“Ivan left,” he said suddenly. “He’s doing his best to win over Mitka’s fiancée, that’s why he’s staying here,” he added maliciously, and, twisting his mouth, looked at Alyosha.
“Can he have told you so himself?” asked Alyosha.
“Yes, he told me long ago. Three weeks ago, in fact. It can’t be that he’s come here to put a knife in me, too, can it? So he must have some reason!”
“What? How can you say such things?” Alyosha was terribly dismayed.
“It’s true he’s never asked for money, and he won’t get a fig out of me anyway. I, my dearest Alexei Fyodorovich, plan to live on this earth as long as possible, let it be known to you, and therefore I need every kopeck, and the longer I live, the more I’ll need it,” he continued, pacing from one corner of the room to the other, keeping his hands in the pockets of his loose, greasy, yellow cotton coat. “At the moment I’m still a man, only fifty-five years old, but I want to occupy that position for about twenty years longer; I’ll get old and disgusting and they won’t come to me then of their own free will, and that’s when I’ll need my dear money. So now I’m saving up more and more, for myself alone, sir, my dear son, Alexei Fyodorovich, let it be known to you, because let it be known to you that I want to live in my wickedness to the very end. Wickedness is sweet: everyone denounces it, but everyone lives in it, only they all do it on the sly and I do it openly. And for this ingenuousness of mine, the wicked ones all attack me. And I don’t want your paradise, Alexei Fyodorovich, let it be known to you; it’s even unfitting for a decent man to go to your paradise, if there really is such a place. I say a man falls asleep and doesn’t wake up, and that’s all; remember me in your prayers if you want to, and if not, the devil take you. That’s my philosophy. Ivan spoke well here yesterday, though we were all drunk. Ivan’s a braggart, and he doesn’t have so much learning ... or any special education either; he’s silent, and he grins at you silently—that’s how he gets by.”
Alyosha listened to him in silence.
“He won’t even speak to me! And when he does, it’s all put on; he’s a scoundrel, your Ivan! I could marry Grushka right now if I wanted to. Because with money one only needs to want, Alexei Fyodorovich, sir, and one gets everything. That’s just what Ivan is afraid of, and he’s keeping an eye on me to see that I don’t get married, and that’s why he’s pushing Mitka to marry Grushka: he wants to keep me from Grushka that way (as if I’d leave him any money even if I don’t marry Grushka!), and on the other hand, if Mitka marries Grushka, then Ivan can take his rich fiancée for himself—that’s how he figures! He’s a scoundrel, your Ivan!”
“How irritable you are. It’s because of yesterday. Why don’t you go and lie down?” said Alyosha.
“You say that,” the old man suddenly remarked, as if it had just entered his head for the first time, “you say that, and it doesn’t make me angry, but if Ivan said the same thing to me, I’d get angry. With you alone I have kind moments, otherwise I’m an evil man.”
“You’re not an evil man, you’re just twisted,” Alyosha smiled.
“Listen, I was about to have that robber Mitka locked up today, and I still haven’t made up my mind. Of course, in these fashionable times it’s customary to count fathers and mothers as a prejudice, but the law, it seems, even in our time, does not allow people to pull their old fathers by the hair and kick them in the mug with their heels, on the floor, in their own house, and boast about coming back and killing them completely—and all in the presence of witnesses, sir! I could break him if I wanted, I could have him put away right now for what he did yesterday!”
“But you’re not going to make a complaint, are you?”
“Ivan talked me out of it. To hell with Ivan, but one thing I do know ...” And bending close to Alyosha, he went on in a confidential half-whisper: “If I had him put away, the scoundrel, she’d hear that I had him put away and go running to him at once. But if she hears today that he beat me, a weak old man, within an inch of my life, then maybe she’ll drop him and come to visit me ... We’re like that—we do everything contrary. I know her through and through. Say, how about a little cognac? Have some cold coffee and I’ll add a little shot of cognac—it improves the taste, my friend.”
“No, no, thank you. But I’ll take this bread with me, if I may,” said Alyosha, and picking up the three-kopeck French loaf, he put it in the pocket of his cassock. “And you’d better not have any cognac either,” he advised cautiously, looking intently into the old man’s face.
“True enough; the truth hurts, but there it is. Still, maybe just one little glass. From the little cupboard...”
He opened the “little cupboard” with a key, poured a glass, drank it off, then locked the cupboard and put the key back in his pocket.
“That’s enough. One glass won’t do me in.”
“You see, you’re feeling kinder now,” Alyosha smiled.
