I. Kuzma Samsonov

And Dmitri Fyodorovich, to whom Grushenka, flying off into a new life, had “bidden” them convey her last greeting and had charged him to remember forever the little hour of her love, was at that moment, knowing nothing of what had happened to her, also in terrible turmoil and bustle. For the last two days he had been in such an unimaginable state that he really might have come down with brain fever, as he himself said later. Alyosha had been unable to find him the morning before, and his brother Ivan had been unable that same day to arrange a meeting with him at the tavern. The owners of the little lodging where he lived had, on his orders, covered his tracks. And he, during those two days, had literally been rushing about in all directions, “struggling with his fate and saving himself,” as he put it himself afterward, and had even flown out of town for a few hours on a certain urgent business, in spite of the fact that he dreaded going away and leaving Grushenka even for a minute without an eye on her. All this was later established in the most detailed and documented form, but for now we shall set down, as fact, only what is most necessary from the history of those two terrible days in his life that preceded the dreadful catastrophe which broke so suddenly over his fate.

Grushenka, though she had loved him truly and sincerely for one little hour, that is true, at the same time also tormented him at times, really cruelly and mercilessly. The main thing was that he could make out nothing of her intentions; and to coax it out of her by kindness or by force was not possible either: she would not have given in for anything, but would only have got angry and turned away from him altogether, that he clearly understood at the time. He suspected then, quite rightly, that she herself was in some kind of struggle, in some extraordinary indecision, was making up her mind to something and kept on being unable to make it up, and therefore he supposed, not without grounds, his heart sinking, that at moments she must simply hate him and his passion. So, perhaps, it was, but what exactly Grushenka was anguishing over, that he still did not understand. For him, properly speaking, the whole question that tormented him came down to just two alternatives: “Either he, Mitya, or Fyodor Pavlovich.” Here, by the way, one firm fact must be noted: he was completely certain that Fyodor Pavlovich would without fail offer Grushenka (if he had not already offered) lawful marriage, and he did not believe for a minute that the old sensualist hoped to get off with only three thousand. Mitya had deduced this, knowing Grushenka and her character. That is why it could sometimes seem to him that all Grushenka’s torment and all her indecision also came only from her not knowing which of them to choose and which of them would be more profitable for her. As for the imminent return of “the officer,” that is, of that fateful man in Grushenka’s life, whose arrival she was awaiting with such agitation and fear, he, strange to say, did not even think of thinking about it in those days. True, in the very last days Grushenka had been very silent with him on that subject. Nevertheless he knew perfectly well from her own lips of the letter she had received a month before from this former seducer of hers, and he knew in part the contents of the letter as well. At the time, in a spiteful little moment, Grushenka had shown him this letter, but, to her surprise, he attached almost no value to it. And it would be very hard to explain why: perhaps simply because, oppressed himself by all the ugliness and horror of his struggle with his own father for this woman, he could not imagine anything more terrible and dangerous for himself, at least at that time. As for a suitor who had suddenly popped up from somewhere after vanishing for five years, he simply did not even believe in him, and especially not that he would arrive soon. And in that very first letter of “the officer’s,” which had been shown to Mitenka, the arrival of this new rival was spoken of very vaguely: the letter was very foggy, very high-flown, and filled only with sentimentality. It must be noted that Grushenka had on that occasion hidden from him the last lines of the letter, in which the return was spoken of somewhat more definitely. Besides, Mitenka remembered later that at that moment he had caught on Grushenka’s own face a kind of involuntary and proud contempt for this missive from Siberia. After that Grushenka told Mitenka nothing more of any further dealings with this new rival. And so, little by little, he even completely forgot about the officer. He thought only that whatever might come of it and however matters might turn out, the final clash with Fyodor Pavlovich bearing down on him was too close and must be resolved before anything else. With a sinking soul he waited every minute for Grushenka’s decision, and kept believing that it would come as if suddenly, by inspiration. Suddenly she would say to him, “Take me, I am yours forever,” and everything would be over: he would seize her and carry her off to the ends of the earth at once. Oh, at once he would carry her off as far, as far as possible, if not to the ends of the earth, then somewhere to the far end of Russia, marry her there, and settle with her incognito, so that no one would know about them at all, not here, not there, not anywhere. Then, oh, then a completely new life would begin at once! Of this other, renewed, and now “virtuous” life (“without fail, without fail virtuous”) he dreamed every minute and ecstatically. He thirsted for this resurrection and renewal. The vile slough in which he had stuck of his own will weighed on him too heavily, and he, like very many people in such cases, believed most of all in a change of place: if only not these people, if only not these circumstances, if only he could get away, fly out of this cursed place, and—everything would be reborn, would go on in a new way! That was what he believed in and what he languished for.

But that was only in case of the first, happy solution of the question. There was another solution too, another outcome presented itself, but this time a terrible one. Suddenly she would say to him: “Go away, I have just settled it with Fyodor Pavlovich and am marrying him, and I don’t need you,” and then… but then… Mitya, however, did not know what would happen then, did not know until the very last hour, and in this he must be justified. He had no definite intentions, no crime had been thought out. He only watched, spied, and suffered, but all the same he prepared himself only for the first, happy outcome of his fate. He even drove away every other thought. But here an altogether different torment began, an altogether new and extraneous, but also fateful and insoluble, circumstance arose.

Namely, in case she said to him, “I am yours, take me away,” how was he to take her away? Where were his means for it, his money? It was precisely by this time that all his income from Fyodor Pavlovich’s handouts, which had never ceased in all those many years, had run dry. Of course, Grushenka had money, but on this score a terrible pride suddenly turned up in Mitya: he wanted to take her away himself and begin a new life with her on his own means, not on hers; he could not even imagine taking her money from her, and suffered at the thought to the point of tormenting revulsion. I do not enlarge on this fact here, I do not analyze it, but only note it: such was the cast of his soul at that moment. All this might have come indirectly and even as if unconsciously from the secret torments of his conscience over Katerina Ivanovna’s money, which he had appropriated like a thief: “A scoundrel before one, and before the other I’ll at once turn out a scoundrel again,” he thought then, as he himself confessed afterward, “and if Grushenka finds out, she won’t want such a scoundrel herself.” And so where was he to get the means, where was he to get that fateful money? Otherwise everything would be lost and nothing would come to pass, “and solely because there wasn’t enough money, oh, the shame!”

I am running ahead: the thing is precisely that he, perhaps, did know where to get that money, knew, perhaps, where it was even lying. I will say nothing more detailed this time, for later everything will be explained; but here is what his chief trouble consisted of, and though it is unclear, I will state it: in order to take those means that were lying somewhere, in order to have the right to take them, he first had to return the three thousand to Katerina Ivanovna—otherwise, “I am a pickpocket, I am a scoundrel, and a new life is not something I want to begin as a scoundrel,” Mitya resolved, and therefore he decided to turn the whole world upside down, if need be, but without fail to give those three thousand back to Katerina Ivanovna, at whatever cost and before anything else. The final process of this decision had taken place in him, so to speak, in the very last hours of his life, namely since his last meeting with Alyosha, two days before in the evening, on the road, after Grushenka had insulted Katerina Ivanovna, and Mitya, having heard the story of it from Alyosha, had admitted that he was a scoundrel and had told him to pass this on to Katerina Ivanovna, “if it can relieve her in any way.” Then, that same night, having parted from his brother, he felt in his frenzy that it would be better even “to kill and rob someone, but pay back the debt to Katya.” “Better that I should stand as a murderer and a thief before the one I killed and robbed, and before all people, and go off to Siberia, than give Katya the right to say I betrayed her, and stole her money, and ran off on her money with Grushenka to begin a virtuous life! That I cannot do!” So Mitya pronounced, gnashing his teeth, and really could imagine at times that he would end up with brain fever. But meanwhile he struggled on…

A strange thing: it would seem that with such a decision there was nothing left for him but despair; for where could he suddenly get such money, and a pauper like him at that? And yet all that time, to the very end, he hoped that he would get those three thousand, that they would come, would fly down to him somehow of themselves, even from heaven. But that is just how it is with those who, like Dmitri Fyodorovich, all their lives know only how to spend and squander inherited money for nothing, and have no notion of how money is obtained. The most fantastic whirlwind rose in his head immediately after he had parted from Alyosha two days before, and confused all his thoughts. Thus it came about that he began with the wildest of undertakings. And perhaps it is precisely in such situations that to such people the most impossible and fantastic undertakings present themselves first as the most possible. He suddenly resolved to go to the merchant Samsonov, Grushenka’s protector, and propose to him a certain “plan,” and on the strength of this “plan” get from him the whole required sum at once; of his plan from the commercial side he had not the slightest doubt, but he doubted only how Samsonov himself would look on his escapade, if he chose to look at it not only from the commercial side. Mitya, though he knew this merchant by sight, was not acquainted with him and had never even once spoken with him. But for some reason a conviction had become settled in him, and long ago at that, that this old debaucher, who now had one foot in the grave, would perhaps not at all object at the present moment if Grushenka were to arrange her life somehow honestly and marry “a reliable man.” And that not only would he not object, but he himself wished it and, if only an occasion turned up, would himself help it along. Whether from some rumors or from some words of Grushenka’s, he had concluded too that the old man would perhaps prefer him to Fyodor Pavlovich for Grushenka. Perhaps to many readers of our tale this reliance on such help, and this plan of receiving his bride, so to speak, out of her protector’s hands, will seem too coarse and unfastidious on Dmitri Fyodorovich’s part. I can only remark that Grushenka’s past seemed to Mitya already finally past. He looked on that past with infinite compassion and resolved, with all the flame of his passion, that once Grushenka told him that she loved him and would marry him, a completely new Grushenka would begin at once, and together with her a completely new Dmitri Fyodorovich as well, now without any vices, with nothing but virtues: they would both forgive each other and begin their life in a completely new way. As for Kuzma Samsonov, he regarded him, in that former, sunken past of Grushenka’s, as a fateful man in her life, whom, however, she had never loved, and who, this was the main thing, had also already “passed,” was finished, so that he too no longer existed at all now. Besides, Mitya could not even regard him as a man now, for it was known to each and every person in town that he was merely a sick wreck, who had kept up relations with Grushenka that were, so to speak, merely fatherly, and not at all on the footing of before, and that this had been so for a long time already, for almost a year now. In any case there was much simple-heartedness on Mitya’s part in all this, for with all his vices he was a very simple-hearted man. As a consequence of this simple-heartedness, by the way, he was seriously convinced that old Kuzma, getting ready to depart for the other world, felt sincere repentance for his past with Grushenka, and that she had no more devoted protector and friend now than this old man, harmless by now.

On the very next day after his conversation with Alyosha in the fields, after which Mitya hardly slept all night, he appeared at Samsonov’s house at about ten o’clock in the morning and asked to be announced. The house was old, gloomy, very spacious, two-storied, with outbuildings and a cottage. On the lower floor lived Samsonov’s two married sons with their families, his aged sister, and one unmarried daughter. In the cottage were lodged two of his clerks, one of whom also had a large family. Both children and clerks were crowded in their quarters, but the upper floor of the house was occupied by the old man alone, and he would not let even his daughter live there with him, though she looked after him and had to run up to him from below at fixed hours and at his unfixed summonses every time, in spite of her long-standing shortness of breath. This “upstairs” consisted of a great many large state rooms, furnished in the old merchant style, with long dull rows of clumsy mahogany armchairs and chairs along the walls, with crystal chandeliers in covers, with sullen mirrors between the windows. All these rooms stood completely empty and uninhabited, because the sick old man huddled in only one little room, in his remote little bedroom, where he was waited on by an old woman servant with her hair in a kerchief, and by “the lad,” who lived on the bench in the front hall. Because of his swollen legs the old man could hardly walk at all anymore, and only occasionally got up from his leather armchair, and the old woman, holding him under the arms, would walk him once or twice around the room. He was stern and taciturn even with this old woman. When “the captain’s” arrival was announced to him, he at once ordered that he be refused. But Mitya insisted and had himself announced again. Kuzma Kuzmich questioned the lad in detail: what did he look like, was he drunk? Was he making a row? And received the answer that he was “sober, but won’t go away.” The old man again ordered that he be refused. Then Mitya, who had foreseen all this and had purposely brought paper and pencil with him for the occasion, wrote one line clearly on a scrap of paper: “On a most urgent matter closely concerning Agrafena Alexandrovna,” and sent it to the old man. After some thought, the old man told the lad to show the visitor into the reception hall, and sent the old woman downstairs with an order to his youngest son to come up to him at once. This youngest son, a man a good twelve vershoks over two arshins, well over six feet, and of enormous strength, who shaved his face and dressed in the German fashion (Samsonov himself went about in a caftan and with a beard), appeared at once and without a word. They all trembled before their father. The father had summoned this strapping fellow not so much out of fear of the captain, for he was of a far from timid character, but just in case, more to have a witness. Escorted by his son, who took him under the arm, and by the lad, he at last sailed into the hall. One must suppose he felt a certain rather strong curiosity. This hall, in which Mitya was waiting, was a huge, gloomy room that killed the soul with tedium, two stories high, with a gallery, with walls painted “to look like marble,” and with three huge crystal chandeliers in covers. Mitya was sitting on a little chair by the entrance door, waiting in nervous impatience for his fate. When the old man appeared at the opposite entrance, some ten sazhens from Mitya’s chair, Mitya suddenly jumped up and went to meet him with his firm, military, yard-long strides. Mitya was decently dressed, in a buttoned frock coat, with a round hat in his hands and in black gloves, exactly as he had been some three days before at the monastery, at the elder’s, at the family meeting with Fyodor Pavlovich and his brothers. The old man stood waiting for him gravely and sternly, and Mitya felt at once that while he was coming up, the other had looked him over thoroughly. Mitya was also extremely struck by the face of Kuzma Kuzmich, which had grown very swollen of late: his lower lip, which was thick enough as it was, now looked like some sort of sagging flat cake. Gravely and silently he bowed to his guest, pointed him to an armchair beside the sofa, and himself slowly, leaning on his son’s arm and groaning painfully, began to settle himself on the sofa opposite Mitya, so that Mitya, seeing his painful efforts, at once felt in his heart remorse and a delicate shame for his present insignificance before so important a person whom he had troubled.

“What is it you wish of me, sir?” said the old man, having seated himself at last, slowly, distinctly, sternly, but politely.

Mitya gave a start, began to jump up, but sat down again. Then at once he began to speak loudly, rapidly, nervously, with gestures and in a positive frenzy. It was evident that the man had reached the limit, was lost, and was seeking a last way out, and if it failed, then he might as well go and drown himself this minute. All this old Samsonov probably understood in an instant, though his face remained unchanged and cold as an idol’s.

“The most noble Kuzma Kuzmich has probably heard more than once of my disputes with my father, Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov, who robbed me of my inheritance from my own mother… since the whole town is already buzzing with it… because here everyone buzzes about what they shouldn’t… And besides, it might have reached you from Grushenka… I beg your pardon: from Agrafena Alexandrovna… from Agrafena Alexandrovna, whom I so greatly respect and so deeply esteem…” So Mitya began, and broke off at the very first word. But we shall not reproduce his whole speech word for word, and shall give only a summary of it. The matter, he said, was this: that he, Mitya, three months ago had expressly consulted (he said precisely “expressly,” and not “on purpose”) a lawyer in the provincial capital, “a famous lawyer, Kuzma Kuzmich, Pavel Pavlovich Korneplodov, you have probably been pleased to hear of him? A vast brow, almost a statesman’s mind… he knows you too… spoke of you in the highest terms…” Mitya broke off a second time. But the breaks did not stop him, he leaped over them at once and rushed on further and further. This same Korneplodov, he said, having questioned him in detail and examined the documents Mitya could produce for him (about the documents Mitya expressed himself vaguely and in particular haste at this point), had given his opinion that as regards the village of Chermashnya, which ought, he said, to have belonged to him, Mitya, through his mother, a suit really could be started and the old disgraceful creature thereby flabbergasted… “because not all doors are locked, and justice knows where to slip through.” In a word, one might even hope, he said, for some six thousand more from Fyodor Pavlovich, even seven, since Chermashnya was worth no less than twenty-five thousand after all, that is, surely twenty-eight, “thirty, thirty, Kuzma Kuzmich, and, imagine, I haven’t got even seventeen out of that cruel man!…” So I, Mitya, he said, dropped the matter then, because I don’t know how to deal with the law, and on coming here I was struck dumb by a counterclaim (here Mitya got muddled again and again leaped abruptly ahead): so, he said, wouldn’t you be willing, most noble Kuzma Kuzmich, to take over all my rights against that monster, and give me just three thousand yourself… You can’t lose in any case, I swear it on my honor, on my honor, but quite the contrary, you can make six or seven thousand instead of three… And the main thing is to finish it “even today.” “I’ll do it for you there at a notary’s, or whatever it is… In a word, I’m ready for anything, I’ll hand over all the documents you require, I’ll sign everything… and we could draw up that paper right now, and if possible, if only possible, then this very morning… You would hand me those three thousand… since who is a capitalist to compare with you in this little town… and thereby you would save me from… in a word, you would save my poor head for a most noble cause, for a most lofty cause, one may say… for I cherish the noblest feelings toward a certain person whom you know only too well and whom you watch over like a father. Otherwise I wouldn’t even have come, if it weren’t like a father. And, if you like, three heads have knocked together here, for fate is a monster, Kuzma Kuzmich! Realism, Kuzma Kuzmich, realism! And since you have long since had to be excluded, two heads remain, as I have put it, perhaps awkwardly, but I am not a literary man. That is, one head is mine, and the other is that monster’s. So choose: either me or the monster? Everything is in your hands now—three fates and two lots… Forgive me, I’ve lost my way, but you understand… I see by your venerable eyes that you have understood… And if you haven’t understood, then into the water today, so there!”

Mitya broke off his absurd speech with this “so there” and, jumping up from his seat, waited for an answer to his foolish proposal. With the last phrase he had suddenly and hopelessly felt that everything had burst, and above all that he had piled up a terrible heap of drivel. “It’s a strange thing, while I was on my way here everything seemed fine, and now look, it’s drivel!” suddenly swept through his hopeless head. The whole time he was speaking, the old man had sat motionless, following him with an icy expression in his eyes. Having kept him waiting, however, for a moment or so, Kuzma Kuzmich pronounced at last in a most decisive and cheerless tone:

“Excuse me, sir, we don’t engage in that sort of business.”

Mitya suddenly felt his legs growing weak under him.

“What am I to do now, Kuzma Kuzmich?” he muttered, smiling palely. “I’m done for now, don’t you think?”

“Excuse me, sir…”

Mitya kept standing and kept staring at him point-blank, motionless, and suddenly noticed that something had stirred in the old man’s face. He gave a start.

“You see, sir, such business isn’t in our line,” the old man said slowly. “There’ll be courts, lawyers, sheer misery! But if you like, there is a certain man here, you might apply to him…”

“My God, who is it!… You are bringing me back to life, Kuzma Kuzmich,” Mitya suddenly began to babble.

“He’s not from here, this man, and he isn’t here now either. He’s of peasant stock, he deals in timber, goes by the nickname Lyagavy. He’s been bargaining with Fyodor Pavlovich for a year now over that grove of yours in Chermashnya, but they don’t agree on the price, you may have heard. Now he’s just come again and is staying with the priest at Ilyinskoye, some twelve versts or so from the Volovya station, in the village of Ilyinskoye. He wrote here, to me as well, about this very business, that is, about the grove, asked my advice. Fyodor Pavlovich means to go to him himself. So if you were to get ahead of Fyodor Pavlovich and offer Lyagavy that very same thing you told me, then he might perhaps…”

“A brilliant idea!” Mitya interrupted rapturously. “He’s the very man, it’s just the thing for him! He’s bargaining, they’re asking a lot of him, and here he gets the very document to the property itself, ha-ha-ha!” And Mitya suddenly burst into his short wooden laugh, quite unexpectedly, so that even Samsonov’s head twitched.

“How can I thank you, Kuzma Kuzmich?” Mitya was seething.

“Not at all, sir,” Samsonov inclined his head.

“But you don’t know, you’ve saved me, oh, a presentiment drew me to you… So, to this priest!”

“No need for thanks, sir.”

“I hasten, I fly. I have abused your health. I’ll never forget it as long as I live, it’s a Russian who says this to you, Kuzma Kuzmich, a R-Russian!”

“Ve-ry well, sir.”

Mitya was about to seize the old man’s hand to shake it, but something malicious flashed in the old man’s eyes. Mitya drew back his hand, but at once reproached himself for his suspiciousness. “It’s that he’s tired…” flashed through his mind.

“For her! For her, Kuzma Kuzmich! You understand that it’s for her!” he suddenly bellowed through the whole hall, bowed, turned sharply, and with the same rapid, yard-long strides, without looking back, made for the exit. He was trembling with rapture. “Everything was perishing, and now a guardian angel has saved me,” swept through his mind. “And if a man of business like this old man (a most noble old man, and what a bearing!) has pointed out this way, then… then of course the way is won. I must fly at once. I’ll be back before night, I’ll be back at night, but the thing is won. Could the old man possibly have been laughing at me?” So Mitya exclaimed, striding to his lodging, and of course it could not have presented itself to his mind otherwise, that is: either sound advice (from such a man of business)—with knowledge of the matter, with knowledge of this Lyagavy (a strange name!), or—or the old man had been laughing at him! Alas! the latter thought was the only right one. Later, long afterward, when the whole catastrophe had already taken place, old Samsonov himself admitted, laughing, that he had made a fool of “the captain” that time. He was a spiteful, cold, and mocking man, and with morbid antipathies besides. Whether it was the captain’s rapturous look, or the stupid conviction of this “spendthrift and squanderer” that he, Samsonov, could be taken in by such nonsense as his “plan,” or a jealous feeling about Grushenka, in whose name “this ne’er-do-well” had come to him with some nonsense to get money—I do not know what exactly moved the old man then, but at the moment when Mitya stood before him, feeling his legs grow weak, and senselessly exclaiming that he was done for—at that moment the old man looked at him with infinite spite and devised a way of making a fool of him. When Mitya had gone out, Kuzma Kuzmich, pale with spite, turned to his son and told him to see to it that from now on there should be not so much as a whiff of this ragamuffin, and that he was not to be let even into the yard, or else…

He did not finish saying what he threatened, but even his son, who had often seen him in a rage, shuddered with fear. A whole hour later the old man was still shaking all over with spite, and toward evening he fell ill and sent for the “leech.”