Chapter 2: At His Father’s

Alyosha went first of all to his father’s. As he was nearing the house, he remembered his father insisting very much the day before that he come somehow in secret from his brother Ivan. “I wonder why?” the thought suddenly occurred to Alyosha. “If father wants to say something to me alone, in secret, still why should I have to come secretly? He must have meant to say something else, but in his excitement yesterday he didn’t manage to,” he decided. Nevertheless he was very glad when Marfa Ignatievna, who opened the gate for him (Grigory, it turned out, had fallen ill and was in bed in the cottage), in answer to his question, informed him that Ivan Fyodorovich had gone out two hours before.

“And father?”

“He’s up, he’s having his coffee,” Marfa Ignatievna answered somehow drily. Alyosha went in. The old man was sitting alone at the table, in his slippers and an old coat, looking through some accounts for diversion, but without much interest. He was quite alone in the house (Smerdyakov, too, had gone out, to buy things for dinner). It was not the accounts that concerned him. Though he had gotten up early in the morning, and was trying to keep himself cheerful, he still looked tired and weak. His forehead, on which huge purple bruises had come out overnight, was wrapped with a red handkerchief. His nose had also become badly swollen overnight, and several patchy bruises had formed on it, insignificant but decidedly giving his whole face an especially wicked and irritated look. The old man was aware of it himself and shot Alyosha an unfriendly glance as he entered.

“The coffee’s cold,” he cried sharply, “I’m not offering you any. Today, my friend, it’s just lenten fish soup for me, and nobody’s invited. Why have you come?”

“To ask about your health,” said Alyosha.

“Yes. And, besides, yesterday I told you to come. It’s all nonsense. You’ve troubled yourself for nothing. I knew, by the way, that you’d drag yourself here first thing...”

He spoke with the most inimical feeling. Meanwhile he got up worriedly and looked in the mirror (perhaps already for the fortieth time that morning) at his nose. He also began to arrange the red handkerchief on his forehead in a more becoming way.

“Red’s better; white would be too much like a hospital,” he observed sententiously. “Well, what’s with you? How is your elder?”

“He’s very bad; he may die today,” Alyosha replied, but his father did not even hear him, and at once forgot his question as well.

“Ivan left,” he said suddenly. “He’s doing his best to win over Mitka’s fiancée, that’s why he’s staying here,” he added maliciously, and, twisting his mouth, looked at Alyosha.

“Can he have told you so himself?” asked Alyosha.

“Yes, he told me long ago. Three weeks ago, in fact. It can’t be that he’s come here to put a knife in me, too, can it? So he must have some reason!”

“What? How can you say such things?” Alyosha was terribly dismayed.

“It’s true he’s never asked for money, and he won’t get a fig out of me anyway. I, my dearest Alexei Fyodorovich, plan to live on this earth as long as possible, let it be known to you, and therefore I need every kopeck, and the longer I live, the more I’ll need it,” he continued, pacing from one corner of the room to the other, keeping his hands in the pockets of his loose, greasy, yellow cotton coat. “At the moment I’m still a man, only fifty-five years old, but I want to occupy that position for about twenty years longer; I’ll get old and disgusting and they won’t come to me then of their own free will, and that’s when I’ll need my dear money. So now I’m saving up more and more, for myself alone, sir, my dear son, Alexei Fyodorovich, let it be known to you, because let it be known to you that I want to live in my wickedness to the very end. Wickedness is sweet: everyone denounces it, but everyone lives in it, only they all do it on the sly and I do it openly. And for this ingenuousness of mine, the wicked ones all attack me. And I don’t want your paradise, Alexei Fyodorovich, let it be known to you; it’s even unfitting for a decent man to go to your paradise, if there really is such a place. I say a man falls asleep and doesn’t wake up, and that’s all; remember me in your prayers if you want to, and if not, the devil take you. That’s my philosophy. Ivan spoke well here yesterday, though we were all drunk. Ivan’s a braggart, and he doesn’t have so much learning ... or any special education either; he’s silent, and he grins at you silently—that’s how he gets by.”

Alyosha listened to him in silence.

“He won’t even speak to me! And when he does, it’s all put on; he’s a scoundrel, your Ivan! I could marry Grushka right now if I wanted to. Because with money one only needs to want, Alexei Fyodorovich, sir, and one gets everything. That’s just what Ivan is afraid of, and he’s keeping an eye on me to see that I don’t get married, and that’s why he’s pushing Mitka to marry Grushka: he wants to keep me from Grushka that way (as if I’d leave him any money even if I don’t marry Grushka!), and on the other hand, if Mitka marries Grushka, then Ivan can take his rich fiancée for himself—that’s how he figures! He’s a scoundrel, your Ivan!”

“How irritable you are. It’s because of yesterday. Why don’t you go and lie down?” said Alyosha.

“You say that,” the old man suddenly remarked, as if it had just entered his head for the first time, “you say that, and it doesn’t make me angry, but if Ivan said the same thing to me, I’d get angry. With you alone I have kind moments, otherwise I’m an evil man.”

“You’re not an evil man, you’re just twisted,” Alyosha smiled.

“Listen, I was about to have that robber Mitka locked up today, and I still haven’t made up my mind. Of course, in these fashionable times it’s customary to count fathers and mothers as a prejudice, but the law, it seems, even in our time, does not allow people to pull their old fathers by the hair and kick them in the mug with their heels, on the floor, in their own house, and boast about coming back and killing them completely—and all in the presence of witnesses, sir! I could break him if I wanted, I could have him put away right now for what he did yesterday!”

“But you’re not going to make a complaint, are you?”

“Ivan talked me out of it. To hell with Ivan, but one thing I do know ...” And bending close to Alyosha, he went on in a confidential half-whisper: “If I had him put away, the scoundrel, she’d hear that I had him put away and go running to him at once. But if she hears today that he beat me, a weak old man, within an inch of my life, then maybe she’ll drop him and come to visit me ... We’re like that—we do everything contrary. I know her through and through. Say, how about a little cognac? Have some cold coffee and I’ll add a little shot of cognac—it improves the taste, my friend.”

“No, no, thank you. But I’ll take this bread with me, if I may,” said Alyosha, and picking up the three-kopeck French loaf, he put it in the pocket of his cassock. “And you’d better not have any cognac either,” he advised cautiously, looking intently into the old man’s face.

“True enough; the truth hurts, but there it is. Still, maybe just one little glass. From the little cupboard...”

He opened the “little cupboard” with a key, poured a glass, drank it off, then locked the cupboard and put the key back in his pocket.

“That’s enough. One glass won’t do me in.”

“You see, you’re feeling kinder now,” Alyosha smiled.

“Hm. I love you even without cognac, but with scoundrels I’m a scoundrel. Vanka won’t go to Chermashnya—why? He’s got to spy on me, to see how much I’ll give Grushenka when she comes. They’re all scoundrels! I refuse to acknowledge Ivan. Where did he come from? He’s not our kind at all. Why should I leave him anything? I won’t even leave a will, let it be known to you. And Mitka I’ll squash like a cockroach. I squash black cockroaches at night with my slipper: they make a little pop when you step on them. And your Mitka will make a little pop, too. Your Mitka, because you love him. You see, you love him, and I’m not afraid that you love him. If Ivan loved him, I’d fear for myself because he loved him. But Ivan loves nobody, Ivan is not one of us; people like Ivan are not our people, my friend, they’re a puff of dust ... The wind blows, and the dust is gone ... Some foolishness almost came into my head yesterday, when I told you to come today: I wanted to find out through you about Mitka—what if I counted him out a thousand, or maybe two, right now: would he agree, beggar and scoundrel that he is, to clear out altogether, for about five years, or better for thirty-five, without Grushka, and give her up completely, eh, what?”