finished_summaries/shmoop/The Brothers Karamazov/section_94_part_0.txt
The Brothers Karamazov.epilogue.chapter 2
epilogue, chapter 2
{"name": "Epilogue, Book 12, Chapter 2", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201023112808/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/brothers-karamazov/summary/epilogue-book-12-chapter-2", "summary": "Alyosha then heads straight to the hospital, where Dmitri, who had come down with a fever after the trial, is being kept in a special area. Alyosha tells Dmitri not to feel bad about trying to escape - after all, he is innocent. He admonishes Dmitri just to remember his promise to reform his ways and become a new man. Dmitri tells Alyosha about his plans to escape with Grushenka to America, learn English, and return to Russia disguised as an American. Suddenly Katerina appears in the doorway. She rushes to Dmitri and clasps his hands, and they seem to come to a reconciliation over everything that's happened between them. Although they are both involved with other people now, they promise to love each other forever. Katerina also affirms that she too believes in Dmitri's innocence; she only revealed his letter at the trial out of petty jealousy. As Katerina leaves, she encounters Grushenka and asks her forgiveness, which Grushenka will give only if Katerina pulls off Dmitri's escape. Alyosha follows Katerina out the door, then heads over to a funeral.", "analysis": ""}
Chapter II. For A Moment The Lie Becomes Truth


He hurried to the hospital where Mitya was lying now. The day after his
fate was determined, Mitya had fallen ill with nervous fever, and was sent
to the prison division of the town hospital. But at the request of several
persons (Alyosha, Madame Hohlakov, Lise, etc.), Doctor Varvinsky had put
Mitya not with other prisoners, but in a separate little room, the one
where Smerdyakov had been. It is true that there was a sentinel at the
other end of the corridor, and there was a grating over the window, so
that Varvinsky could be at ease about the indulgence he had shown, which
was not quite legal, indeed; but he was a kind-hearted and compassionate
young man. He knew how hard it would be for a man like Mitya to pass at
once so suddenly into the society of robbers and murderers, and that he
must get used to it by degrees. The visits of relations and friends were
informally sanctioned by the doctor and overseer, and even by the police
captain. But only Alyosha and Grushenka had visited Mitya. Rakitin had
tried to force his way in twice, but Mitya persistently begged Varvinsky
not to admit him.

Alyosha found him sitting on his bed in a hospital dressing-gown, rather
feverish, with a towel, soaked in vinegar and water, on his head. He
looked at Alyosha as he came in with an undefined expression, but there
was a shade of something like dread discernible in it. He had become
terribly preoccupied since the trial; sometimes he would be silent for
half an hour together, and seemed to be pondering something heavily and
painfully, oblivious of everything about him. If he roused himself from
his brooding and began to talk, he always spoke with a kind of abruptness
and never of what he really wanted to say. He looked sometimes with a face
of suffering at his brother. He seemed to be more at ease with Grushenka
than with Alyosha. It is true, he scarcely spoke to her at all, but as
soon as she came in, his whole face lighted up with joy.

Alyosha sat down beside him on the bed in silence. This time Mitya was
waiting for Alyosha in suspense, but he did not dare ask him a question.
He felt it almost unthinkable that Katya would consent to come, and at the
same time he felt that if she did not come, something inconceivable would
happen. Alyosha understood his feelings.

"Trifon Borissovitch," Mitya began nervously, "has pulled his whole inn to
pieces, I am told. He's taken up the flooring, pulled apart the planks,
split up all the gallery, I am told. He is seeking treasure all the
time--the fifteen hundred roubles which the prosecutor said I'd hidden
there. He began playing these tricks, they say, as soon as he got home.
Serve him right, the swindler! The guard here told me yesterday; he comes
from there."

"Listen," began Alyosha. "She will come, but I don't know when. Perhaps
to-day, perhaps in a few days, that I can't tell. But she will come, she
will, that's certain."

Mitya started, would have said something, but was silent. The news had a
tremendous effect on him. It was evident that he would have liked terribly
to know what had been said, but he was again afraid to ask. Something
cruel and contemptuous from Katya would have cut him like a knife at that
moment.

"This was what she said among other things; that I must be sure to set
your conscience at rest about escaping. If Ivan is not well by then she
will see to it all herself."

"You've spoken of that already," Mitya observed musingly.

"And you have repeated it to Grusha," observed Alyosha.

"Yes," Mitya admitted. "She won't come this morning." He looked timidly at
his brother. "She won't come till the evening. When I told her yesterday
that Katya was taking measures, she was silent, but she set her mouth. She
only whispered, 'Let her!' She understood that it was important. I did not
dare to try her further. She understands now, I think, that Katya no
longer cares for me, but loves Ivan."

"Does she?" broke from Alyosha.

"Perhaps she does not. Only she is not coming this morning," Mitya
hastened to explain again; "I asked her to do something for me. You know,
Ivan is superior to all of us. He ought to live, not us. He will recover."

"Would you believe it, though Katya is alarmed about him, she scarcely
doubts of his recovery," said Alyosha.

"That means that she is convinced he will die. It's because she is
frightened she's so sure he will get well."

"Ivan has a strong constitution, and I, too, believe there's every hope
that he will get well," Alyosha observed anxiously.

"Yes, he will get well. But she is convinced that he will die. She has a
great deal of sorrow to bear..." A silence followed. A grave anxiety was
fretting Mitya.

"Alyosha, I love Grusha terribly," he said suddenly in a shaking voice,
full of tears.

"They won't let her go out there to you," Alyosha put in at once.

"And there is something else I wanted to tell you," Mitya went on, with a
sudden ring in his voice. "If they beat me on the way or out there, I
won't submit to it. I shall kill some one, and shall be shot for it. And
this will be going on for twenty years! They speak to me rudely as it is.
I've been lying here all night, passing judgment on myself. I am not
ready! I am not able to resign myself. I wanted to sing a 'hymn'; but if a
guard speaks rudely to me, I have not the strength to bear it. For Grusha
I would bear anything ... anything except blows.... But she won't be
allowed to come there."

Alyosha smiled gently.

"Listen, brother, once for all," he said. "This is what I think about it.
And you know that I would not tell you a lie. Listen: you are not ready,
and such a cross is not for you. What's more, you don't need such a
martyr's cross when you are not ready for it. If you had murdered our
father, it would grieve me that you should reject your punishment. But you
are innocent, and such a cross is too much for you. You wanted to make
yourself another man by suffering. I say, only remember that other man
always, all your life and wherever you go; and that will be enough for
you. Your refusal of that great cross will only serve to make you feel all
your life an even greater duty, and that constant feeling will do more to
make you a new man, perhaps, than if you went there. For there you would
not endure it and would repine, and perhaps at last would say: 'I am
quits.' The lawyer was right about that. Such heavy burdens are not for
all men. For some they are impossible. These are my thoughts about it, if
you want them so much. If other men would have to answer for your escape,
officers or soldiers, then I would not have 'allowed' you," smiled
Alyosha. "But they declare--the superintendent of that _etape_ told Ivan
himself--that if it's well managed there will be no great inquiry, and that
they can get off easily. Of course, bribing is dishonest even in such a
case, but I can't undertake to judge about it, because if Ivan and Katya
commissioned me to act for you, I know I should go and give bribes. I must
tell you the truth. And so I can't judge of your own action. But let me
assure you that I shall never condemn you. And it would be a strange thing
if I could judge you in this. Now I think I've gone into everything."

"But I do condemn myself!" cried Mitya. "I shall escape, that was settled
apart from you; could Mitya Karamazov do anything but run away? But I
shall condemn myself, and I will pray for my sin for ever. That's how the
Jesuits talk, isn't it? Just as we are doing?"

"Yes." Alyosha smiled gently.

"I love you for always telling the whole truth and never hiding anything,"
cried Mitya, with a joyful laugh. "So I've caught my Alyosha being
Jesuitical. I must kiss you for that. Now listen to the rest; I'll open
the other side of my heart to you. This is what I planned and decided. If
I run away, even with money and a passport, and even to America, I should
be cheered up by the thought that I am not running away for pleasure, not
for happiness, but to another exile as bad, perhaps, as Siberia. It is as
bad, Alyosha, it is! I hate that America, damn it, already. Even though
Grusha will be with me. Just look at her; is she an American? She is
Russian, Russian to the marrow of her bones; she will be homesick for the
mother country, and I shall see every hour that she is suffering for my
sake, that she has taken up that cross for me. And what harm has she done?
And how shall I, too, put up with the rabble out there, though they may be
better than I, every one of them? I hate that America already! And though
they may be wonderful at machinery, every one of them, damn them, they are
not of my soul. I love Russia, Alyosha, I love the Russian God, though I
am a scoundrel myself. I shall choke there!" he exclaimed, his eyes
suddenly flashing. His voice was trembling with tears. "So this is what
I've decided, Alyosha, listen," he began again, mastering his emotion. "As
soon as I arrive there with Grusha, we will set to work at once on the
land, in solitude, somewhere very remote, with wild bears. There must be
some remote parts even there. I am told there are still Redskins there,
somewhere, on the edge of the horizon. So to the country of the _Last of
the Mohicans_, and there we'll tackle the grammar at once, Grusha and I.
Work and grammar--that's how we'll spend three years. And by that time we
shall speak English like any Englishman. And as soon as we've learnt
it--good-by to America! We'll run here to Russia as American citizens.
Don't be uneasy--we would not come to this little town. We'd hide
somewhere, a long way off, in the north or in the south. I shall be
changed by that time, and she will, too, in America. The doctors shall
make me some sort of wart on my face--what's the use of their being so
mechanical!--or else I'll put out one eye, let my beard grow a yard, and I
shall turn gray, fretting for Russia. I dare say they won't recognize us.
And if they do, let them send us to Siberia. I don't care. It will show
it's our fate. We'll work on the land here, too, somewhere in the wilds,
and I'll make up as an American all my life. But we shall die on our own
soil. That's my plan, and it shan't be altered. Do you approve?"

"Yes," said Alyosha, not wanting to contradict him. Mitya paused for a
minute and said suddenly:

"And how they worked it up at the trial! Didn't they work it up!"

"If they had not, you would have been convicted just the same," said
Alyosha, with a sigh.

"Yes, people are sick of me here! God bless them, but it's hard," Mitya
moaned miserably. Again there was silence for a minute.

"Alyosha, put me out of my misery at once!" he exclaimed suddenly. "Tell
me, is she coming now, or not? Tell me? What did she say? How did she say
it?"

"She said she would come, but I don't know whether she will come to-day.
It's hard for her, you know," Alyosha looked timidly at his brother.

"I should think it is hard for her! Alyosha, it will drive me out of my
mind. Grusha keeps looking at me. She understands. My God, calm my heart:
what is it I want? I want Katya! Do I understand what I want? It's the
headstrong, evil Karamazov spirit! No, I am not fit for suffering. I am a
scoundrel, that's all one can say."

"Here she is!" cried Alyosha.

At that instant Katya appeared in the doorway. For a moment she stood
still, gazing at Mitya with a dazed expression. He leapt impulsively to
his feet, and a scared look came into his face. He turned pale, but a
timid, pleading smile appeared on his lips at once, and with an
irresistible impulse he held out both hands to Katya. Seeing it, she flew
impetuously to him. She seized him by the hands, and almost by force made
him sit down on the bed. She sat down beside him, and still keeping his
hands pressed them violently. Several times they both strove to speak, but
stopped short and again gazed speechless with a strange smile, their eyes
fastened on one another. So passed two minutes.

"Have you forgiven me?" Mitya faltered at last, and at the same moment
turning to Alyosha, his face working with joy, he cried, "Do you hear what
I am asking, do you hear?"

"That's what I loved you for, that you are generous at heart!" broke from
Katya. "My forgiveness is no good to you, nor yours to me; whether you
forgive me or not, you will always be a sore place in my heart, and I in
yours--so it must be...." She stopped to take breath. "What have I come
for?" she began again with nervous haste: "to embrace your feet, to press
your hands like this, till it hurts--you remember how in Moscow I used to
squeeze them--to tell you again that you are my god, my joy, to tell you
that I love you madly," she moaned in anguish, and suddenly pressed his
hand greedily to her lips. Tears streamed from her eyes. Alyosha stood
speechless and confounded; he had never expected what he was seeing.

"Love is over, Mitya!" Katya began again, "but the past is painfully dear
to me. Know that you will always be so. But now let what might have been
come true for one minute," she faltered, with a drawn smile, looking into
his face joyfully again. "You love another woman, and I love another man,
and yet I shall love you for ever, and you will love me; do you know that?
Do you hear? Love me, love me all your life!" she cried, with a quiver
almost of menace in her voice.

"I shall love you, and ... do you know, Katya," Mitya began, drawing a
deep breath at each word, "do you know, five days ago, that same evening,
I loved you.... When you fell down and were carried out ... All my life!
So it will be, so it will always be--"

So they murmured to one another frantic words, almost meaningless, perhaps
not even true, but at that moment it was all true, and they both believed
what they said implicitly.

"Katya," cried Mitya suddenly, "do you believe I murdered him? I know you
don't believe it now, but then ... when you gave evidence.... Surely,
surely you did not believe it!"

"I did not believe it even then. I've never believed it. I hated you, and
for a moment I persuaded myself. While I was giving evidence I persuaded
myself and believed it, but when I'd finished speaking I left off
believing it at once. Don't doubt that! I have forgotten that I came here
to punish myself," she said, with a new expression in her voice, quite
unlike the loving tones of a moment before.

"Woman, yours is a heavy burden," broke, as it were, involuntarily from
Mitya.

"Let me go," she whispered. "I'll come again. It's more than I can bear
now."

She was getting up from her place, but suddenly uttered a loud scream and
staggered back. Grushenka walked suddenly and noiselessly into the room.
No one had expected her. Katya moved swiftly to the door, but when she
reached Grushenka, she stopped suddenly, turned as white as chalk and
moaned softly, almost in a whisper:

"Forgive me!"

Grushenka stared at her and, pausing for an instant, in a vindictive,
venomous voice, answered:

"We are full of hatred, my girl, you and I! We are both full of hatred! As
though we could forgive one another! Save him, and I'll worship you all my
life."

"You won't forgive her!" cried Mitya, with frantic reproach.

"Don't be anxious, I'll save him for you!" Katya whispered rapidly, and
she ran out of the room.

"And you could refuse to forgive her when she begged your forgiveness
herself?" Mitya exclaimed bitterly again.

"Mitya, don't dare to blame her; you have no right to!" Alyosha cried
hotly.

"Her proud lips spoke, not her heart," Grushenka brought out in a tone of
disgust. "If she saves you I'll forgive her everything--"

She stopped speaking, as though suppressing something. She could not yet
recover herself. She had come in, as appeared afterwards, accidentally,
with no suspicion of what she would meet.

"Alyosha, run after her!" Mitya cried to his brother; "tell her ... I
don't know ... don't let her go away like this!"

"I'll come to you again at nightfall," said Alyosha, and he ran after
Katya. He overtook her outside the hospital grounds. She was walking fast,
but as soon as Alyosha caught her up she said quickly:

"No, before that woman I can't punish myself! I asked her forgiveness
because I wanted to punish myself to the bitter end. She would not forgive
me.... I like her for that!" she added, in an unnatural voice, and her
eyes flashed with fierce resentment.

"My brother did not expect this in the least," muttered Alyosha. "He was
sure she would not come--"

"No doubt. Let us leave that," she snapped. "Listen: I can't go with you
to the funeral now. I've sent them flowers. I think they still have money.
If necessary, tell them I'll never abandon them.... Now leave me, leave
me, please. You are late as it is--the bells are ringing for the
service.... Leave me, please!"






Epilogue, Book 12, Chapter 2
Alyosha then heads straight to the hospital, where Dmitri, who had come down with a fever after the trial, is being kept in a special area. Alyosha tells Dmitri not to feel bad about trying to escape - after all, he is innocent. He admonishes Dmitri just to remember his promise to reform his ways and become a new man. Dmitri tells Alyosha about his plans to escape with Grushenka to America, learn English, and return to Russia disguised as an American. Suddenly Katerina appears in the doorway. She rushes to Dmitri and clasps his hands, and they seem to come to a reconciliation over everything that's happened between them. Although they are both involved with other people now, they promise to love each other forever. Katerina also affirms that she too believes in Dmitri's innocence; she only revealed his letter at the trial out of petty jealousy. As Katerina leaves, she encounters Grushenka and asks her forgiveness, which Grushenka will give only if Katerina pulls off Dmitri's escape. Alyosha follows Katerina out the door, then heads over to a funeral.