The Brothers Karamazov

“He tormented himself,” she exclaimed, “he kept trying to minimize his brother’s guilt, confessing to me that he had not loved his father either, and perhaps had wished for his death himself. Oh, he has a deep, deep conscience! He tormented himself with his conscience! He revealed everything to me, everything, he would come to see me and talk with me every day as with his only friend. I have the honor of being his only friend!” she exclaimed suddenly, as if with some sort of defiance, and her eyes flashed. “Twice he went to see Smerdyakov. Once he came to me and said: ‘If it wasn’t my brother who killed him, but Smerdyakov’ (because everyone here had been spreading this fable that Smerdyakov killed him), ‘then perhaps I am guilty, too, because Smerdyakov knew that I did not like my father, and perhaps thought I wished for my father’s death.’ Then I took out that letter and showed it to him, and he was totally convinced that his brother was the killer, and it totally overwhelmed him. He could not bear it that his own brother was a parricide! Already a week ago I saw that he had become ill from it. In the past few days, sitting with me, he was raving. I saw that he was losing his mind. He went about raving, he was seen like that in the streets. The visiting doctor, at my request, examined him the day before yesterday and told me that he was close to brain fever—all because of him, all because of the monster! And yesterday he learned that Smerdyakov had died—he was so struck by it that he’s lost his mind ... and all because of the monster, all to save the monster!”

Oh, to be sure, one can speak thus and confess thus only once in one’s life—in the moment before death, for instance, mounting the scaffold. But it was precisely Katya’s character and Katya’s moment. It was the same impetuous Katya who had once rushed to a young libertine in order to save her father; the very same Katya who, proud and chaste, had just sacrificed herself and her maiden’s honor before the whole public by telling of “Mitya’s noble conduct,” in order to soften at least somewhat the fate in store for him. So now, in just the same way, she again sacrificed herself, this time for another man, and perhaps only now, only that minute, did she feel and realize fully how dear this other man was to her! She sacrificed herself in fear for him, imagining suddenly that he had ruined himself with his testimony that he, and not his brother, was the killer, sacrificed herself in order to save him, his good name, his reputation! And yet a terrible thought flashed through one’s mind: was she lying about Mitya in describing her former relations with him?—that was the question. No, no, she was not slandering him deliberately when she cried out that Mitya despised her for bowing to him! She believed it herself, she was deeply convinced, and had been perhaps from the moment of the bow itself, that the guileless Mitya, who adored her even then, was laughing at her and despised her. And only out of pride had she then attached herself to him with a hysterical and strained love, love out of wounded pride, a love that resembled not love but revenge. Oh, perhaps this strained love would have grown into real love, perhaps Katya wished for nothing else, but Mitya insulted her to the depths of her soul with his betrayal, and her soul did not forgive. The moment of revenge came unexpectedly, and everything that had been long and painfully accumulating in the offended woman’s breast burst out all at once and, again, unexpectedly. She betrayed Mitya, but she betrayed herself as well! And, naturally, as soon as she had spoken it out, the tension broke, and shame overwhelmed her. Hysterics began again, she collapsed, sobbing and screaming. She was taken away. The moment she was taken out, Grushenka rushed to Mitya with a cry, so that there was no time to hold her back.

“Mitya!” she cried out, “your serpent has destroyed you! See, she’s shown you what she is!” she shouted to the court, shaking with anger. At a sign from the judge, they seized her and attempted to remove her from the courtroom. She would not give in, fought and strained to reach Mitya. Mitya cried out and also strained to reach her. He was seized.