricate themselves from this encumbrance in their lifetime, it is a small triumph. If they can pass down hope to the next generation, however, this is the greatest contribution they can make to their country and to their fellow man. When Alyosha passes words of love down to the young boys, he is doing his part to ensure the future of Russia. Dostoevsky felt very strongly about his country, and he had deep feelings for it. When Dmitri is talking to Alyosha about fleeing to another country, he expresses his determination to return to Russia one day, because even if it has forsaken him, it is his country and he loves it. This novel begins as a story about family and ends as a story about country, a place where individuals and families can be inspired to lead better lives.

After Dmitri's trial, Alyosha goes to Katerina's, where Ivan is ill, unconscious, and burning with high fever; in spite of gossip, Katerina has ordered that he be brought to her house. When Alyosha arrives, she confesses her deep regret over what she revealed during the trial but says that Dmitri's escape is already being planned. She explains further that more help is needed; Alyosha must aid his brother and bribe the appropriate officials. Alyosha agrees but forces Katerina to promise that she will visit Dmitri in prison. Alyosha then goes to his brother and tells him that Katerina also will come, but Dmitri has weightier problems troubling him. He explains his desire to repent and, through suffering, to become a new human being. He fears only one thing: that he will be unable to carry out his intentions if the authorities do not let Grushenka accompany him. Alyosha explains the plans that have been made for the escape, and Dmitri reluctantly agrees to them. He makes one stipulation, however; he escapes only for the present. Someday he must return to Mother Russia. Katerina then enters, and she and Dmitri ask each other for forgiveness. Peace is not so easy, though, even now, for Grushenka unexpectedly arrives. Although Katerina begs her for forgiveness, Grushenka still feels too bitter toward her former rival to acknowledge any pleas. In the meantime, little Ilusha has died, and Alyosha leaves Dmitri to go to the young boy's funeral. After the burial, Alyosha talks with Ilusha's many school friends and asks them to remember forever their friendship at the present moment. He, in turn, promises that he will never forget any one of them. The boys are deeply affected by Alyosha's sincerity and all cheer, "Hurrah for Karamazov."

In a sense, the epilogue conforms to the nineteenth-century custom of tidying up the end of a novel. Here the final fates of all the characters are revealed, and the reader is relieved from speculating. Dmitri accepts Ivan's plan for escape, but only after he has Alyosha's sanction. As for Alyosha, he conforms to the directives of the late Father Zossima. He does not condemn his brother, nor does he object to the escape. In short, he refuses to judge Dmitri. Even in his escape, it is important to note that Dmitri feels that he will suffer immensely. He has been depicted as being closely attached to Russia and to be exiled to America -- to be separated from the soil from which he takes his strength -- is an extreme form of punishment for him. His plans are to return to his country as soon as possible and then to live anonymously in some remote region. This lasting love for Russian soil, of course, reflects Dostoevsky's passion for his native land. In the novel's final pages, all concern is with Alyosha and Ilusha's young school friends. The ex-monk has had little success with adults in Russian society, but with children he is unexcelled. The boys eagerly gather around Alyosha and are openly responsive to his speech about love and devotion -- a message quite clear: Dostoevsky believes that youth, nurtured on the wisdom of Father Zossima, will be the salvation of Russia.


PART I Book I. The History Of A Family Chapter I. Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov

Alexey Fyodorovitch Karamazov was the third son of Fyodor Pavlovitch
Karamazov, a land owner well known in our district in his own day, and
still remembered among us owing to his gloomy and tragic death, which
happened thirteen years ago, and which I shall describe in its proper
place. For the present I will only say that this "landowner"--for so we
used to call him, although he hardly spent a day of his life on his own
estate--was a strange type, yet one pretty frequently to be met with, a
type abject and vicious and at the same time senseless. But he was one of
those senseless persons who are very well capable of looking after their
worldly affairs, and, apparently, after nothing else. Fyodor Pavlovitch,
for instance, began with next to nothing; his estate was of the smallest;
he ran to dine at other men's tables, and fastened on them as a toady, yet
at his death it appeared that he had a hundred thousand roubles in hard
cash. At the same time, he was all his life one of the most senseless,
fantastical fellows in the whole district. I repeat, it was not
stupidity--the majority of these fantastical fellows are shrewd and
intelligent enough--but just senselessness, and a peculiar national form of
it.

He was married twice, and had three sons, the eldest, Dmitri, by his first
wife, and two, Ivan and Alexey, by his second. Fyodor Pavlovitch's first
wife, Adelaida Ivanovna, belonged to a fairly rich and distinguished noble
family, also landowners in our district, the Miuesovs. How it came to pass
that an heiress, who was also a beauty, and moreover one of those
vigorous, intelligent girls, so common in this generation, but sometimes
also to be found in the last, could have married such a worthless, puny
weakling, as we all called him, I won't attempt to explain. I knew a young
lady of the last "romantic" generation who after some years of an
enigmatic passion for a gentleman, whom she might quite easily have
married at any moment, invented insuperable obstacles to their union, and
ended by throwing herself one stormy night into a rather deep and rapid
river from a high bank, almost a precipice, and so perished, entirely to
satisfy her own caprice, and to be like Shakespeare's Ophelia. Indeed, if
this precipice, a chosen and favorite spot of hers, had been less
picturesque, if there had been a prosaic flat bank in its place, most
likely the suicide would never have taken place. This is a fact, and
probably there have been not a few similar instances in the last two or
three generations. Adelaida Ivanovna Miuesov's action was similarly, no
doubt, an echo of other people's ideas, and was due to the irritation
caused by lack of mental freedom. She wanted, perhaps, to show her
feminine independence, to override class distinctions and the despotism of
her family. And a pliable imagination persuaded her, we must suppose, for
a brief moment, that Fyodor Pavlovitch, in spite of his parasitic
position, was one of the bold and ironical spirits of that progressive
epoch, though he was, in fact, an ill-natured buffoon and nothing more.
What gave the marriage piquancy was that it was preceded by an elopement,
and this greatly captivated Adelaida Ivanovna's fancy. Fyodor Pavlovitch's
position at the time made him specially eager for any such enterprise, for
he was passionately anxious to make a career in one way or another. To
attach himself to a good family and obtain a dowry was an alluring
prospect. As for mutual love it did not exist apparently, either in the
bride or in him, in spite of Adelaida Ivanovna's beauty. This was,
perhaps, a unique case of the kind in the life of Fyodor Pavlovitch, who
was always of a voluptuous temper, and ready to run after any petticoat on
the slightest encouragement. She seems to have been the only woman who
made no particular appeal to his senses.

Immediately after the elopement Adelaida Ivanovna discerned in a flash
that she had no feeling for her husband but contempt. The marriage
accordingly showed itself in its true colors with extraordinary rapidity.
Although the family accepted the event pretty quickly and apportioned the
runaway bride her dowry, the husband and wife began to lead a most
disorderly life, and there were everlasting scenes between them. It was
said that the young wife showed incomparably more generosity and dignity
than Fyodor Pavlovitch, who, as is now known, got hold of all her money up
to twenty-five thousand roubles as soon as she received it, so that those
thousands were lost to her for ever. The little village and the rather
fine town house which formed part of her dowry he did his utmost for a
long time to transfer to his name, by means of some deed of conveyance. He
would probably have succeeded, merely from her moral fatigue and desire to
get rid of him, and from the contempt and loathing he aroused by his
persistent and shameless importunity. But, fortunately, Adelaida
Ivanovna's family intervened and circumvented his greediness. It is known
for a fact that frequent fights took place between the husband and wife,
but rumor had it that Fyodor Pavlovitch did not beat his wife but was
beaten by her, for she was a hot-tempered, bold, dark-browed, impatient
woman, possessed of remarkable physical strength. Finally, she left the
house and ran away from Fyodor Pavlovitch with a destitute divinity
student, leaving Mitya, a child of three years old, in her husband's
hands. Immediately Fyodor Pavlovitch introduced a regular harem into the
house, and abandoned himself to orgies of drunkenness. In the intervals he
used to drive all over the province, complaining tearfully to each and all
of Adelaida Ivanovna's having left him, going into details too disgraceful
for a husband to mention in regard to his own married life. What seemed to
gratify him and flatter his self-love most was to play the ridiculous part
of the injured husband, and to parade his woes with embellishments.

"One would think that you'd got a promotion, Fyodor Pavlovitch, you seem
so pleased in spite of your sorrow," scoffers said to him. Many even added
that he was glad of a new comic part in which to play the buffoon, and
that it was simply to make it funnier that he pretended to be unaware of
his ludicrous position. But, who knows, it may have been simplicity. At
last he succeeded in getting on the track of his runaway wife. The poor
woman turned out to be in Petersburg, where she had gone with her divinity
student, and where she had thrown herself into a life of complete
emancipation. Fyodor Pavlovitch at once began bustling about, making
preparations to go to Petersburg, with what object he could not himself
have said. He would perhaps have really gone; but having determined to do
so he felt at once entitled to fortify himself for the journey by another
bout of reckless drinking. And just at that time his wife's family
received the news of her death in Petersburg. She had died quite suddenly
in a garret, according to one story, of typhus, or as another version had
it, of starvation. Fyodor Pavlovitch was drunk when he heard of his wife's
death, and the story is that he ran out into the street and began shouting
with joy, raising his hands to Heaven: "Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant
depart in peace," but others say he wept without restraint like a little
child, so much so that people were sorry for him, in spite of the
repulsion he inspired. It is quite possible that both versions were true,
that he rejoiced at his release, and at the same time wept for her who
released him. As a general rule, people, even the wicked, are much more
naive and simple-hearted than we suppose. And we ourselves are, too.

The novel opens with the narrator telling us that Alexei Fyodorovich Karamazov is the third son of Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov, who died a "dark and tragic death" thirteen years ago. Instead of going straight to this juicy bit, though, the narrator decides to go into everything leading up to the death. So buckle your seatbelts, 'cause it's going to take him, oh, several hundred pages. We learn that Fyodor is the scum of the earth who makes oodles of money and lives a scandalous lifestyle. He had his first son, Dmitri, by his first wife, Adelaida Ivanovna Miusov, who came from an aristocratic family and was apparently quite a catch. No one is sure why she eloped with him in the first place, but she ended up abandoning him and their son to run off to Petersburg with a seminarian. She died before Fyodor could chase her there. After her death, Fyodor made a scene around town, drinking, sobbing, and shouting in the streets.

Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov Alexei Fyodorovich Karamazov, usually called Alyosha, is the third son of a brutish landowner named Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov, who is still famous for his dark and violent death. The narrator tells the story of Fyodor Pavlovich's life. As a young man, he is known as a loutish buffoon. He owns a very small amount of land and earns a reputation for sponging off other people. Nevertheless, he somehow manages to marry a rich, beautiful, intelligent girl named Adelaida Ivanovna Miusova, who convinces herself that eloping with a bold and sarcastic man like Fyodor Pavlovich is a romantic thing to do. After they are married, Adelaida Ivanovna realizes that she feels nothing but contempt for Fyodor Pavlovich, and when their son, Dmitri, is three, she runs away with a poor seminary student, leaving Fyodor Pavlovich with the boy. Fyodor Pavlovich begins traveling around the province, tearfully complaining about his wife's desertion. In Adelaida Ivanovna's absence, however, Fyodor Pavlovich turns his house into a harem and spends much of his time indulging in drunken orgies financed by the fortune he has filched from Adelaida Ivanovna. When Fyodor Pavlovich hears that Adelaida Ivanovna has died from starvation or disease in a Petersburg garret, he runs down the street drunkenly celebrating his freedom. There is another version of this story, however, which says that Fyodor Pavlovich instead weeps like a child. The narrator says both versions of the story may be true: Fyodor Pavlovich may have simultaneously rejoiced and mourned his wife's death, for even wicked people like Fyodor Pavlovich are generally more naive and simple than one is inclined to suspect


Chapter II. He Gets Rid Of His Eldest Son

You can easily imagine what a father such a man could be and how he would
bring up his children. His behavior as a father was exactly what might be
expected. He completely abandoned the child of his marriage with Adelaida
Ivanovna, not from malice, nor because of his matrimonial grievances, but
simply because he forgot him. While he was wearying every one with his
tears and complaints, and turning his house into a sink of debauchery, a
faithful servant of the family, Grigory, took the three-year-old Mitya
into his care. If he hadn't looked after him there would have been no one
even to change the baby's little shirt.

It happened moreover that the child's relations on his mother's side
forgot him too at first. His grandfather was no longer living, his widow,
Mitya's grandmother, had moved to Moscow, and was seriously ill, while his
daughters were married, so that Mitya remained for almost a whole year in
old Grigory's charge and lived with him in the servant's cottage. But if
his father had remembered him (he could not, indeed, have been altogether
unaware of his existence) he would have sent him back to the cottage, as
the child would only have been in the way of his debaucheries. But a
cousin of Mitya's mother, Pyotr Alexandrovitch Miuesov, happened to return
from Paris. He lived for many years afterwards abroad, but was at that
time quite a young man, and distinguished among the Miuesovs as a man of
enlightened ideas and of European culture, who had been in the capitals
and abroad. Towards the end of his life he became a Liberal of the type
common in the forties and fifties. In the course of his career he had come
into contact with many of the most Liberal men of his epoch, both in
Russia and abroad. He had known Proudhon and Bakunin personally, and in
his declining years was very fond of describing the three days of the
Paris Revolution of February 1848, hinting that he himself had almost
taken part in the fighting on the barricades. This was one of the most
grateful recollections of his youth. He had an independent property of
about a thousand souls, to reckon in the old style. His splendid estate
lay on the outskirts of our little town and bordered on the lands of our
famous monastery, with which Pyotr Alexandrovitch began an endless
lawsuit, almost as soon as he came into the estate, concerning the rights
of fishing in the river or wood-cutting in the forest, I don't know
exactly which. He regarded it as his duty as a citizen and a man of
culture to open an attack upon the "clericals." Hearing all about Adelaida
Ivanovna, whom he, of course, remembered, and in whom he had at one time
been interested, and learning of the existence of Mitya, he intervened, in
spite of all his youthful indignation and contempt for Fyodor Pavlovitch.
He made the latter's acquaintance for the first time, and told him
directly that he wished to undertake the child's education. He used long
afterwards to tell as a characteristic touch, that when he began to speak
of Mitya, Fyodor Pavlovitch looked for some time as though he did not
understand what child he was talking about, and even as though he was
surprised to hear that he had a little son in the house. The story may
have been exaggerated, yet it must have been something like the truth.

Fyodor Pavlovitch was all his life fond of acting, of suddenly playing an
unexpected part, sometimes without any motive for doing so, and even to
his own direct disadvantage, as, for instance, in the present case. This
habit, however, is characteristic of a very great number of people, some
of them very clever ones, not like Fyodor Pavlovitch. Pyotr Alexandrovitch
carried the business through vigorously, and was appointed, with Fyodor
Pavlovitch, joint guardian of the child, who had a small property, a house
and land, left him by his mother. Mitya did, in fact, pass into this
cousin's keeping, but as the latter had no family of his own, and after
securing the revenues of his estates was in haste to return at once to
Paris, he left the boy in charge of one of his cousins, a lady living in
Moscow. It came to pass that, settling permanently in Paris he, too,
forgot the child, especially when the Revolution of February broke out,
making an impression on his mind that he remembered all the rest of his
life. The Moscow lady died, and Mitya passed into the care of one of her
married daughters. I believe he changed his home a fourth time later on. I
won't enlarge upon that now, as I shall have much to tell later of Fyodor
Pavlovitch's firstborn, and must confine myself now to the most essential
facts about him, without which I could not begin my story.

In the first place, this Mitya, or rather Dmitri Fyodorovitch, was the
only one of Fyodor Pavlovitch's three sons who grew up in the belief that
he had property, and that he would be independent on coming of age. He
spent an irregular boyhood and youth. He did not finish his studies at the
gymnasium, he got into a military school, then went to the Caucasus, was
promoted, fought a duel, and was degraded to the ranks, earned promotion
again, led a wild life, and spent a good deal of money. He did not begin
to receive any income from Fyodor Pavlovitch until he came of age, and
until then got into debt. He saw and knew his father, Fyodor Pavlovitch,
for the first time on coming of age, when he visited our neighborhood on
purpose to settle with him about his property. He seems not to have liked
his father. He did not stay long with him, and made haste to get away,
having only succeeded in obtaining a sum of money, and entering into an
agreement for future payments from the estate, of the revenues and value
of which he was unable (a fact worthy of note), upon this occasion, to get
a statement from his father. Fyodor Pavlovitch remarked for the first time
then (this, too, should be noted) that Mitya had a vague and exaggerated
idea of his property. Fyodor Pavlovitch was very well satisfied with this,
as it fell in with his own designs. He gathered only that the young man
was frivolous, unruly, of violent passions, impatient, and dissipated, and
that if he could only obtain ready money he would be satisfied, although
only, of course, for a short time. So Fyodor Pavlovitch began to take
advantage of this fact, sending him from time to time small doles,
installments. In the end, when four years later, Mitya, losing patience,
came a second time to our little town to settle up once for all with his
father, it turned out to his amazement that he had nothing, that it was
difficult to get an account even, that he had received the whole value of
his property in sums of money from Fyodor Pavlovitch, and was perhaps even
in debt to him, that by various agreements into which he had, of his own
desire, entered at various previous dates, he had no right to expect
anything more, and so on, and so on. The young man was overwhelmed,
suspected deceit and cheating, and was almost beside himself. And, indeed,
this circumstance led to the catastrophe, the account of which forms the
subject of my first introductory story, or rather the external side of it.
But before I pass to that story I must say a little of Fyodor Pavlovitch's
other two sons, and of their origin.

After his mother's death, Dmitri was ignored by his father and sent to live with Grigory, the trusty family servant. His mother's cousin, Pyotr Alexandrovic Miusov, happened to return from Paris a year later and rescued Dmitri. But then Pyotr abandoned Dmitri to go to Paris, pawning him off onto his mother's cousin, who then died and passed Dmitri on to one of her daughters. Dmitri grew up, led an unruly life, went into the military, and spent way more money than he had. He came back to Fyodor's to see what he could get of his inheritance left to him by his mother. Fyodor started off by giving Dmitri some money from time to time over the course of four years. By the end of this time, Dmitri was impatient for the rest of his inheritance, but Fyodor informed him there was no money left. Dmitri wasn't satisfied with this explanation and suspected a scam.

The First Son Sent Packing As soon as Adelaida Ivanovna flees from her marriage to Fyodor Pavlovich, Fyodor Pavlovich forgets all about his three-year-old son. For a year, a servant raises the neglected Dmitri. Dmitri is then passed around among a number of his mother's relatives, including her cousin Pyotr Alexandrovich Miusov. These relatives lead Dmitri to believe that he has inherited some his mother's money and property, which is now in the care of his father. After a wild young adulthood and a stint in the army, Dmitri visits his father to learn the details of his inheritance. Fyodor Pavlovich evades Dmitri's questions and gives him a small sum of money to quiet him. After Dmitri leaves, his father successfully manipulates him by sending him other small payments, which lead Dmitri to believe that he has a sizable inheritance. But when Dmitri next visits his father, Fyodor Pavlovich tells him that he has paid out all the money from his mother's inheritance, and that Dmitri might even owe a small sum to his father. Dmitri, stunned, quickly concludes that his father is attempting to cheat him, and he remains in the town to fight what he believes is his father's unwillingness to hand over the fortune that is rightfully Dmitri's


Chapter III. The Second Marriage And The Second Family

Very shortly after getting his four-year-old Mitya off his hands Fyodor
Pavlovitch married a second time. His second marriage lasted eight years.
He took this second wife, Sofya Ivanovna, also a very young girl, from
another province, where he had gone upon some small piece of business in
company with a Jew. Though Fyodor Pavlovitch was a drunkard and a vicious
debauchee he never neglected investing his capital, and managed his
business affairs very successfully, though, no doubt, not over-
scrupulously. Sofya Ivanovna was the daughter of an obscure deacon, and
was left from childhood an orphan without relations. She grew up in the
house of a general's widow, a wealthy old lady of good position, who was
at once her benefactress and tormentor. I do not know the details, but I
have only heard that the orphan girl, a meek and gentle creature, was once
cut down from a halter in which she was hanging from a nail in the loft,
so terrible were her sufferings from the caprice and everlasting nagging
of this old woman, who was apparently not bad-hearted but had become an
insufferable tyrant through idleness.

Fyodor Pavlovitch made her an offer; inquiries were made about him and he
was refused. But again, as in his first marriage, he proposed an elopement
to the orphan girl. There is very little doubt that she would not on any
account have married him if she had known a little more about him in time.
But she lived in another province; besides, what could a little girl of
sixteen know about it, except that she would be better at the bottom of
the river than remaining with her benefactress. So the poor child
exchanged a benefactress for a benefactor. Fyodor Pavlovitch did not get a
penny this time, for the general's widow was furious. She gave them
nothing and cursed them both. But he had not reckoned on a dowry; what
allured him was the remarkable beauty of the innocent girl, above all her
innocent appearance, which had a peculiar attraction for a vicious
profligate, who had hitherto admired only the coarser types of feminine
beauty.

"Those innocent eyes slit my soul up like a razor," he used to say
afterwards, with his loathsome snigger. In a man so depraved this might,
of course, mean no more than sensual attraction. As he had received no
dowry with his wife, and had, so to speak, taken her "from the halter," he
did not stand on ceremony with her. Making her feel that she had "wronged"
him, he took advantage of her phenomenal meekness and submissiveness to
trample on the elementary decencies of marriage. He gathered loose women
into his house, and carried on orgies of debauchery in his wife's
presence. To show what a pass things had come to, I may mention that
Grigory, the gloomy, stupid, obstinate, argumentative servant, who had
always hated his first mistress, Adelaida Ivanovna, took the side of his
new mistress. He championed her cause, abusing Fyodor Pavlovitch in a
manner little befitting a servant, and on one occasion broke up the revels
and drove all the disorderly women out of the house. In the end this
unhappy young woman, kept in terror from her childhood, fell into that
kind of nervous disease which is most frequently found in peasant women
who are said to be "possessed by devils." At times after terrible fits of
hysterics she even lost her reason. Yet she bore Fyodor Pavlovitch two
sons, Ivan and Alexey, the eldest in the first year of marriage and the
second three years later. When she died, little Alexey was in his fourth
year, and, strange as it seems, I know that he remembered his mother all
his life, like a dream, of course. At her death almost exactly the same
thing happened to the two little boys as to their elder brother, Mitya.
They were completely forgotten and abandoned by their father. They were
looked after by the same Grigory and lived in his cottage, where they were
found by the tyrannical old lady who had brought up their mother. She was
still alive, and had not, all those eight years, forgotten the insult done
her. All that time she was obtaining exact information as to her Sofya's
manner of life, and hearing of her illness and hideous surroundings she
declared aloud two or three times to her retainers:

"It serves her right. God has punished her for her ingratitude."

Exactly three months after Sofya Ivanovna's death the general's widow
suddenly appeared in our town, and went straight to Fyodor Pavlovitch's
house. She spent only half an hour in the town but she did a great deal.
It was evening. Fyodor Pavlovitch, whom she had not seen for those eight
years, came in to her drunk. The story is that instantly upon seeing him,
without any sort of explanation, she gave him two good, resounding slaps
on the face, seized him by a tuft of hair, and shook him three times up
and down. Then, without a word, she went straight to the cottage to the
two boys. Seeing, at the first glance, that they were unwashed and in
dirty linen, she promptly gave Grigory, too, a box on the ear, and
announcing that she would carry off both the children she wrapped them
just as they were in a rug, put them in the carriage, and drove off to her
own town. Grigory accepted the blow like a devoted slave, without a word,
and when he escorted the old lady to her carriage he made her a low bow
and pronounced impressively that, "God would repay her for the orphans."
"You are a blockhead all the same," the old lady shouted to him as she
drove away.

Fyodor Pavlovitch, thinking it over, decided that it was a good thing, and
did not refuse the general's widow his formal consent to any proposition
in regard to his children's education. As for the slaps she had given him,
he drove all over the town telling the story.

It happened that the old lady died soon after this, but she left the boys
in her will a thousand roubles each "for their instruction, and so that
all be spent on them exclusively, with the condition that it be so
portioned out as to last till they are twenty-one, for it is more than
adequate provision for such children. If other people think fit to throw
away their money, let them." I have not read the will myself, but I heard
there was something queer of the sort, very whimsically expressed. The
principal heir, Yefim Petrovitch Polenov, the Marshal of Nobility of the
province, turned out, however, to be an honest man. Writing to Fyodor
Pavlovitch, and discerning at once that he could extract nothing from him
for his children's education (though the latter never directly refused but
only procrastinated as he always did in such cases, and was, indeed, at
times effusively sentimental), Yefim Petrovitch took a personal interest
in the orphans. He became especially fond of the younger, Alexey, who
lived for a long while as one of his family. I beg the reader to note this
from the beginning. And to Yefim Petrovitch, a man of a generosity and
humanity rarely to be met with, the young people were more indebted for
their education and bringing up than to any one. He kept the two thousand
roubles left to them by the general's widow intact, so that by the time
they came of age their portions had been doubled by the accumulation of
interest. He educated them both at his own expense, and certainly spent
far more than a thousand roubles upon each of them. I won't enter into a
detailed account of their boyhood and youth, but will only mention a few
of the most important events. Of the elder, Ivan, I will only say that he
grew into a somewhat morose and reserved, though far from timid boy. At
ten years old he had realized that they were living not in their own home
but on other people's charity, and that their father was a man of whom it
was disgraceful to speak. This boy began very early, almost in his infancy
(so they say at least), to show a brilliant and unusual aptitude for
learning. I don't know precisely why, but he left the family of Yefim
Petrovitch when he was hardly thirteen, entering a Moscow gymnasium, and
boarding with an experienced and celebrated teacher, an old friend of
Yefim Petrovitch. Ivan used to declare afterwards that this was all due to
the "ardor for good works" of Yefim Petrovitch, who was captivated by the
idea that the boy's genius should be trained by a teacher of genius. But
neither Yefim Petrovitch nor this teacher was living when the young man
finished at the gymnasium and entered the university. As Yefim Petrovitch
had made no provision for the payment of the tyrannical old lady's legacy,
which had grown from one thousand to two, it was delayed, owing to
formalities inevitable in Russia, and the young man was in great straits
for the first two years at the university, as he was forced to keep
himself all the time he was studying. It must be noted that he did not
even attempt to communicate with his father, perhaps from pride, from
contempt for him, or perhaps from his cool common sense, which told him
that from such a father he would get no real assistance. However that may
have been, the young man was by no means despondent and succeeded in
getting work, at first giving sixpenny lessons and afterwards getting
paragraphs on street incidents into the newspapers under the signature of
"Eye-Witness." These paragraphs, it was said, were so interesting and
piquant that they were soon taken. This alone showed the young man's
practical and intellectual superiority over the masses of needy and
unfortunate students of both sexes who hang about the offices of the
newspapers and journals, unable to think of anything better than
everlasting entreaties for copying and translations from the French.
Having once got into touch with the editors Ivan Fyodorovitch always kept
up his connection with them, and in his latter years at the university he
published brilliant reviews of books upon various special subjects, so
that he became well known in literary circles. But only in his last year
he suddenly succeeded in attracting the attention of a far wider circle of
readers, so that a great many people noticed and remembered him. It was
rather a curious incident. When he had just left the university and was
preparing to go abroad upon his two thousand roubles, Ivan Fyodorovitch
published in one of the more important journals a strange article, which
attracted general notice, on a subject of which he might have been
supposed to know nothing, as he was a student of natural science. The
article dealt with a subject which was being debated everywhere at the
time--the position of the ecclesiastical courts. After discussing several
opinions on the subject he went on to explain his own view. What was most
striking about the article was its tone, and its unexpected conclusion.
Many of the Church party regarded him unquestioningly as on their side.
And yet not only the secularists but even atheists joined them in their
applause. Finally some sagacious persons opined that the article was
nothing but an impudent satirical burlesque. I mention this incident
particularly because this article penetrated into the famous monastery in
our neighborhood, where the inmates, being particularly interested in the
question of the ecclesiastical courts, were completely bewildered by it.
Learning the author's name, they were interested in his being a native of
the town and the son of "that Fyodor Pavlovitch." And just then it was
that the author himself made his appearance among us.

Why Ivan Fyodorovitch had come amongst us I remember asking myself at the
time with a certain uneasiness. This fateful visit, which was the first
step leading to so many consequences, I never fully explained to myself.
It seemed strange on the face of it that a young man so learned, so proud,
and apparently so cautious, should suddenly visit such an infamous house
and a father who had ignored him all his life, hardly knew him, never
thought of him, and would not under any circumstances have given him
money, though he was always afraid that his sons Ivan and Alexey would
also come to ask him for it. And here the young man was staying in the
house of such a father, had been living with him for two months, and they
were on the best possible terms. This last fact was a special cause of
wonder to many others as well as to me. Pyotr Alexandrovitch Miuesov, of
whom we have spoken already, the cousin of Fyodor Pavlovitch's first wife,
happened to be in the neighborhood again on a visit to his estate. He had
come from Paris, which was his permanent home. I remember that he was more
surprised than any one when he made the acquaintance of the young man, who
interested him extremely, and with whom he sometimes argued and not
without an inner pang compared himself in acquirements.

"He is proud," he used to say, "he will never be in want of pence; he has
got money enough to go abroad now. What does he want here? Every one can
see that he hasn't come for money, for his father would never give him
any. He has no taste for drink and dissipation, and yet his father can't
do without him. They get on so well together!"

That was the truth; the young man had an unmistakable influence over his
father, who positively appeared to be behaving more decently and even
seemed at times ready to obey his son, though often extremely and even
spitefully perverse.

It was only later that we learned that Ivan had come partly at the request
of, and in the interests of, his elder brother, Dmitri, whom he saw for
the first time on this very visit, though he had before leaving Moscow
been in correspondence with him about an important matter of more concern
to Dmitri than himself. What that business was the reader will learn fully
in due time. Yet even when I did know of this special circumstance I still
felt Ivan Fyodorovitch to be an enigmatic figure, and thought his visit
rather mysterious.

I may add that Ivan appeared at the time in the light of a mediator
between his father and his elder brother Dmitri, who was in open quarrel
with his father and even planning to bring an action against him.

The family, I repeat, was now united for the first time, and some of its
members met for the first time in their lives. The younger brother,
Alexey, had been a year already among us, having been the first of the
three to arrive. It is of that brother Alexey I find it most difficult to
speak in this introduction. Yet I must give some preliminary account of
him, if only to explain one queer fact, which is that I have to introduce
my hero to the reader wearing the cassock of a novice. Yes, he had been
for the last year in our monastery, and seemed willing to be cloistered
there for the rest of his life.

Now we get to wife #2. The next lovely lady Fyodor decided to take for a wife was Sofia Ivanovna, an orphan and the ward of General Vorokhov's widow. This widow was apparently was so hard on Sofia that she was once caught trying to hang herself. Fyodor swooped in and eloped with Sofia, but he was enraged to discover that she wouldn't be getting any dowry. This second marriage was just as terrible as the first, or perhaps more so, with Fyodor having orgies in the house in front of his wife. Sofia became a "shrieker," which is the local term for a hysteric. Sofia bore Fyodor two sons, Ivan and Alexei, and died soon afterward. Upon her death, the general's widow visited Fyodor, slapped his face, and took the children into her care. When she died, the kids went to stay with her heir, Yefim Petrovich Polenov, who actually took good care of them and made sure they got an education. Ivan seemed to be particularly gifted intellectually and went off to Moscow to study. He paid his own way by writing journalism and reviews. One editorial on the issue of ecclesiastical courts caused quite a controversy. Everyone was surprised when Ivan showed up back in town at Fyodor's, on the invitation of Dmitri as it turned out. The precise reasons why, however, the narrator isn't going to tell us until later . But it turns out that Alexei has been in town staying at the local monastery for at least a year before Ivan shows up, which is the narrator's way of shifting gears into the next chapter.

Second Marriage, Second Children Fyodor Pavlovich remarries soon after getting rid of four-year-old Dmitri. He stays married for about eight years. His wife, Sofia Ivanovna, is a sixteen-year-old orphan from another province, where Fyodor Pavlovich has traveled on a business trip. Despite his drunken and debauched lifestyle, Fyodor Pavlovich has handled his investments shrewdly, and his fortune continues to grow. Fyodor Pavlovich convinces Sofia to elope with him against the wishes of her guardian, and Fyodor Pavlovich treats her deplorably, openly holding orgies with other women in the house, right under her nose. As a result of Fyodor Pavlovich's ill treatment, Sofia becomes nervous and hysterical, until her husband begins calling her "the shrieker. Despite her instability, Sofia gives birth to two sons, Ivan and Alexei, who is nicknamed Alyosha. When Alyosha is four, Sofia dies, and the two boys fall into the care of the same servant who briefly had charge of Dmitri. Their mother's former guardian, a general's widow, then takes them in. The widow soon dies, but leaves funds for the education of Alyosha and Ivan. As the boys grow older, in the care of their benefactress's heir, Ivan becomes a brilliant student, gaining notoriety in literary circles for an article he writes about ecclesiastical courts. Eventually Ivan moves back to his father's town to live with his father, despite having been ashamed of him all his life. This bizarre circumstance is partially arranged by Dmitri, who, after being told about his ruined inheritance, has requested that his brother join him and their father, hoping that Ivan might help to mediate their dispute