The Brothers Karamazov

He did not finish and broke into sobs heard all over the courtroom, in a voice, terrible, no longer his own, but somehow new, unexpected, which suddenly came to him from God knows where. In the gallery above, from the furthest corner, came a woman’s piercing cry: it was Grushenka. She had begged someone earlier and had been let back into the courtroom before the attorneys began their debate. Mitya was taken away. The sentencing was put off until the next day. The whole courtroom rose in turmoil, but I did not stay and listen. I remember only a few exclamations from the porch on the way out.

“He’ll get a twenty-year taste of the mines.”

“Not less.”

“Yes, sir, our peasants stood up for themselves.”

“And finished off our Mitenka.”

End of the Fourth and Last Part

EPILOGUE

Chapter 1: Plans to Save Mitya

On the fifth day after Mitya’s trial, very early in the morning, before nine o’clock, Alyosha came to see Katerina Ivanovna, to make final arrangements in a certain business important for them both, and with an errand to her besides. She sat and talked with him in the same room where she had once received Grushenka; nearby, in the next room, lay Ivan Fyodorovich, in fever and unconscious. Immediately after the scene in court, Katerina Ivanovna had ordered the sick and unconscious Ivan Fyodorovich moved to her house, scorning any future and inevitable talk of society and its condemnation. One of the two relatives who lived with her left for Moscow just after the scene in court, the other remained. But even if both had left, Katerina Ivanovna would not have altered her decision and would have stayed to look after the sick man and sit by him day and night. He was treated by Varvinsky and Herzenstube; the Moscow doctor had gone back to Moscow, refusing to predict his opinion concerning the possible outcome of the illness. Though the remaining doctors encouraged Katerina Ivanovna and Alyosha, it was apparent that they were still unable to give any firm hope. Alyosha visited his sick brother twice a day. But this time he came on special, most troublesome business, and sensed how difficult it would be to begin talking about it, and yet he was in a hurry: he had other pressing business that same morning in a different place and had to rush. They had already been talking for about a quarter of an hour. Katerina Ivanovna was pale, very tired, and at the same time in a state of extreme, morbid agitation: she sensed why, among other things, Alyosha had come to her now.

“Don’t worry about his decision,” she told Alyosha with firm insistence. “One way or another, he will still come to this way out: he must escape! That unfortunate man, that hero of honor and conscience—not him, not Dmitri Fyodorovich, but the one lying behind this door, who sacrificed himself for his brother,” Katya added with flashing eyes, “told me the whole plan of escape long ago. You know, he has already made contacts ... I’ve already told you something ... You see, it will probably take place at the third halt, when the party of convicts is taken to Siberia. Oh, it’s still a long way off. Ivan Fyodorovich has been to see the head man at the third halting-place. But it’s not known yet who will head the party, and it’s impossible to find out beforehand. Tomorrow, perhaps, I’ll show you the whole plan in detail; Ivan Fyodorovich left it with me the night before the trial, in case something ... It was that same time, remember, when you found us quarreling that evening: he was just going downstairs, and when I saw you, I made him come back—remember? Do you know what we were quarreling about?”

“No, I don’t,” said Alyosha.