The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky (i love reading books .txt) 📕

you,” she lisped, with a rather halting tongue. “So you would go any length for me, eh? Did you really mean to shoot yourself tomorrow, you stupid? No, wait a little. Tomorrow I may have something to say to you.⁠ ⁠… I won’t say it today, but tomorrow. You’d like it to be today? No, I don’t want to today. Come, go along now, go and amuse yourself.”

Once, however, she called him, as it were, puzzled and uneasy.

“Why are you sad? I see you’re sad.⁠ ⁠… Yes, I see it,” she added, looking intently into his eyes. “Though you keep kissing the peasants and shouting, I see something. No, be merry. I’m merry; you be merry, too.⁠ ⁠… I love somebody here. Guess who it is. Ah, look, my boy has fallen asleep, poor dear, he’s drunk.”

She meant Kalganov. He was, in fact, drunk, and had dropped asleep for a moment, sitting on the sofa. But he was not merely drowsy from drink; he felt suddenly dejected, or, as he said, “bored.” He was intensely depressed by the girls’ songs, which, as the drinking went on, gradually became coarse and more reckless. And the dances were as bad. Two girls dressed up as bears, and a lively girl, called Stepanida, with a stick in her hand, acted the part of keeper, and began to “show them.”

“Look alive, Marya, or you’ll get the stick!”

The bears rolled on the ground at last in the most unseemly fashion, amid roars of laughter from the closely-packed crowd of men and women.

“Well, let them! Let them!” said Grushenka sententiously, with an ecstatic expression on her face. “When they do get a day to enjoy themselves, why shouldn’t folks be happy?”

Kalganov looked as though he had been besmirched with dirt.

“It’s swinish, all this peasant foolery,” he murmured, moving away; “it’s the game they play when it’s light all night in summer.”

He particularly disliked one “new” song to a jaunty dance-tune. It described how a gentleman came and tried his luck with the girls, to see whether they would love him:

The master came to try the girls:
Would they love him, would they not?

But the girls could not love the master:

He would beat me cruelly
And such love won’t do for me.

Then a gypsy comes along and he, too, tries:

The gypsy came to try the girls:
Would they love him, would they not?

But they couldn’t love the gypsy either:

He would be a thief, I fear,
And would cause me many a tear.

And many more men come to try their luck, among them a soldier:

The soldier came to try the girls:
Would they love him, would they not?

But the soldier is rejected with contempt, in two indecent lines, sung with absolute frankness and producing a furore in the audience. The song ends with a merchant:

The merchant came to try the girls:
Would they love him, would they not?

And it appears that he wins their love because:

The merchant will make gold for me
And his queen I’ll gladly be.

Kalvanov was positively indignant.

“That’s just a song of yesterday,” he said aloud. “Who writes such things for them? They might just as well have had a railwayman or a Jew come to try his luck with the girls; they’d have carried all before them.”

And, almost as though it were a personal affront, he declared, on the spot, that he was bored, sat down on the sofa and immediately fell asleep. His pretty little face looked rather pale, as it fell back on the sofa cushion.

“Look how pretty he is,” said Grushenka, taking Mitya up to him. “I was combing his hair just now; his hair’s like flax, and so thick.⁠ ⁠…”

And, bending over him tenderly, she kissed his forehead. Kalganov instantly opened his eyes, looked at her, stood up, and with the most anxious air inquired where was Maximov?

“So that’s who it is you want.” Grushenka laughed. “Stay with me a minute. Mitya, run and find his Maximov.”

Maximov, it appeared, could not tear himself away from the girls, only running away from time to time to pour himself out a glass of liqueur. He had drunk two cups of chocolate. His face was red, and his nose was crimson; his eyes were moist and mawkishly sweet. He ran up and announced that he was going to dance the “sabotière.”

“They taught me all those well-bred, aristocratic dances when I was little.⁠ ⁠…”

“Go, go with him, Mitya, and I’ll watch from here how he dances,” said Grushenka.

“No, no, I’m coming to look on, too,” exclaimed Kalganov, brushing aside in the most naive way Grushenka’s offer to sit with him. They all went to look on. Maximov danced his dance. But it roused no great admiration in anyone but Mitya. It consisted of nothing but skipping and hopping, kicking up the feet, and at every skip Maximov slapped the upturned sole of his foot. Kalganov did not like it at all, but Mitya kissed the dancer.

“Thanks. You’re tired perhaps? What are you looking for here? Would you like some sweets? A cigar, perhaps?”

“A cigarette.”

“Don’t you want a drink?”

“I’ll just have a liqueur.⁠ ⁠… Have you any chocolates?”

“Yes, there’s a heap of them on the table there. Choose one, my dear soul!”

“I like one with vanilla⁠ ⁠… for old people. He he!”

“No, brother, we’ve none of that special sort.”

“I say,” the old man bent down to whisper in Mitya’s ear. “That girl there, little Marya, he he! How would it be if you were to help me make friends with her?”

“So that’s what you’re after! No, brother, that won’t do!”

“I’d do no harm to anyone,” Maximov muttered disconsolately.

“Oh, all right, all right. They only come here to dance and sing, you know, brother. But damn it all, wait a bit!⁠ ⁠… Eat and drink and be merry, meanwhile. Don’t you want money?”

“Later on, perhaps,” smiled Maximov.

“All right, all right.⁠ ⁠…”

Mitya’s head was burning. He went outside to the wooden balcony which ran round the whole building on the inner side, overlooking the courtyard. The fresh air revived him. He stood alone in a dark