BUT Dmitri, to whom Grushenka, flying away to a new life, had left

her last greetings, bidding him remember the hour of her love for

ever, knew nothing of what had happened to her, and was at that moment

in a condition of feverish agitation and activity. For the last two

days he had been in such an inconceivable state of mind that he

might easily have fallen ill with brain fever, as he said himself

afterwards. Alyosha had not been able to find him the morning

before, and Ivan had not succeeded in meeting him at the tavern on the

same day. The people at his lodgings, by his orders, concealed his

movements.

    He had spent those two days literally rushing in all directions,

"struggling with his destiny and trying to save himself," as he

expressed it himself afterwards, and for some hours he even made a

dash out of the town on urgent business, terrible as it was to him

to lose sight of Grushenka for a moment. All this was explained

afterwards in detail, and confirmed by documentary evidence; but for

the present we will only note the most essential incidents of those

two terrible days immediately preceding the awful catastrophe that

broke so suddenly upon him.

    Though Grushenka had, it is true, loved him for an hour, genuinely

and sincerely, yet she tortured him sometimes cruelly and mercilessly.

The worst of it was that he could never tell what she meant to do.

To prevail upon her by force or kindness was also impossible: she

would yield to nothing. She would only have become angry and turned

away from him altogether, he knew that well already. He suspected,

quite correctly, that she, too, was passing through an inward

struggle, and was in a state of extraordinary indecision, that she was

making up her mind to something, and unable to determine upon it.

And so, not without good reason, he divined, with a sinking heart,

that at moments she must simply hate him and his passion. And so,

perhaps, it was, but what was distressing Grushenka he did not

understand. For him the whole tormenting question lay between him

and Fyodor Pavlovitch.

    Here, we must note, by the way, one certain fact: he was firmly

persuaded that Fyodor Pavlovitch would offer, or perhaps had

offered, Grushenka lawful wedlock, and did not for a moment believe

that the old voluptuary hoped to gain his object for three thousand

roubles. Mitya had reached this conclusion from his knowledge of

Grushenka and her character. That was how it was that he could believe

at times that all Grushenka's uneasiness rose from not knowing which

of them to choose, which was most to her advantage.

    Strange to say, during those days it never occurred to him to

think of the approaching return of the "officer," that is, of the

man who had been such a fatal influence in Grushenka's life, and whose

arrival she was expecting with such emotion and dread. It is true that

of late Grushenka had been very silent about it. Yet he was

perfectly aware of a letter she had received a month ago from her

seducer, and had heard of it from her own lips. He partly knew, too,

what the letter contained. In a moment of spite Grushenka had shown

him that letter, but to her astonishment he attached hardly any

consequence to it. It would be hard to say why this was. Perhaps,

weighed down by all the hideous horror of his struggle with his own

father for this woman, he was incapable of imagining any danger more

terrible, at any rate for the time. He simply did not believe in a

suitor who suddenly turned up again after five years' disappearance,

still less in his speedy arrival. Moreover, in the "officer's" first

letter which had been shown to Mitya, the possibility of his new

rival's visit was very vaguely suggested. The letter was very

indefinite, high-flown, and full of sentimentality. It must be noted

that Grushenka had concealed from him the last lines of the letter, in

which his return was alluded to more definitely. He had, besides,

noticed at that moment, he remembered afterwards, a certain

involuntary proud contempt for this missive from Siberia on

Grushenka's face. Grushenka told him nothing of what had passed

later between her and this rival; so that by degrees he had completely

forgotten the officer's existence.

    He felt that whatever might come later, whatever turn things might

take, his final conflict with Fyodor Pavlovitch was close upon him,

and must be decided before anything else. With a sinking heart he

was expecting every moment Grushenka's decision, always believing that

it would come suddenly, on the impulse of the moment. All of a

sudden she would say to him: "Take me, I'm yours for ever," and it

would all be over. He would seize her and bear her away at once to the

ends of the earth. Oh, then he would bear her away at once, as far,

far away as possible; to the farthest end of Russia, if not of the

earth, then he would marry her, and settle down with her incognito, so

that no one would know anything about them, there, here, or

anywhere. Then, oh then, a new life would begin at once!

    Of this different, reformed and "virtuous" life ("it must, it must

be virtuous") he dreamed feverishly at every moment. He thirsted for

that reformation and renewal. The filthy morass, in which he had

sunk of his own free will, was too revolting to him, and, like very

many men in such cases, he put faith above all in change of place.

If only it were not for these people, if only it were not for these

circumstances, if only he could fly away from this accursed place-

he would be altogether regenerated, would enter on a new path. That

was what he believed in, and what he was yearning for.

    But all this could only be on condition of the first, the happy

solution of the question. There was another possibility, a different

and awful ending. Suddenly she might say to him: "Go away. I have just

come to terms with Fyodor Pavlovitch. I am going to marry him and

don't want you"- and then... but then... But Mitya did not know what

would happen then. Up to the last hour he didn't know. That must be

said to his credit. He had no definite intentions, had planned no

crime. He was simply watching and spying in agony, while he prepared

himself for the first, happy solution of his destiny. He drove away

any other idea, in fact. But for that ending a quite different anxiety

arose, a new, incidental, but yet fatal and insoluble difficulty

presented itself.

    If she were to say to him: "I'm yours; take me away," how could he

take her away? Where had he the means, the money to do it? It was just

at this time that all sources of revenue from Fyodor Pavlovitch, doles

which had gone on without interruption for so many years, ceased.

Grushenka had money, of course, but with regard to this Mitya suddenly

evinced extraordinary pride; he wanted to carry her away and begin the

new life with her himself, at his own expense, not at hers. He could

not conceive of taking her money, and the very idea caused him a

pang of intense repulsion. I won't enlarge on this fact or analyse

it here, but confine myself to remarking that this was his attitude at

the moment. All this may have arisen indirectly and unconsciously from

the secret stings of his conscience for the money of Katerina Ivanovna

that he had dishonestly appropriated. "I've been a scoundrel to one of

them, and I shall be a scoundrel again to the other directly," was his

feeling then, as he explained after: "and when Grushenka knows, she

won't care for such a scoundrel."

    Where then was he to get the means, where was he to get the

fateful money? Without it, all would be lost and nothing could be

done, "and only because I hadn't the money. Oh, the shame of it!"

    To anticipate things: he did, perhaps, know where to get the

money, knew, perhaps, where it lay at that moment. I will say no

more of this here, as it will all be clear later. But his chief

trouble, I must explain however obscurely, lay in the fact that to

have that sum he knew of, to have the right to take it, he must

first restore Katerina Ivanovna's three thousand- if not, "I'm a

common pick-pocket, I'm a scoundrel, and I don't want to begin a new

life as a scoundrel," Mitya decided. And so he made up his mind to

move heaven and earth to return Katerina Ivanovna that three thousand,

and that first of all. The final stage of this decision, so to say,

had been reached only during the last hours, that is, after his last

interview with Alyosha, two days before, on the high-road, on the

evening when Grushenka had insulted Katerina Ivanovna, and Mitya,

after hearing Alyosha's account of it, had admitted that he was a

scoundrel, and told him to tell Katerina Ivanovna so, if it could be

any comfort to her. After parting from his brother on that night, he

had felt in his frenzy that it would be better "to murder and rob

someone than fail to pay my debt to Katya. I'd rather everyone thought

me a robber and a murderer; I'd rather go to Siberia than that Katya

should have the right to say that I deceived her and stole her

money, and used her money to run away with Grushenka and begin a new

life! That I can't do!" So Mitya decided, grinding his teeth, and he

might well fancy at times that his brain would give way. But meanwhile

he went on struggling....

    Strange to say, though one would have supposed there was nothing

left for him but despair- for what chance had he, with nothing in

the world, to raise such a sum?- yet to the very end he persisted in

hoping that he would get that three thousand, that the money would

somehow come to him of itself, as though it might drop from heaven.

That is just how it is with people who, like Dmitri, have never had

anything to do with money, except to squander what has come to them by

inheritance without any effort of their own, and have no notion how

money is obtained. A whirl of the most fantastic notions took

possession of his brain immediately after he had parted with Alyosha

two days before, and threw his thoughts into a tangle of confusion.

This is how it was he pitched first on a perfectly wild enterprise.

And perhaps to men of that kind in such circumstances the most

impossible, fantastic schemes occur first, and seem most practical.

    He suddenly determined to go to Samsonov, the merchant who was

Grushenka's protector, and to propose a "scheme" to him, and by

means of it to obtain from him at once the whole of the sum

required. Of the commercial value of his scheme he had no doubt, not

the slightest, and was only uncertain how Samsonov would look upon his

freak, supposing he were to consider it from any but the commercial

point of view. Though Mitya knew the merchant by sight, he was not

acquainted with him and had never spoken a word to him. But for some

unknown reason he had long entertained the conviction that the old

reprobate, who was lying at death's door, would perhaps not at all

object now to Grushenka's securing a respectable position, and

marrying a man "to be depended upon." And he believed not only that he

would not object, but that this was what he desired, and, if

opportunity arose, that he would be ready to help. From some rumour,

or perhaps from some stray word of Grushenka's, he had gathered

further that the old man would perhaps prefer him to Fyodor Pavlovitch

for Grushenka.

    Possibly many of the readers of my novel will feel that in

reckoning on such assistance, and being ready to take his bride, so to

speak, from the hands of her protector, Dmitri showed great coarseness

and want of delicacy. I will only observe that Mitya looked upon

Grushenka's past as something completely over. He looked on that

past with infinite pity and resolved with all the fervour of his

passion that when once Grushenka told him she loved him and would

marry him, it would mean the beginning of a new Grushenka and a new

Dmitri, free from every vice. They would forgive one another and would

begin their lives afresh. As for Kuzma Samsonov, Dmitri looked upon

him as a man who had exercised a fateful influence in that remote past

of Grushenka's, though she had never loved him, and who was now

himself a thing of the past, completely done with, and, so to say,

non-existent. Besides, Mitya hardly looked upon him as a man at all,

for it was known to everyone in the town that he was only a

shattered wreck, whose relations with Grushenka had changed their

character and were now simply paternal, and that this had been so

for a long time.

    In any case there was much simplicity on Mitya's part in all this,

for in spite of all his vices, he was a very simple-hearted man. It

was an instance of this simplicity that Mitya was seriously

persuaded that, being on the eve of his departure for the next

world, old Kuzma must sincerely repent of his past relations with

Grushenka, and that she had no more devoted friend and protector in

the world than this, now harmless, old man.

    After his conversation with Alyosha, at the cross-roads, he hardly

slept all night, and at ten o'clock next morning, he was at the

house of Samsonov and telling the servant to announce him. It was a

very large and gloomy old house of two stories, with a lodge and

outhouses. In the lower story lived Samsonov's two married sons with

their families, his old sister, and his unmarried daughter. In the

lodge lived two of his clerks, one of whom also had a large family.

Both the lodge and the lower story were overcrowded, but the old man

kept the upper floor to himself, and would not even let the daughter

live there with him, though she waited upon him, and in spite of her

asthma was obliged at certain fixed hours, and at any time he might

call her, to run upstairs to him from below.

    This upper floor contained a number of large rooms kept purely for

show, furnished in the old-fashioned merchant style, with long

monotonous rows of clumsy mahogany chairs along the walls, with

glass chandeliers under shades, and gloomy mirrors on the walls. All

these rooms were entirely empty and unused, for the old man kept to

one room, a small, remote bedroom, where he was waited upon by an

old servant with a kerchief on her head, and by a lad, who used to sit

on the locker in the passage. Owing to his swollen legs, the old man

could hardly walk at all, and was only rarely lifted from his

leather armchair, when the old woman supporting him led him up and

down the room once or twice. He was morose and taciturn even with this

old woman.

    When he was informed of the arrival of the "captain," he at once

refused to see him. But Mitya persisted and sent his name up again.

Samsonov questioned the lad minutely: What he looked like? Whether

he was drunk? Was he going to make a row? The answer he received

was: that he was sober, but wouldn't go away. The old man again

refused to see him. Then Mitya, who had foreseen this, and purposely

brought pencil and paper with him, wrote clearly on the piece of paper

the words: "On most important business closely concerning Agrafena

Alexandrovna," and sent it up to the old man.

    After thinking a little Samsonov told the lad to take the

visitor to the drawing-room, and sent the old woman downstairs with

a summons to his younger son to come upstairs to him at once. This

younger son, a man over six foot and of exceptional physical strength,

who was closely-shaven and dressed in the European style, though his

father still wore a kaftan and a beard, came at once without a

comment. All the family trembled before the father. The old man had

sent for this giant, not because he was afraid of the "captain" (he

was by no means of a timorous temper), but in order to have a

witness in case of any emergency. Supported by his son and the servant

lad, he waddled at last into the drawing-room. It may be assumed

that he felt considerable curiosity. The drawing-room in which Mitya

was awaiting him was a vast, dreary room that laid a weight of

depression on the heart. It had a double row of windows, a gallery,

marbled walls, and three immense chandeliers with glass lustres

covered with shades.

    Mitya was sitting on a little chair at the entrance, awaiting

his fate with nervous impatience. When the old man appeared at the

opposite door, seventy feet away, Mitya jumped up at once, and with

his long, military stride walked to meet him. Mitya was well

dressed, in a frock-coat, buttoned up, with a round hat and black

gloves in his hands, just as he had been three days before at the

elder's, at the family meeting with his father and brothers. The old

man waited for him, standing dignified and unbending, and Mitya felt

at once that he had looked him through and through as he advanced.

Mitya was greatly impressed, too, with Samsonov's immensely swollen

face. His lower lip, which had always been thick, hung down now,

looking like a bun. He bowed to his guest in dignified silence,

motioned him to a low chair by the sofa, and, leaning on his son's arm

he began lowering himself on to the sofa opposite, groaning painfully,

so that Mitya, seeing his painful exertions, immediately felt

remorseful and sensitively conscious of his insignificance in the

presence of the dignified person he had ventured to disturb.

    "What is it you want of me, sir?" said the old man,

deliberately, distinctly, severely, but courteously, when he was at

last seated.

    Mitya started, leapt up, but sat down again. Then he began at once

speaking with loud, nervous haste, gesticulating, and in a positive

frenzy. He was unmistakably a man driven into a corner, on the brink

of ruin, catching at the last straw, ready to sink if he failed. Old

Samsonov probably grasped all this in an instant, though his face

remained cold and immovable as a statue's.

    "Most honoured sir, Kuzma Kuzmitch, you have no doubt heard more

than once of my disputes with my father, Fyodor Pavlovitch

Karamazov, who robbed me of my inheritance from my mother... seeing

the whole town is gossiping about it... for here everyone's

gossiping of what they shouldn't... and besides, it might have reached

you through Grushenka... I beg your pardon, through Agrafena

Alexandrovna... Agrafena Alexandrovna, the lady of whom I have the

highest respect and esteem..."

    So Mitya began, and broke down at the first sentence. We will

not reproduce his speech word for word, but will only summarise the

gist of it. Three months ago, he said, he had of express intention

(Mitya purposely used these words instead of "intentionally")

consulted a lawyer in the chief town of the province, "a distinguished

lawyer, Kuzma Kuzmitch, Pavel Pavlovitch Korneplodov. You have perhaps

heard of him? A man of vast intellect, the mind of a statesman... he

knows you, too... spoke of you in the highest terms..." Mitya broke

down again. But these breaks did not deter him. He leapt instantly

over the gaps, and struggled on and on.

    This Korneplodov, after questioning him minutely, and inspecting

the documents he was able to bring him (Mitya alluded somewhat vaguely

to these documents, and slurred over the subject with special

haste), reported that they certainly might take proceedings concerning

the village of Tchermashnya, which ought, he said, to have come to

him, Mitya, from his mother, and so checkmate the old villain, his

father... "because every door was not closed and justice might still

find a loophole." In fact, he might reckon on an additional sum of six

or even seven thousand roubles from Fyodor Pavlovitch, as Tchermashnya

was worth, at least, twenty-five thousand, he might say twenty-eight

thousand, in fact, "thirty, thirty, Kuzma Kuzmitch, and would you

believe it, I didn't get seventeen from that heartless man!" So he,

Mitya, had thrown the business up for the time, knowing nothing

about the law, but on coming here was struck dumb by a cross- claim

made upon him (here Mitya went adrift again and again took a flying

leap forward), "so will not you, excellent and honoured Kuzma

Kuzmitch, be willing to take up all my claims against that unnatural

monster, and pay me a sum down of only three thousand?... You see, you

cannot, in any case, lose over it. On my honour, my honour, I swear

that. Quite the contrary, you may make six or seven thousand instead

of three." Above all, he wanted this concluded that very day.

    "I'll do the business with you at a notary's, or whatever it is...

in fact, I'm ready to do anything. .. I'll hand over all the

deeds... whatever you want, sign anything... and we could draw up

the agreement at once... and if it were possible, if it were only

possible, that very morning.... You could pay me that three

thousand, for there isn't a capitalist in this town to compare with

you, and so would save me from... save me, in fact... for a good, I

might say an honourable action.... For I cherish the most honourable

feelings for a certain person, whom you know well, and care for as a

father. I would not have come, indeed, if it had not been as a father.

And, indeed, it's a struggle of three in this business, for it's fate-

that's a fearful thing, Kuzma Kuzmitch! A tragedy, Kuzma Kuzmitch, a

tragedy! And as you've dropped out long ago, it's a tug-of-war between

two. I'm expressing it awkwardly, perhaps, but I'm not a literary man.

You see, I'm on the one side, and that monster on the other. So you

must choose. It's either I or the monster. It all lies in your

hands-.the fate of three lives, and the happiness of two.... Excuse

me, I'm making a mess of it, but you understand... I see from your

venerable eyes that you understand... and if you don't understand, I'm

done for... so you see!"

    Mitya broke off his clumsy speech with that, "so you see!" and

jumping up from his seat, awaited the answer to his foolish

proposal. At the last phrase he had suddenly become hopelessly aware

that it had all fallen flat, above all, that he had been talking utter

nonsense.

    "How strange it is! On the way here it seemed all right, and now

it's nothing but nonsense." The idea suddenly dawned on his despairing

mind. All the while he had been talking, the old man sat motionless,

watching him with an icy expression in his eyes. After keeping him for

a moment in suspense, Kuzma Kuzmitch pronounced at last in the most

positive and chilling tone:

    "Excuse me, we don't undertake such business."

    Mitya suddenly felt his legs growing weak under him.

    "What am I to do now, Kuzma Kuzmitch?" he muttered, with a pale

smile. "I suppose it's all up with me- what do you think?"

    "Excuse me..."

    Mitya remained standing, staring motionless. He suddenly noticed a

movement in the old man's face. He started.

    "You see, sir, business of that sort's not in our line," said

the old man slowly. "There's the court, and the lawyers- it's a

perfect misery. But if you like, there is a man here you might apply

to."

    "Good heavens! Who is it? You're my salvation, Kuzma Kuzmitch,"

faltered Mitya.

    "He doesn't live here, and he's not here just now. He is a

peasant, he does business in timber. His name is Lyagavy. He's been

haggling with Fyodor Pavlovitch for the last year, over your copse

at Tchermashnya. They can't agree on the price, maybe you've heard?

Now he's come back again and is staying with the priest at

Ilyinskoe, about twelve versts from the Volovya station. He wrote to

me, too, about the business of the copse, asking my advice. Fyodor

Pavlovitch means to go and see him himself. So if you were to be

beforehand with Fyodor Pavlovitch and to make Lyagavy the offer you've

made me, he might possibly- "

    "A brilliant idea!" Mitya interrupted ecstatically. "He's the very

man, it would just suit him. He's haggling with him for it, being

asked too much, and here he would have all the documents entitling him

to the property itself. Ha ha ha!"

    And Mitya suddenly went off into his short, wooden laugh,

startling Samsonov.

    "How can I thank you, Kuzma Kuzmitch?" cried Mitya effusively.

    "Don't mention it," said Samsonov, inclining his head.

    "But you don't know, you've saved me. Oh, it was a true

presentiment brought me to you.... So now to this priest!

    "No need of thanks."

    "I'll make haste and fly there. I'm afraid I've overtaxed your

strength. I shall never forget it. It's a Russian says that, Kuzma

Kuzmitch, a R-r-russian!"

    "To be sure!" Mitya seized his hand to press it, but there was a

malignant gleam in the old man's eye. Mitya drew back his hand, but at

once blamed himself for his mistrustfulness.

  "It's because he's tired," he thought.

    "For her sake! For her sake, Kuzma Kuzmitch! You understand that

it's for her," he cried, his voice ringing through the room. He bowed,

turned sharply round, and with the same long stride walked to the door

without looking back. He was trembling with delight.

    "Everything was on the verge of ruin and my guardian angel saved

me," was the thought in his mind. And if such a business man as

Samsonov (a most worthy old man, and what dignity!) had suggested this

course, then... then success was assured. He would fly off

immediately. "I will be back before night, I shall be back at night

and the thing is done. Could the old man have been laughing at me?"

exclaimed Mitya, as he strode towards his lodging. He could, of

course, imagine nothing but that the advice was practical "from such a

business man" with an understanding of the business, with an

understanding of this Lyagavy (curious surname!). Or- the old man

was laughing at him.

    Alas! The second alternative was the correct one. Long afterwards,

when the catastrophe had happened, old Samsonov himself confessed,

laughing, that he had made a fool of the "captain." He was a cold,

spiteful and sarcastic man, liable to violent antipathies. Whether

it was the "captain's" excited face, or the foolish conviction of

the "rake and spendthrift," that he, Samsonov, could be taken in by

such a cock-and-bull story as his scheme, or his jealousy of

Grushenka, in whose name this "scapegrace" had rushed in on him with

such a tale to get money which worked on the old man, I can't tell.

But at the instant when Mitya stood before him, feeling his legs

grow weak under him, and frantically exclaiming that he was ruined, at

that moment the old man looked at him with intense spite, and resolved

to make a laughing-stock of him. When Mitya had gone, Kuzma

Kuzmitch, white with rage, turned to his son and bade him see to it

that that beggar be never seen again, and never admitted even into the

yard, or else he'd-

    He did not utter his threat. But even his son, who often saw him

enraged, trembled with fear. For a whole hour afterwards, the old

man was shaking with anger, and by evening he was worse, and sent

for the doctor.