IV. At the Khokhlakovs’

He soon reached Mrs. Khokhlakova’s house, a stone house, her own, of two stories, handsome, one of the best houses in our little town. Although Mrs. Khokhlakova lived for the most part in another province, where she had an estate, or in Moscow, where she had a house of her own, she had a house of her own in our little town as well, which had come down to her from her fathers and grandfathers. And her estate in our district was the largest of all her three estates, and yet until now she had come to our province very seldom. She ran out to meet Alyosha while he was still in the front hall.

“Did you get it, did you get my letter about the new miracle?” she began quickly, nervously.

“Yes, I got it.”

“Did you spread it about, show it to everyone? He gave a mother back her son!”

“He will die today,” said Alyosha.

“I heard, I know, oh, how I long to talk with you! With you or with someone about all this. No, with you, with you! And what a pity that I can’t possibly see him! The whole town is excited, everyone is waiting. But now… do you know that Katerina Ivanovna is sitting here with us now?”

“Ah, that’s lucky!” Alyosha exclaimed. “Then I’ll see her here at your house; yesterday she told me to be sure to come to her today.”

“I know everything, everything. I heard everything down to the details about what happened at her house yesterday… and about all those horrors with that… creature. C’est tragique, and if I were in her place—I don’t know what I would have done in her place! But your brother, too, your Dmitri Fyodorovich, what a man, oh God! Alexei Fyodorovich, I’m getting muddled, imagine: your brother is sitting there now, that is, not that one, not yesterday’s dreadful one, but the other one, Ivan Fyodorovich, he’s sitting and talking with her: they’re having a solemn conversation… And if you would only believe what is going on between them now, it’s dreadful, it’s a strain, I tell you,¹ it’s a dreadful fairy tale that can’t possibly be believed: they are both ruining themselves for heaven knows what, they know it themselves and they revel in it themselves. I was waiting for you! I was thirsting for you! The main thing is, I can’t bear it. I’ll tell you everything in a minute, but now there’s something else, and that’s the most important thing; ah, I’d even forgotten that it’s the most important thing: tell me, why is Lise having hysterics? The moment she heard you were coming, she went into hysterics at once!”

“Maman, it’s you who are having hysterics now, not me,” Lise’s little voice suddenly chirped through a crack from the side room. The crack was the very smallest, and the little voice was strained, exactly the way it is when you terribly want to laugh but are fighting back the laughter with all your might. Alyosha noticed the crack at once, and Lise was surely peeping out at him through it from her chair, but that he could not make out.

“No wonder, Lise, no wonder… your caprices will give me hysterics too, but then, she’s so ill, Alexei Fyodorovich, she was so ill all night, in a fever, moaning! I could barely wait for morning and Herzenstube. He says he can’t understand anything and that we must wait. That Herzenstube always comes and says he can’t understand anything. As soon as you came up to the house, she cried out and had a fit, and ordered herself moved here into her old room…”

“Mamma, I didn’t know at all that he was coming, it wasn’t at all because of him that I wanted to move into this room.”

“Now that’s not true, Lise, Yulia came running to tell you that Alexei Fyodorovich was coming, she was standing watch for you.”

“Darling Mamma, my dear, that is terribly unwitty of you. And if you want to make amends and say something very clever right now, then tell, dear Mamma, our gracious sir Alexei Fyodorovich, who has just come in, that he has proved by this alone that he does not possess any wit: that he has ventured to come to us today after yesterday and in spite of everyone’s laughing at him.”

“Lise, you take too many liberties, and I assure you that I shall resort to strict measures at last. Who is laughing at him? I’m so glad he has come, I need him, he’s absolutely necessary to me. Oh, Alexei Fyodorovich, I am extremely unhappy!”

“But what is the matter with you, Mamma darling?”

“Ah, these caprices of yours, Lise, your inconstancy, your illness, that dreadful night in a fever, that dreadful and eternal Herzenstube, eternal above all, eternal, eternal, and eternal! And, finally, everything, everything… And, finally, even this miracle! Oh, how this miracle has struck me, how it has shaken me, dear Alexei Fyodorovich! And then there’s that tragedy in the drawing room now, which I cannot bear, I cannot, I declare to you beforehand that I cannot. A comedy, perhaps, not a tragedy. Tell me, will the elder Zosima live until tomorrow, will he? Oh my God! What’s happening to me? Every minute I shut my eyes, and I see it’s all nonsense, nothing but nonsense.”

“I would very much like to ask you,” Alyosha suddenly interrupted, “to give me some clean rag to bind up my finger. I’ve hurt it badly, and now it’s aching terribly.”

Alyosha unwrapped his bitten finger. The handkerchief was thickly stained with blood. Mrs. Khokhlakova screamed and shut her eyes tight.

“God, what a wound, it’s dreadful!”

But Lise, as soon as she saw Alyosha’s finger through the crack, at once flung the door wide open with all her might.

“Come in, come in here to me,” she cried insistently and imperiously, “no more silliness now! Oh Lord, why did you stand there saying nothing all this time? He might have bled to death, Mamma! Where did you do it, how did you do it? Water first of all, water! The wound must be washed, just put it in cold water so the pain stops, and keep it there, keep it there… Quickly, quickly, water, Mamma, in a rinsing bowl. Hurry up, will you,” she finished nervously. She was thoroughly frightened; Alyosha’s wound had dreadfully shaken her.

“Shouldn’t we send for Herzenstube?” Mrs. Khokhlakova was about to exclaim.

“Mamma, you’re killing me. Your Herzenstube will come and tell us he can’t understand! Water, water! Mamma, for God’s sake, go yourself, hurry up Yulia, who has got stuck somewhere and can never come quickly! Hurry up, Mamma, or I’ll die…”

“But it’s nothing!” Alyosha exclaimed, frightened by their fright.

Yulia came running with the water. Alyosha put his finger in the water.

“Mamma, for God’s sake, bring some lint; lint and that stinging cloudy water for cuts, what’s it called! We have some, we have, we have… Mamma, you know yourself where the bottle is, in your bedroom in the little cupboard on the right, there’s a big bottle there and lint…”

“I’ll bring everything right away, Lise, only don’t shout and don’t fret. You see how firmly Alexei Fyodorovich bears his misfortune. And where could you have hurt yourself so dreadfully, Alexei Fyodorovich?”

Mrs. Khokhlakova hurried out. That was just what Lise had been waiting for.

“First of all, answer my question,” she began quickly to Alyosha, “where did you deign to hurt yourself like that? And after that I’ll talk to you about something quite different. Well!”

Alyosha, feeling by instinct that the time until her mamma came back was precious to her, hurriedly, leaving out and cutting a great deal, but still precisely and clearly, told her about his mysterious meeting with the schoolboys. When she had heard him out, Lise threw up her hands:

“Well, how can you, how can you, and in that dress too, get mixed up with little boys!” she cried angrily, as though she even had some sort of right over him. “Why, after that you’re a little boy yourself, the very littlest boy there could possibly be! Still, you absolutely must find out for me somehow about that nasty little boy and tell me everything, because there’s some secret here. Now the second thing, but first a question: can you, Alexei Fyodorovich, in spite of suffering from the pain, talk about perfect trifles, but talk sensibly?”

“I certainly can, and I don’t feel so much pain now anyway.”

“That’s because your finger is in the water. It has to be changed right away, because it will get warm in no time. Yulia, bring a piece of ice from the cellar this instant, and a new rinsing bowl with water. Well, now she’s gone, I’ll get down to business: this instant, dear Alexei Fyodorovich, kindly give me back my letter, the one I sent you yesterday, this instant, because Mamma may come in any moment, and I don’t want…”

“I don’t have the letter with me.”

“That’s not true, you have it with you. I just knew that you would answer like that. It’s in that pocket. I regretted that stupid joke so much all night. Give the letter back right now, give it to me!”

“It stayed back there.”

“But you can’t consider me a little girl, a little, little girl, after my letter with such a stupid joke! I beg your pardon for the stupid joke, but you absolutely must bring me the letter, if you really don’t have it with you; bring it today without fail, without fail!”

“Today I can’t possibly, because I’m going back to the monastery and won’t come to you for two days, three, four perhaps, because the elder Zosima…”

“Four days, what nonsense! Listen, did you laugh at me a lot?”

“I didn’t laugh one bit.”

“Why not?”

“Because I believed all of it completely.”

“You insult me!”

“Not at all. As soon as I read it, I thought at once that that is just how it will all be, because as soon as the elder Zosima dies, I shall have to leave the monastery at once. Then I’ll go on with my studies and pass the examination, and when the lawful time comes, we’ll get married. I will love you. Though I haven’t had time to think about it yet, I thought that I won’t find a better wife than you, and the elder tells me to marry…”

“But I’m a cripple, I’m wheeled about in a chair!” Liza laughed, the color flushing in her cheeks.

“I’ll wheel you in the chair myself, but I’m sure that you will be well by that time.”

“But you’re mad,” Liza said nervously, “to make such nonsense all of a sudden out of such a joke!… Ah, here is Mamma, perhaps very opportunely. Mamma, how late you always are, how can you take so long! And here’s Yulia bringing the ice!”

“Ah, Lise, don’t shout, the main thing is, don’t you shout. From that shouting I… What can I do, if you put the lint somewhere else yourself… I searched and searched… I suspect you did it on purpose.”

“But I couldn’t have known that he would come with a bitten finger, or else maybe I really would have done it on purpose. Angel Mamma, you are beginning to say extraordinarily witty things.”

“Witty, let them be, but what feelings, Lise, over Alexei Fyodorovich’s finger and all this! Oh, dear Alexei Fyodorovich, what is killing me is not the particulars, not some Herzenstube or other, but everything together, everything as a whole, that is what I cannot bear.”

“Enough, Mamma, enough about Herzenstube,” Liza laughed gaily. “Give me the lint quickly, Mamma, and the water. It’s simply lead lotion, Alexei Fyodorovich, I remember the name now, but it’s an excellent lotion. Mamma, imagine, he got into a fight with little boys in the street on the way here, and it was a little boy who bit him; well, isn’t he a little, little man himself, and can he, Mamma, get married after that, because, imagine, he wants to get married, Mamma. Just imagine him married, isn’t it funny, isn’t it dreadful?”

And Lise kept laughing her nervous little laugh, looking slyly at Alyosha.

“Well, what is this about marrying, Lise, and why on earth, and it’s not at all the right time for you… when that boy may be rabid.”

“Ah, Mamma! Are there such things as rabid boys?”

“Why shouldn’t there be, Lise, as though I’d said something stupid. Your boy was bitten by a rabid dog, and he became a rabid boy, and now he’ll bite someone near him in his turn. How well she has bandaged you, Alexei Fyodorovich, I could never have done it like that. Do you feel any pain now?”

“Very little now.”

“And you aren’t afraid of water?” asked Lise.

“Well, enough, Lise, perhaps I really did speak too hastily about the rabid boy, and you’ve already drawn your conclusion. Katerina Ivanovna has only just learned that you’ve come, Alexei Fyodorovich, and she rushed straight to me, she’s thirsting for you, thirsting”

“Ah, Mamma! Go in there by yourself, he can’t go just now, he’s suffering too much”

“I’m not suffering at all, I can perfectly well go,” said Alyosha.

“What! You’re leaving? So that’s how you are? So that’s how you are?”

“Why not? When I’ve finished there, I’ll come back again, and we can talk again as much as you like. And I would very much like to see Katerina Ivanovna as soon as possible, because in any case I very much want to get back to the monastery today as soon as I can.”

“Mamma, take him and lead him away quickly. Alexei Fyodorovich, don’t trouble to come in to me after Katerina Ivanovna, but go straight back to your monastery, that’s just where you belong! And I want to sleep, I didn’t sleep all night.”

“Ah, Lise, that’s only joking on your part, but what if you really did fall asleep!” Mrs. Khokhlakova exclaimed.

“I don’t know how I… I’ll stay another three minutes, if you like, even five,” Alyosha muttered.

“Even five! Do lead him away quickly, Mamma, he’s a monster!”

“Lise, you’ve gone out of your mind. Let us go, Alexei Fyodorovich, she is too capricious today, I’m afraid of irritating her. Oh, the grief one has with a nervous woman, Alexei Fyodorovich! And really, perhaps she actually has begun to feel sleepy with you here. How did you bring sleep on her so quickly, and how fortunate it is!”

“Ah, Mamma, how sweetly you’ve begun to talk, I kiss you for it, Mammy dear.”

“And I you too, Lise. Listen, Alexei Fyodorovich,” Mrs. Khokhlakova began mysteriously and importantly in a rapid whisper, as she went out with Alyosha, “I don’t want to suggest anything to you, or to lift this veil, but go in and you’ll see for yourself everything that is going on in there, it’s horrible, it’s the most fantastic comedy: she loves your brother Ivan Fyodorovich, and she is assuring herself with all her might that she loves your brother Dmitri Fyodorovich. It’s horrible! I’ll go in with you, and if they don’t drive me out, I’ll wait for the end.”

Notes

1. 1. Nadryv, the word that gives Book Four its title, “Strains.” Literally a tearing under too heavy a load (the verb nadorvat’sya means to rupture oneself lifting something too heavy); in common speech, a feeling or effort forced beyond its natural measure, often to the point of self-torment and display.