“It is said, again: ‘Suffer with joy the dishonor which providentially befalleth thee, and be not troubled, neither hate him who dishonoreth thee.’ So shall we do.”
“Tut, tut, tut! They will have bethought themselves and the rest of that balderdash! You bethink yourselves, fathers, and I will go. And I’m taking my son Alexei away from here forever, on my parental authority. Ivan Fyodorovich, my most respectful son, allow me to order you to follow me! Von Sohn, why should you stay here? Come home with me now. We’ll have fun. It’s just a mile away. Instead of lenten oil, I’ll serve suckling pig with kasha stuffing; we’ll have dinner, then some cognac, and liqueurs, I have a cloudberry liqueur ... Hey, von Sohn, don’t miss your chance!”
He went out shouting and waving his arms. It was at this moment that Rakitin saw him leaving and pointed him out to Alyosha.
“Alexei!” his father cried from far off when he saw him, “move back in with me today, for good, bring your pillow and mattress, don’t leave a trace behind!”
Alyosha stopped in his tracks, silently and attentively observing the scene. Fyodor Pavlovich meanwhile got into his carriage, and Ivan Fyodorovich started to get in after him, silently and glumly, without even turning to say good-bye to Alyosha. But at that point one more clownish and almost incredible scene took place, which put the finishing touch to the whole episode. The landowner Maximov suddenly appeared on the step of the carriage. He ran up, panting, afraid of being late. Alyosha and Rakitin saw him running. He was in such a hurry that in his impatience he put his foot on the step where Ivan Fyodorovich’s left foot was still standing and, clutching the side, started to jump into the carriage. “Me, too, I’m coming with you!” he cried, jumping, laughing his merry little laugh, with a blissful look on his face, ready for anything. “Take me, too!”
“Didn’t I tell you?” Fyodor Pavlovich cried in delight. “He’s von Sohn! He’s the real von Sohn, risen from the dead! But how did you get away? What did you vonsohn in there, how did you manage to get out of the dinner? It takes a brazen face! I have one, but I’m still surprised at yours! Jump, jump in quick! Let him in, Vanya, it will be fun. We’ll find room for him somewhere at our feet. Will you lie at our feet, von Sohn? Or shall we stick him in the box with the coachman ... ? Jump up in the box, von Sohn...!”
But Ivan Fyodorovich, who had sat down by then, silently and with all his force gave Maximov a sudden shove in the chest that sent him flying for two yards. It was only by chance that he did not fall.
“Drive!” Ivan Fyodorovich shouted angrily to the coachman.
“What’s got into you? What’s got into you? Why did you do that to him?” Fyodor Pavlovich heaved himself up, but the carriage was already moving. Ivan Fyodorovich did not answer.
“How do you like that?” Fyodor Pavlovich said again after two minutes of silence, looking askance at his boy. “You started this whole monastery business, you urged it, you approved it, why are you angry now?”
“Enough of this drivel. Take a little break, now at least,” Ivan Fyodorovich snapped sternly.
Fyodor Pavlovich was again silent for about two minutes.
“Be nice to have some cognac,” he remarked sententiously. But Ivan Fyodorovich did not reply.
“You’ll have a drink, too, when we get there.”
Ivan Fyodorovich still said nothing.
Fyodor Pavlovich waited for about two minutes more.
“I’ll still take Alyoshka from the monastery, despite the fact that it will be very unpleasant for you, my most respectful Karl von Moor.”
Ivan Fyodorovich shrugged contemptuously and, turning away, began staring at the road. They did not speak again until they reached home.
BOOK III: THE SENSUALISTS
Chapter 1: In the Servants’ Quarters
The house of Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov stood far from in the very center of town, yet not quite on the outskirts. It was rather decrepit, but had a pleasant appearance: one-storied, with an attic, painted a gray color, and with a red iron roof. However, it had many good years left, and was roomy and snug. It had all sorts of closets, all sorts of nooks and unexpected little stairways. There were rats in it, but Fyodor Pavlovich was not altogether angry with them: “Still, it’s not so boring in the evenings when one is alone.” And indeed he had the custom of dismissing the servants to their cottage for the night and locking himself up in the house alone for the whole night. This cottage stood in the yard. It was spacious and solid; and Fyodor Pavlovich also appointed his kitchen to be there, though there was a kitchen in the main house: he did not like kitchen smells, and food was carried across the yard winter and summer. As a matter of fact, the house had been built for a large family: it could have accommodated five times as many masters and servants. But at the moment of our story, only Fyodor Pavlovich and Ivan Fyodorovich lived in the house, and in the cottage there were just three servants: the old man Grigory, the old woman Marfa, his wife, and the servant Smerdyakov, who was still a young man. We must say a little more in particular about these three auxiliary persons. We have already said enough, however, about old Grigory Vasilievich Kutuzov. He was a firm and unwavering man, who persistently and directly pursued his point, provided that this point for some reason (often surprisingly illogical) stood before him as an immutable truth. Generally speaking, he was honest and incorruptible. His wife, Marfa Ignatievna, despite the fact that she had submitted unquestioningly to her husband’s will all her life, pestered him terribly, just after the emancipation of the serfs, for example, to leave Fyodor Pavlovich and move to Moscow to open some sort of little shop there (they had some money); but Grigory then decided once and for all that the woman was talking nonsense, “for every woman is without honor,” and that they should not leave their former master, whatever sort he was, “for it was now their duty.”
“Do you understand what duty is?” he asked Marfa Ignatievna. “I understand about duty, Grigory Vasilievich, but why it should be our duty to stay here, that I do not understand at all,” Marfa Ignatievna replied firmly.
“Don’t understand, then, but that is how it will be. Henceforth hold your tongue.”
And so it was: they did not leave, and Fyodor Pavlovich appointed them a salary, a small one, but he paid it. Besides that, Grigory knew that he had an unquestionable influence over his master. He felt it, and he was right. A cunning and obstinate buffoon, Fyodor Pavlovich, while he had a very firm character “in certain things in life,” as he himself put it, showed, to his own surprise, even a rather weakish character in certain other “things in life. “ And he knew which ones, he knew and was afraid of many things. In certain things in life one had to be on one’s guard, and that was difficult without a faithful man. And Grigory was a most faithful man. It even so happened that many times in the course of his career, Fyodor Pavlovich might have been beaten, and beaten badly, but Grigory always came to his rescue, though he admonished him each time afterwards. But Fyodor Pavlovich would not have been afraid of beatings alone: there were higher occasions, even rather subtle and complicated ones, when Fyodor Pavlovich himself would have been unable, perhaps, to explain this remarkable need for a close and faithful man that he would sometimes, all of a sudden, momentarily and inconceivably, begin to feel in himself. These occasions were almost morbid: most depraved, and, in his sensuality, often as cruel as a wicked insect, Fyodor Pavlovich at times suddenly felt in himself, in his drunken moments, a spiritual fear, a moral shock, that almost, so to speak, resounded physically in his soul. “On those occasions it’s as if my soul were fluttering in my throat,” he sometimes used to say. And at such moments he was glad that nearby, close at hand, maybe not in the same room but in the cottage, there was such a man, firm, devoted, not at all like himself, not depraved, who, though he saw all this depravity going on and knew all the secrets, still put up with it all out of devotion, did not protest, and—above all—did not reproach him or threaten him with anything either in this age or in the age to come, and who would defend him if need be—from whom? From someone unknown, but terrible and dangerous. The thing precisely was that there should be another man, ancient and amicable, who could be summoned in a morbid moment, so that he could look him in the face and perhaps exchange a few words, even quite irrelevant words, and if it’s all right and he does not get angry, then somehow it eases the heart, but if he gets angry, well, then it’s a little sadder. It happened (very rarely, however) that Fyodor Pavlovich would even go at night to the cottage to wake Grigory so that Grigory could come to him for a moment. Grigory would come, and Fyodor Pavlovich would begin talking about perfect trifles, and would soon let him go, sometimes even with a little joke or jibe, and would spit and go to bed himself, and sleep the sleep of the blessed. Something of this sort happened to Fyodor Pavlovich when Alyosha arrived. Alyosha “pierced his heart” because he “lived there, saw everything, and condemned nothing.” Moreover, he brought something unprecedented with him: a complete lack of contempt for him, the old man, and, on the contrary, an unvarying affection and a perfectly natural, single-hearted attachment to him, little though he deserved it. All of this came as a perfect surprise to the solitary old lecher; it was quite unexpected for him, who until then had loved only “iniquity.” When Alyosha left, he admitted to himself that he had understood something that until then he had been unwilling to understand.