“Ivan is a grave?”

“Yes.”

Alyosha was listening with great attention.

“You see, though I was a lieutenant in a line battalion, even so it was as if I were under observation, like some exile. But that little town received me awfully well. I threw a lot of money around, they thought I was rich, and I thought so myself. However, something else about me must have pleased them as well. Though they wagged their heads, still they really liked me. My colonel, who was an old man, suddenly took a dislike to me. He kept finding fault with me, but I had my connections, and besides the whole town stood up for me, so he couldn’t find too much fault. I was partly to blame, too, I deliberately failed to show due respect. I was proud. This old pighead, who was not at all a bad sort, quite good-natured and hospitable, had had two wives at some point, both deceased. One of them, the first, came from some simple family, and left him a daughter, also a simple person. In my time she was already a maiden of about twenty-four, and lived with her father together with an aunt, her dead mother’s sister. The aunt was simple and meek; the niece, the colonel’s older daughter, was simple and pert. I like to put in a good word for her whenever I think of her: I’ve never known a lovelier woman’s character than in this girl, Agafya was her name, imagine it, Agafya Ivanovna. And she wasn’t bad looking either, for Russian taste—tall, buxom, full-figured, with beautiful eyes and, shall we say, a rather coarse face. She wouldn’t marry, though two men had proposed to her; she declined without losing her cheerfulness. I became close with her—not in that way, no, it was all pure, we were just friends. I often became close with women, quite sinlessly, as a friend. I used to chat with her in such a frank way—whew!—and she just laughed. Many women like frankness, make a note of that, and besides she was a virgin, which I found very amusing. And another thing: it was quite impossible to call her a young lady. She and her aunt lived with her father in some sort of voluntary humility, not putting themselves on a par with the rest of society. Everyone loved her and needed her, because she was a great dressmaker: she had talent, asked no money for her services, did it all as a favor, but if they gave her presents she wouldn’t refuse them. But the colonel was something else again! He was one of the big men of the place. He lived in grand style, entertained the whole town, gave dinners, dances. When I came and joined the battalion, the talk all over the little town was that we were about to have a visitor from the capital, the colonel’s second daughter, a beauty of beauties, who had just finished one of the institutes for well-born young ladies there. This second daughter was none other than Katerina Ivanovna, born of the colonel’s second wife. And this second wife, already dead, was from the great, noble family of some general, though, by the way, I know for certain that she didn’t bring the colonel any money either. So she had her relatives, but that was all; some hopes, maybe, but nothing in her hands. And yet, when the institute girl came (to visit, not to stay), our whole little town seemed to revive: our noblest ladies—two generals’ wives, one colonel’s wife, and after them everyone, everyone immediately got into it, and kept inviting her right and left, entertaining her, she was the queen of the balls, the picnics, they cooked up tableaux vivants for the benefit of some governesses. I kept still. I kept on carousing. Just then I fetched off such a stunt that the whole town was squawking about it. I saw her sizing me up; it was at the battery commander’s, but I didn’t go up to her then: I scorn your acquaintance, thought I. I went up to her a bit later on, also at a party; I began talking, she barely looked at me, pressed her contemptuous lips together. Well, thought I, just wait, I’ll get my revenge! I was a terrible boor then, on most occasions, and I felt it. Mainly I felt that ‘Katenka’ was not like some innocent institute girl, but a person of character, proud and truly virtuous, and above all intelligent and educated, while I was neither the one nor the other. You think I wanted to propose? Not at all, I simply wanted revenge because I was such a fine fellow and she didn’t feel it. Meanwhile, riot and ruin! The colonel finally put me under arrest for three days. It was just then that father sent me six thousand, after I’d sent him a formal renunciation of all and all, that is, saying we were ‘quits’ and I would make no further demands. I didn’t understand a thing then: not until I came here, brother, and even not until these very last present days, maybe even not until today, did I understand anything in all these financial squabbles between me and father. But to hell with it, save that for later. Then, when I received that six, I suddenly learned from a friend’s letter something that interested me very much—namely, that there was some dissatisfaction with regard to our colonel, that there was a suspicion that things were not in good order, in short, that his enemies were arranging a little surprise for him. And indeed the division commander came and hauled him over the coals. Then, a little later, he was ordered to apply for retirement. I won’t go into detail about how it all went; he certainly had enemies; but suddenly the town became extremely cool towards him and his whole family, everyone suddenly withdrew. It was then that I did my first stunt; I met Agafya Ivanovna, with whom I had always remained friends, and said: ‘Your papa, by the way, is short forty-five hundred roubles of government money.’ ‘What do you mean? Why do you say that? The general came recently and the cash was all there . . .’ ‘It was there then, but it isn’t now.’ She was terribly frightened: ‘Please don’t frighten me! Who told you?’ ‘Don’t worry,’ I said, ‘I won’t tell anyone, and you know that on that account I’m like the grave, but I wanted to say something more on that account, “just in case,” as it were: when they ask your papa for the forty-five hundred and he hasn’t got it, then instead of having him face court-martial and end up as a foot soldier in his old age, why don’t you secretly send me your institute girl? I’ve just received money; maybe I’ll fork out some four thousand to her and keep it a holy secret.’ ‘Oh, what a scoundrel!’ (She actually said that.) ‘What a wicked scoundrel!’ she said. ‘How dare you!’ She went away terribly indignant, and I shouted after her once more that I’d keep it a holy and inviolable secret. Both women, that is, Agafya and her aunt, I’ll tell you beforehand, turned out to be pure angels in this whole story, and indeed adored this sister, haughty Katya, humbled themselves before her, were like her maids ... Only Agafya then went and told her all about this stunt, I mean our conversation. I learned that later in full detail. She didn’t conceal it, and I ... well, naturally, that was just what I needed.

“Suddenly a new major arrived to take command of the battalion. He took command. And the old colonel suddenly fell ill, couldn’t move, stayed home for two days, did not turn over the government money. Our doctor Kravchenko gave assurances that he really was ill. Only here’s what I knew thoroughly and secretly, and for a long time: that for four years in a row, as soon as the authorities finished going over the accounts, the money disappeared for a while. The colonel used to loan it to a most reliable man, a local merchant, the old widower Trifonov, a bearded man with gold spectacles. Trifonov would go to the fair, put the money out as he liked, and return the whole amount to the colonel immediately, with some little presents from the fair besides, and along with the presents a little interest as well. Only this last time (I learned of it quite by chance from a boy, Trifonov’s driveling son, his son and heir, one of the most depraved lads the world has yet produced), this time, as I said, when Trifonov returned from the fair, he didn’t return anything. The colonel rushed to him. ‘I never received anything from you, and could not have received anything,’ came the answer. So our colonel sat at home like that, with his head wrapped in a towel, and all three women putting ice to it; suddenly an orderly arrived with the books and an order to turn over the government funds at once, immediately, in two hours. He signed—I saw his signature afterwards in the book—stood up, said he would go and put on his uniform, ran to the bedroom, took his double-barreled shotgun, loaded it, rammed home a service bullet, took off his right boot, propped the gun against his chest, and began feeling for the trigger with his foot. But Agafya was suspicious; she remembered what I had told her, stole over and peeked into the room just in time: she rushed in, threw herself on him from behind, the gun fired into the ceiling, no one was hurt; the others ran in, seized him, took the gun away, held him by the arms ... All this I learned afterwards to the last detail. I was sitting at home at the time, it was dusk, I was just about to go out, I got dressed, combed my hair, put scent on my handkerchief, picked up my cap, when suddenly the door opened—and there, in my room, stood Katerina Ivanovna.