and was discharged from the army, but not publicly, not by court-martial, with no slur on his honour. And three weeks ago, Dmitri seized him by the beard in a tavern, dragged him out into the street and beat him publicly, and all because he is an agent in a little business of mine.”

“It’s all a lie! Outwardly it’s the truth, but inwardly, a lie!” Dmitri was trembling with rage. “Father, I don’t justify my action. Yes, I confess it publicly, I behaved like a brute to that captain, and I regret it now, and I’m disgusted with myself for my brutal rage. But this captain, this agent of yours, went to that lady whom you call an enchantress, and suggested to her from you, that she should take I.O.U.s of mine which were in your possession, and should sue me for the money so as to get me into prison by means of them, if I persisted in claiming an account from you of my property. Now you reproach me for having a weakness for that lady when you yourself incited her to captivate me! She told me so to my face.… She told me the story and laughed at you.…You wanted to put me in prison because you are jealous of me with her, because you’d begun to force your attentions upon her; and I know all about that, too; she laughed at you for that as well—you hear—she laughed at you as she described it. So here you have this man, this father who reproaches his profligate son! Gentlemen, forgive my anger, but I foresaw that this crafty old man had only brought you together to create a scandal. I had come to forgive him if he held out his hand; to forgive him, and ask forgiveness! But as he has just this minute insulted not only me, but an honourable young lady for whom I feel such reverence that I dare not take her name in vain, I have made up my mind to show up his game, though he is my father.…”

He could not go on. His eyes were glittering and he breathed with difficulty. But every one in the cell was stirred. All except Father Zossima got up from their seats uneasily. The monks looked austere but waited for guidance from the elder. He sat still, pale, not from excitement but from the weakness of disease. An imploring smile lighted up his face; from time to time he raised his hand, as though to check the storm, and, of course, a gesture from him would have been enough to end the scene; but he seemed to be waiting for something and watched them intently as though trying to make out something which was not perfectly clear to him. At last Miüsov felt completely humiliated and disgraced.

“We are all to blame for this scandalous scene,” he said hotly. “But I did not foresee it when I came, though I knew with whom I had to deal. This must be stopped at once! Believe me, your reverence, I had no precise knowledge of the details that have just come to light, I was unwilling to believe them, and I learn for the first time.…A father is jealous of his son’s relations with a woman of loose behaviour and intrigues with the creature to get his son into prison! This is the company in which I have been forced to be present! I was deceived. I declare to you all that I was as much deceived as any one.”

“Dmitri Fyodorovitch,” yelled Fyodor Pavlovitch suddenly, in an unnatural voice, “if you were not my son I would challenge you this instant to a duel … with pistols, at three paces…across a handkerchief,” he ended, stamping with both feet.

With old liars who have been acting all their lives there are moments when they enter so completely into their part that they tremble or shed tears of emotion in earnest, although at that very moment or a second later, they are able to whisper to themselves, “You know you are lying, you shameless old sinner! You’re acting now, in spite of your ‘holy’ wrath.”

Dmitri frowned painfully, and looked with unutterable contempt at his father.

“I thought…I thought,” he said, in a soft and, as it were, controlled voice, “that I was coming to my native place with the angel of my heart, my betrothed, to cherish his old age, and I find nothing but a depraved profligate, a despicable clown!”

“A duel!” yelled the old wretch again, breathless and spluttering at each syllable. “And you, Pyotr Alexandrovitch Miüsov, let me tell you that there has never been in all your family a loftier, and more honest—you hear—more honest woman than this ‘creature,’ as you have dared to call her! And you, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, have abandoned your betrothed for that ‘creature,’ so you must yourself have thought that your betrothed couldn’t hold a candle to her. That’s the woman called a ‘creature’!”


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