finished_summaries/shmoop/The Brothers Karamazov/section_69_part_0.txt
The Brothers Karamazov.book 11.chapter 1
book 11, chapter 1
{"name": "Book 11, Chapter 1", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201023112808/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/brothers-karamazov/summary/book-11-chapter-1", "summary": "Alyosha heads off to visit Grushenka, who is in quite a state. After Mitya's arrest, Grushenka was sick for almost five weeks. Now, two months later, she's doing better, although she's lost some weight. Incidentally, she has let the old man Maximov stay on with her out of charity, and he entertains her with funny stories. We learn that the trial is the next day. Grushenka has just returned from a visit to Mitya, where they had a terrible argument over Grushenka's former Polish lover. It seems that now the Poles are living in incredible poverty, and Grushenka sends them small sums of money from time to time out of pity. Right before she went to visit Mitya that day, she had stopped by the Poles', where her former lover had tried to seduce her with music. Grushenka thought it was funny; Mitya did not. Grushenka has her own cause for jealousy. She believes Mitya is back in love with Katerina, who's hired a fancy Moscow doctor to diagnose Mitya as insane. The thinking here is that since the whole town thinks Mitya is guilty, it might be better to argue that he's insane. Ivan, to Alyosha's surprise, has also visited Dmitri, who has told Grushenka that he and Ivan have a secret. Alyosha promises to find out their secret for Grushenka, and leaves.", "analysis": ""}
Book XI. Ivan  Chapter I. At Grushenka's


Alyosha went towards the cathedral square to the widow Morozov's house to
see Grushenka, who had sent Fenya to him early in the morning with an
urgent message begging him to come. Questioning Fenya, Alyosha learned
that her mistress had been particularly distressed since the previous day.
During the two months that had passed since Mitya's arrest, Alyosha had
called frequently at the widow Morozov's house, both from his own
inclination and to take messages for Mitya. Three days after Mitya's
arrest, Grushenka was taken very ill and was ill for nearly five weeks.
For one whole week she was unconscious. She was very much changed--thinner
and a little sallow, though she had for the past fortnight been well
enough to go out. But to Alyosha her face was even more attractive than
before, and he liked to meet her eyes when he went in to her. A look of
firmness and intelligent purpose had developed in her face. There were
signs of a spiritual transformation in her, and a steadfast, fine and
humble determination that nothing could shake could be discerned in her.
There was a small vertical line between her brows which gave her charming
face a look of concentrated thought, almost austere at the first glance.
There was scarcely a trace of her former frivolity.

It seemed strange to Alyosha, too, that in spite of the calamity that had
overtaken the poor girl, betrothed to a man who had been arrested for a
terrible crime, almost at the instant of their betrothal, in spite of her
illness and the almost inevitable sentence hanging over Mitya, Grushenka
had not yet lost her youthful cheerfulness. There was a soft light in the
once proud eyes, though at times they gleamed with the old vindictive fire
when she was visited by one disturbing thought stronger than ever in her
heart. The object of that uneasiness was the same as ever--Katerina
Ivanovna, of whom Grushenka had even raved when she lay in delirium.
Alyosha knew that she was fearfully jealous of her. Yet Katerina Ivanovna
had not once visited Mitya in his prison, though she might have done it
whenever she liked. All this made a difficult problem for Alyosha, for he
was the only person to whom Grushenka opened her heart and from whom she
was continually asking advice. Sometimes he was unable to say anything.

Full of anxiety he entered her lodging. She was at home. She had returned
from seeing Mitya half an hour before, and from the rapid movement with
which she leapt up from her chair to meet him he saw that she had been
expecting him with great impatience. A pack of cards dealt for a game of
"fools" lay on the table. A bed had been made up on the leather sofa on
the other side and Maximov lay, half-reclining, on it. He wore a dressing-
gown and a cotton nightcap, and was evidently ill and weak, though he was
smiling blissfully. When the homeless old man returned with Grushenka from
Mokroe two months before, he had simply stayed on and was still staying
with her. He arrived with her in rain and sleet, sat down on the sofa,
drenched and scared, and gazed mutely at her with a timid, appealing
smile. Grushenka, who was in terrible grief and in the first stage of
fever, almost forgot his existence in all she had to do the first half-
hour after her arrival. Suddenly she chanced to look at him intently: he
laughed a pitiful, helpless little laugh. She called Fenya and told her to
give him something to eat. All that day he sat in the same place, almost
without stirring. When it got dark and the shutters were closed, Fenya
asked her mistress:

"Is the gentleman going to stay the night, mistress?"

"Yes; make him a bed on the sofa," answered Grushenka.

Questioning him more in detail, Grushenka learned from him that he had
literally nowhere to go, and that "Mr. Kalganov, my benefactor, told me
straight that he wouldn't receive me again and gave me five roubles."

"Well, God bless you, you'd better stay, then," Grushenka decided in her
grief, smiling compassionately at him. Her smile wrung the old man's heart
and his lips twitched with grateful tears. And so the destitute wanderer
had stayed with her ever since. He did not leave the house even when she
was ill. Fenya and her grandmother, the cook, did not turn him out, but
went on serving him meals and making up his bed on the sofa. Grushenka had
grown used to him, and coming back from seeing Mitya (whom she had begun
to visit in prison before she was really well) she would sit down and
begin talking to "Maximushka" about trifling matters, to keep her from
thinking of her sorrow. The old man turned out to be a good story-teller
on occasions, so that at last he became necessary to her. Grushenka saw
scarcely any one else beside Alyosha, who did not come every day and never
stayed long. Her old merchant lay seriously ill at this time, "at his last
gasp" as they said in the town, and he did, in fact, die a week after
Mitya's trial. Three weeks before his death, feeling the end approaching,
he made his sons, their wives and children, come upstairs to him at last
and bade them not leave him again. From that moment he gave strict orders
to his servants not to admit Grushenka and to tell her if she came, "The
master wishes you long life and happiness and tells you to forget him."
But Grushenka sent almost every day to inquire after him.

"You've come at last!" she cried, flinging down the cards and joyfully
greeting Alyosha, "and Maximushka's been scaring me that perhaps you
wouldn't come. Ah, how I need you! Sit down to the table. What will you
have--coffee?"

"Yes, please," said Alyosha, sitting down at the table. "I am very
hungry."

"That's right. Fenya, Fenya, coffee," cried Grushenka. "It's been made a
long time ready for you. And bring some little pies, and mind they are
hot. Do you know, we've had a storm over those pies to-day. I took them to
the prison for him, and would you believe it, he threw them back to me: he
would not eat them. He flung one of them on the floor and stamped on it.
So I said to him: 'I shall leave them with the warder; if you don't eat
them before evening, it will be that your venomous spite is enough for
you!' With that I went away. We quarreled again, would you believe it?
Whenever I go we quarrel."

Grushenka said all this in one breath in her agitation. Maximov, feeling
nervous, at once smiled and looked on the floor.

"What did you quarrel about this time?" asked Alyosha.

"I didn't expect it in the least. Only fancy, he is jealous of the Pole.
'Why are you keeping him?' he said. 'So you've begun keeping him.' He is
jealous, jealous of me all the time, jealous eating and sleeping! He even
took it into his head to be jealous of Kuzma last week."

"But he knew about the Pole before?"

"Yes, but there it is. He has known about him from the very beginning, but
to-day he suddenly got up and began scolding about him. I am ashamed to
repeat what he said. Silly fellow! Rakitin went in as I came out. Perhaps
Rakitin is egging him on. What do you think?" she added carelessly.

"He loves you, that's what it is: he loves you so much. And now he is
particularly worried."

"I should think he might be, with the trial to-morrow. And I went to him
to say something about to-morrow, for I dread to think what's going to
happen then. You say that he is worried, but how worried I am! And he
talks about the Pole! He's too silly! He is not jealous of Maximushka yet,
anyway."

"My wife was dreadfully jealous over me, too," Maximov put in his word.

"Jealous of you?" Grushenka laughed in spite of herself. "Of whom could
she have been jealous?"

"Of the servant girls."

"Hold your tongue, Maximushka, I am in no laughing mood now; I feel angry.
Don't ogle the pies. I shan't give you any; they are not good for you, and
I won't give you any vodka either. I have to look after him, too, just as
though I kept an almshouse," she laughed.

"I don't deserve your kindness. I am a worthless creature," said Maximov,
with tears in his voice. "You would do better to spend your kindness on
people of more use than me."

"Ech, every one is of use, Maximushka, and how can we tell who's of most
use? If only that Pole didn't exist, Alyosha. He's taken it into his head
to fall ill, too, to-day. I've been to see him also. And I shall send him
some pies, too, on purpose. I hadn't sent him any, but Mitya accused me of
it, so now I shall send some! Ah, here's Fenya with a letter! Yes, it's
from the Poles--begging again!"

Pan Mussyalovitch had indeed sent an extremely long and characteristically
eloquent letter in which he begged her to lend him three roubles. In the
letter was enclosed a receipt for the sum, with a promise to repay it
within three months, signed by Pan Vrublevsky as well. Grushenka had
received many such letters, accompanied by such receipts, from her former
lover during the fortnight of her convalescence. But she knew that the two
Poles had been to ask after her health during her illness. The first
letter Grushenka got from them was a long one, written on large notepaper
and with a big family crest on the seal. It was so obscure and rhetorical
that Grushenka put it down before she had read half, unable to make head
or tail of it. She could not attend to letters then. The first letter was
followed next day by another in which Pan Mussyalovitch begged her for a
loan of two thousand roubles for a very short period. Grushenka left that
letter, too, unanswered. A whole series of letters had followed--one every
day--all as pompous and rhetorical, but the loan asked for, gradually
diminishing, dropped to a hundred roubles, then to twenty-five, to ten,
and finally Grushenka received a letter in which both the Poles begged her
for only one rouble and included a receipt signed by both.

Then Grushenka suddenly felt sorry for them, and at dusk she went round
herself to their lodging. She found the two Poles in great poverty, almost
destitution, without food or fuel, without cigarettes, in debt to their
landlady. The two hundred roubles they had carried off from Mitya at
Mokroe had soon disappeared. But Grushenka was surprised at their meeting
her with arrogant dignity and self-assertion, with the greatest punctilio
and pompous speeches. Grushenka simply laughed, and gave her former
admirer ten roubles. Then, laughing, she told Mitya of it and he was not
in the least jealous. But ever since, the Poles had attached themselves to
Grushenka and bombarded her daily with requests for money and she had
always sent them small sums. And now that day Mitya had taken it into his
head to be fearfully jealous.

"Like a fool, I went round to him just for a minute, on the way to see
Mitya, for he is ill, too, my Pole," Grushenka began again with nervous
haste. "I was laughing, telling Mitya about it. 'Fancy,' I said, 'my Pole
had the happy thought to sing his old songs to me to the guitar. He
thought I would be touched and marry him!' Mitya leapt up swearing.... So,
there, I'll send them the pies! Fenya, is it that little girl they've
sent? Here, give her three roubles and pack a dozen pies up in a paper and
tell her to take them. And you, Alyosha, be sure to tell Mitya that I did
send them the pies."

"I wouldn't tell him for anything," said Alyosha, smiling.

"Ech! You think he is unhappy about it. Why, he's jealous on purpose. He
doesn't care," said Grushenka bitterly.

"On purpose?" queried Alyosha.

"I tell you you are silly, Alyosha. You know nothing about it, with all
your cleverness. I am not offended that he is jealous of a girl like me. I
would be offended if he were not jealous. I am like that. I am not
offended at jealousy. I have a fierce heart, too. I can be jealous myself.
Only what offends me is that he doesn't love me at all. I tell you he is
jealous now _on purpose_. Am I blind? Don't I see? He began talking to me
just now of that woman, of Katerina, saying she was this and that, how she
had ordered a doctor from Moscow for him, to try and save him; how she had
ordered the best counsel, the most learned one, too. So he loves her, if
he'll praise her to my face, more shame to him! He's treated me badly
himself, so he attacked me, to make out I am in fault first and to throw
it all on me. 'You were with your Pole before me, so I can't be blamed for
Katerina,' that's what it amounts to. He wants to throw the whole blame on
me. He attacked me on purpose, on purpose, I tell you, but I'll--"

Grushenka could not finish saying what she would do. She hid her eyes in
her handkerchief and sobbed violently.

"He doesn't love Katerina Ivanovna," said Alyosha firmly.

"Well, whether he loves her or not, I'll soon find out for myself," said
Grushenka, with a menacing note in her voice, taking the handkerchief from
her eyes. Her face was distorted. Alyosha saw sorrowfully that from being
mild and serene, it had become sullen and spiteful.

"Enough of this foolishness," she said suddenly; "it's not for that I sent
for you. Alyosha, darling, to-morrow--what will happen to-morrow? That's
what worries me! And it's only me it worries! I look at every one and no
one is thinking of it. No one cares about it. Are you thinking about it
even? To-morrow he'll be tried, you know. Tell me, how will he be tried?
You know it's the valet, the valet killed him! Good heavens! Can they
condemn him in place of the valet and will no one stand up for him? They
haven't troubled the valet at all, have they?"

"He's been severely cross-examined," observed Alyosha thoughtfully; "but
every one came to the conclusion it was not he. Now he is lying very ill.
He has been ill ever since that attack. Really ill," added Alyosha.

"Oh, dear! couldn't you go to that counsel yourself and tell him the whole
thing by yourself? He's been brought from Petersburg for three thousand
roubles, they say."

"We gave these three thousand together--Ivan, Katerina Ivanovna and I--but
she paid two thousand for the doctor from Moscow herself. The counsel
Fetyukovitch would have charged more, but the case has become known all
over Russia; it's talked of in all the papers and journals. Fetyukovitch
agreed to come more for the glory of the thing, because the case has
become so notorious. I saw him yesterday."

"Well? Did you talk to him?" Grushenka put in eagerly.

"He listened and said nothing. He told me that he had already formed his
opinion. But he promised to give my words consideration."

"Consideration! Ah, they are swindlers! They'll ruin him. And why did she
send for the doctor?"

"As an expert. They want to prove that Mitya's mad and committed the
murder when he didn't know what he was doing"; Alyosha smiled gently; "but
Mitya won't agree to that."

"Yes; but that would be the truth if he had killed him!" cried Grushenka.
"He was mad then, perfectly mad, and that was my fault, wretch that I am!
But, of course, he didn't do it, he didn't do it! And they are all against
him, the whole town. Even Fenya's evidence went to prove he had done it.
And the people at the shop, and that official, and at the tavern, too,
before, people had heard him say so! They are all, all against him, all
crying out against him."

"Yes, there's a fearful accumulation of evidence," Alyosha observed
grimly.

"And Grigory--Grigory Vassilyevitch--sticks to his story that the door was
open, persists that he saw it--there's no shaking him. I went and talked to
him myself. He's rude about it, too."

"Yes, that's perhaps the strongest evidence against him," said Alyosha.

"And as for Mitya's being mad, he certainly seems like it now," Grushenka
began with a peculiarly anxious and mysterious air. "Do you know, Alyosha,
I've been wanting to talk to you about it for a long time. I go to him
every day and simply wonder at him. Tell me, now, what do you suppose he's
always talking about? He talks and talks and I can make nothing of it. I
fancied he was talking of something intellectual that I couldn't
understand in my foolishness. Only he suddenly began talking to me about a
babe--that is, about some child. 'Why is the babe poor?' he said. 'It's for
that babe I am going to Siberia now. I am not a murderer, but I must go to
Siberia!' What that meant, what babe, I couldn't tell for the life of me.
Only I cried when he said it, because he said it so nicely. He cried
himself, and I cried, too. He suddenly kissed me and made the sign of the
cross over me. What did it mean, Alyosha, tell me? What is this babe?"

"It must be Rakitin, who's been going to see him lately," smiled Alyosha,
"though ... that's not Rakitin's doing. I didn't see Mitya yesterday. I'll
see him to-day."

"No, it's not Rakitin; it's his brother Ivan Fyodorovitch upsetting him.
It's his going to see him, that's what it is," Grushenka began, and
suddenly broke off. Alyosha gazed at her in amazement.

"Ivan's going? Has he been to see him? Mitya told me himself that Ivan
hasn't been once."

"There ... there! What a girl I am! Blurting things out!" exclaimed
Grushenka, confused and suddenly blushing. "Stay, Alyosha, hush! Since
I've said so much I'll tell the whole truth--he's been to see him twice,
the first directly he arrived. He galloped here from Moscow at once, of
course, before I was taken ill; and the second time was a week ago. He
told Mitya not to tell you about it, under any circumstances; and not to
tell any one, in fact. He came secretly."

Alyosha sat plunged in thought, considering something. The news evidently
impressed him.

"Ivan doesn't talk to me of Mitya's case," he said slowly. "He's said very
little to me these last two months. And whenever I go to see him, he seems
vexed at my coming, so I've not been to him for the last three weeks.
H'm!... if he was there a week ago ... there certainly has been a change
in Mitya this week."

"There has been a change," Grushenka assented quickly. "They have a
secret, they have a secret! Mitya told me himself there was a secret, and
such a secret that Mitya can't rest. Before then, he was cheerful--and,
indeed, he is cheerful now--but when he shakes his head like that, you
know, and strides about the room and keeps pulling at the hair on his
right temple with his right hand, I know there is something on his mind
worrying him.... I know! He was cheerful before, though, indeed, he is
cheerful to-day."

"But you said he was worried."

"Yes, he is worried and yet cheerful. He keeps on being irritable for a
minute and then cheerful and then irritable again. And you know, Alyosha,
I am constantly wondering at him--with this awful thing hanging over him,
he sometimes laughs at such trifles as though he were a baby himself."

"And did he really tell you not to tell me about Ivan? Did he say, 'Don't
tell him'?"

"Yes, he told me, 'Don't tell him.' It's you that Mitya's most afraid of.
Because it's a secret: he said himself it was a secret. Alyosha, darling,
go to him and find out what their secret is and come and tell me,"
Grushenka besought him with sudden eagerness. "Set my mind at rest that I
may know the worst that's in store for me. That's why I sent for you."

"You think it's something to do with you? If it were, he wouldn't have
told you there was a secret."

"I don't know. Perhaps he wants to tell me, but doesn't dare to. He warns
me. There is a secret, he tells me, but he won't tell me what it is."

"What do you think yourself?"

"What do I think? It's the end for me, that's what I think. They all three
have been plotting my end, for Katerina's in it. It's all Katerina, it all
comes from her. She is this and that, and that means that I am not. He
tells me that beforehand--warns me. He is planning to throw me over, that's
the whole secret. They've planned it together, the three of them--Mitya,
Katerina, and Ivan Fyodorovitch. Alyosha, I've been wanting to ask you a
long time. A week ago he suddenly told me that Ivan was in love with
Katerina, because he often goes to see her. Did he tell me the truth or
not? Tell me, on your conscience, tell me the worst."

"I won't tell you a lie. Ivan is not in love with Katerina Ivanovna, I
think."

"Oh, that's what I thought! He is lying to me, shameless deceiver, that's
what it is! And he was jealous of me just now, so as to put the blame on
me afterwards. He is stupid, he can't disguise what he is doing; he is so
open, you know.... But I'll give it to him, I'll give it to him! 'You
believe I did it,' he said. He said that to me, to me. He reproached me
with that! God forgive him! You wait, I'll make it hot for Katerina at the
trial! I'll just say a word then ... I'll tell everything then!"

And again she cried bitterly.

"This I can tell you for certain, Grushenka," Alyosha said, getting up.
"First, that he loves you, loves you more than any one in the world, and
you only, believe me. I know. I do know. The second thing is that I don't
want to worm his secret out of him, but if he'll tell me of himself to-
day, I shall tell him straight out that I have promised to tell you. Then
I'll come to you to-day, and tell you. Only ... I fancy ... Katerina
Ivanovna has nothing to do with it, and that the secret is about something
else. That's certain. It isn't likely it's about Katerina Ivanovna, it
seems to me. Good-by for now."

Alyosha shook hands with her. Grushenka was still crying. He saw that she
put little faith in his consolation, but she was better for having had her
sorrow out, for having spoken of it. He was sorry to leave her in such a
state of mind, but he was in haste. He had a great many things to do
still.





Book 11, Chapter 1
Alyosha heads off to visit Grushenka, who is in quite a state. After Mitya's arrest, Grushenka was sick for almost five weeks. Now, two months later, she's doing better, although she's lost some weight. Incidentally, she has let the old man Maximov stay on with her out of charity, and he entertains her with funny stories. We learn that the trial is the next day. Grushenka has just returned from a visit to Mitya, where they had a terrible argument over Grushenka's former Polish lover. It seems that now the Poles are living in incredible poverty, and Grushenka sends them small sums of money from time to time out of pity. Right before she went to visit Mitya that day, she had stopped by the Poles', where her former lover had tried to seduce her with music. Grushenka thought it was funny; Mitya did not. Grushenka has her own cause for jealousy. She believes Mitya is back in love with Katerina, who's hired a fancy Moscow doctor to diagnose Mitya as insane. The thinking here is that since the whole town thinks Mitya is guilty, it might be better to argue that he's insane. Ivan, to Alyosha's surprise, has also visited Dmitri, who has told Grushenka that he and Ivan have a secret. Alyosha promises to find out their secret for Grushenka, and leaves.