The Brothers Karamazov

“You are a silly one, Alyoshenka, that’s what, you don’t understand anything about it, for all your intelligence, that’s what. What hurts me is not that he’s jealous of me, such as I am; it would hurt me if he wasn’t jealous at all. I’m like that. I wouldn’t be hurt by his jealousy, I also have a cruel heart, I can be jealous myself. No, what hurts me is that he doesn’t love me at all and is being jealous on purpose now, that’s what. I’m not blind, I can see! He suddenly started telling me about her, about Katka: she’s this and she’s that, she wrote and invited a doctor from Moscow for him, for the trial, she did it to save him, she also invited the best lawyer, the most learned one. It means he loves her, if he starts praising her right to my face, the brazen-face! He feels guilty towards me, and so he pesters me in order to make me guiltier than he is and put all the blame on me alone: ‘You were with the Pole before me,’ he means, ‘so I’m allowed to do it with Katka.’ That’s what it is! He wants to put all the blame on me alone. He pesters me on purpose, I tell you, on purpose, only I...”

Grushenka did not finish saying what she would do. She covered her eyes with her handkerchief and burst into tears. “He does not love Katerina Ivanovna,” Alyosha said firmly.

“Well, I’ll soon find out whether he loves her or not,” Grushenka said, with a menacing note in her voice, taking the handkerchief from her eyes. Her face became distorted. Alyosha was grieved to see her face, which had been meek and quietly joyful, suddenly become sullen and wicked.

“Enough of this foolishness,” she suddenly snapped, “I did not call you here for that at all. Alyosha, darling, tomorrow, what will happen tomorrow? That’s what torments me! And I’m the only one it torments! I look at everyone, and no one is thinking about it, no one wants to have anything to do with it. Do you at least think about it? They’re going to judge him tomorrow! Tell me, how are they going to judge him there? It was the lackey who killed him, the lackey! Lord! Can it be that they’ll condemn him instead of the lackey, and no one will stand up for him? They haven’t even bothered the lackey at all, have they?”

“He was closely questioned,” Alyosha observed thoughtfully, “but they all concluded that it wasn’t him. Now he’s lying in bed very sick. He’s been sick ever since that falling fit. Really sick,” Alyosha added.

“Lord, but why don’t you go to this lawyer yourself and tell him the whole business in private? They say he was invited from Petersburg for three thousand.”

“The three of us put up the three thousand—my brother Ivan and I, and Katerina Ivanovna—and the doctor was called in from Moscow for two thousand by her alone. The lawyer Fetyukovich would have charged more, but the case has become known all over Russia, they’re talking about it in all the newspapers and magazines, so Fetyukovich agreed to come more for the sake of glory, because the case has become so famous. I saw him yesterday.”

“Well, what? Did you tell him?” Grushenka asked hastily.

“He listened to me and said nothing. He said he had already formed a certain opinion. But he promised to take my words into consideration.”

“What? Into consideration? They’re swindlers! They’ll ruin him! And the doctor, why did that woman call in the doctor?”

“As an expert. They want to establish that my brother is crazy and killed in a fit of madness, not knowing what he was doing,” Alyosha smiled quietly, “only my brother won’t agree to it.”

“Ah, but it would be true, if he were the murderer!” Grushenka exclaimed. “He was crazy then, completely crazy, and it’s I who am to blame, base creature that I am! Only he didn’t kill him, he didn’t! And they all say he killed him, the whole town. Even Fenya, even she gave such evidence that it comes out as if he killed him. And in the shop, and that official, and earlier in the tavern people heard him! Everyone is against him, everyone is squawking.”

“Yes, the evidence has multiplied terribly,” Alyosha observed glumly. “And Grigory, Grigory Vasilievich, he, too, stands by his story that the door was open, that he saw it, he just sticks to it and won’t be budged, I ran over to see him, I talked with him myself! And he’s cursing on top of it.”

“Yes, that is perhaps the strongest evidence against my brother,” Alyosha said.