"Shouldn't you put a wet bandage on your head and go to bed, too?" Alyosha said to him. "We'll look after him. My brother gave you a terrible blow—on the head."
"He's insulted me!" Grigory articulated gloomily and distinctly.
"He's 'insulted' his father, not only you," observed Ivan with a forced smile.
"I used to wash him in his tub. He's insulted me," repeated Grigory.
"Damn it all, if I hadn't pulled him away perhaps he'd have murdered him. It wouldn't take much to do for Æsop, would it?" whispered Ivan to Alyosha.
"God forbid!" cried Alyosha.
"Why should He forbid?" Ivan went on in the same whisper, with a malignant grimace. "One reptile will devour the other. And serve them both right, too."
Alyosha shuddered.
"Of course I won't let him be murdered as I didn't just now. Stay here, Alyosha, I'll go for a turn in the yard. My head's begun to ache."
Alyosha went to his father's bedroom and sat by his bedside behind the screen for about an hour. The old man suddenly opened his eyes and gazed for a long while at Alyosha, evidently remembering and meditating. All at once his face betrayed extraordinary excitement.
"Alyosha," he whispered apprehensively, "where's Ivan?"
"In the yard. He's got a headache. He's on the watch."
"Give me that looking-glass. It stands over there. Give it me."
Alyosha gave him a little round folding looking-glass which stood on the chest of drawers. The old man looked at himself in it; his nose was considerably swollen, and on the left side of his forehead there was a rather large crimson bruise.
"What does Ivan say? Alyosha, my dear, my only son, I'm afraid of Ivan. I'm more afraid of Ivan than the other. You're the only one I'm not afraid of...."
"Don't be afraid of Ivan either. He is angry, but he'll defend you."
"Alyosha, and what of the other? He's run to Grushenka. My angel, tell me the truth, was she here just now or not?"
"No one has seen her. It was a mistake. She has not been here."
"You know Mitya wants to marry her, to marry her."
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THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV (Completed)
ClassicsThe Brothers Karamazov, also translated as The Karamazov Brothers, is the final novel by the Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky spent nearly two years writing The Brothers Karamazov, which was published as a serial in The Russian Messenger...
Chapter 9
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