A Laceration in the Cottage

He certainly was really grieved in a way he had seldom been before. He had rushed in like a fool, and meddled in what? In a love-affair. “But what do I know about it? What can I tell about such things?” he repeated to himself for the hundredth time, flushing crimson. “Oh, being ashamed would be nothing; shame is only the punishment I deserve. The trouble is I shall certainly have caused more unhappiness.… And Father Zossima sent me to reconcile and bring them together. Is this the way to bring them together?” Then he suddenly remembered how he had tried to join their hands, and he felt fearfully ashamed again “Though I acted quite sincerely, I must be more sensible in the future,” he concluded suddenly, and did not even smile at his conclusion.

Katerina Ivanovna’s commission took him to Lake Street, and his brother Dmitri lived close by, in a turning out of Lake Street. Alyosha decided to go to him in any case before going to the captain, though he had a presentiment that he would not find his brother. He suspected that he would intentionally keep out of his way now, but he must find him anyhow. Time was passing: the thought of his dying elder had not left Alyosha for one minute from the time he set off from the monastery.

There was one point which interested him particularly about Katerina Ivanovna’s commission; when she had mentioned the captain’s son, the little schoolboy who had run beside his father crying, the idea had at once struck Alyosha that this must be the schoolboy who had bitten his finger when he, Alyosha, asked him what he had done to hurt him. Now Alyosha felt practically certain of this, though he could not have said why. Thinking of another subject was a relief, and he resolved to think no more about the “mischief” he had done, and not to torture himself with remorse, but to do what he had to do, let come what would. At that thought he was completely comforted. Turning to the street where Dmitri lodged, he felt hungry, and taking out of his pocket the roll he had brought from his father’s, he ate it. It made him feel stronger.

Dmitri was not at home. The people of the house, an old cabinet-maker, his son, and his old wife, looked with positive suspicion at Alyosha. “He hasn’t slept here for the last three nights. Maybe he has gone away,” the old man said in answer to Alyosha’s persistent inquiries. Alyosha saw that he was answering in accordance with instructions. When he asked whether he were not at Grushenka’s or in hiding at Foma’s (Alyosha spoke so freely on purpose), all three looked at him in alarm. “They are fond of him, they are doing their best for him,” thought Alyosha. “That’s good.”

At last he found the house in Lake Street. It was a decrepit little house, sunk on one side, with three windows looking into the street, and with a muddy yard, in the middle of which stood a solitary cow. He crossed the yard and found the door opening into the passage. On the left of the passage lived the old woman of the house with her old daughter. Both seemed to be deaf. In answer to his repeated inquiry for the captain, one of them at last understood that he was asking for their lodgers, and pointed to a door across the passage. The captain’s lodging turned out to be a simple cottage room. Alyosha had his hand on the iron latch to open the door, when he was struck by the strange hush within. Yet he knew from Katerina Ivanovna’s words that the man had a family. “Either they are all asleep or perhaps they have heard me coming and are waiting for me to open the door. I’d better knock first,” and he knocked. An answer came, but not at once, after an interval of perhaps ten seconds.

“Who’s there?” shouted some one in a loud and very angry voice.

Then Alyosha opened the door and crossed the threshold. He found himself in a regular peasant’s room. Though it was large, it was cumbered up with domestic belongings of all sorts, and there were several people in it. On the left was a large Russian stove. From the stove to the window on the left was a string running across the room, and on it there were rags hanging. There was a bedstead against the wall on each side, right and left, covered with knitted quilts. On the one on the left was a pyramid of four print-covered pillows, each smaller than the one beneath. On the other there was only one very small pillow. The opposite corner was screened off by a curtain or a sheet hung on a string. Behind this curtain could be seen a bed made up on a bench and a chair. The rough square table of plain wood had been moved into the middle window. The three windows, which consisted each of four tiny greenish