And Fyodor Pavlovich, having seen his boy off, was left feeling very pleased. For all of two hours he felt almost happy and sat sipping cognac; but suddenly there occurred a most annoying and unpleasant circumstance for everyone in the house, which instantly plunged Fyodor Pavlovich into great confusion: Smerdyakov went to the cellar for something and fell in from the top step. Fortunately, Marfa Ignatievna happened to be in the yard at the moment and heard it in time. She did not see the fall, but she did hear the cry, a special, strange cry, long familiar to her—the cry of an epileptic falling into a fit. Whether the fit had come on him as he was going down the stairs, so that of course he would have fallen unconscious at once, or whether, on the contrary, the fall and concussion had caused the fit in Smerdyakov, who was a known epileptic, was impossible to figure out; but he was found in the cellar, in cramps and convulsions, writhing and foaming at the mouth. At first they thought he must have broken something, an arm or a leg, and injured himself, but “God preserved him,” as Marfa Ignatievna put it: nothing of the sort had happened, and the only difficulty lay in getting him up and out of the cellar into the daylight. But they asked for help from some neighbors and somehow managed to accomplish it. Fyodor Pavlovich was present at this ceremony and lent a hand, obviously frightened and lost, as it were. The sick man, however, did not regain consciousness: the fits would let up for a time, but they kept coming back, and everyone concluded that the same thing would happen as the year before when he had accidentally fallen from the attic. They remembered that then they had applied ice to his head. Some ice was found in the cellar and Marfa Ignatievna arranged things, and towards evening Fyodor Pavlovich sent for Dr. Herzenstube, which doctor arrived at once. Having examined the patient thoroughly (he was the most thorough and attentive doctor in the whole district, an elderly and most venerable man), he concluded that the fit was an extraordinary one and “might threaten a danger,” and that meanwhile he, Herzenstube, does not fully understand it yet, but if by tomorrow morning the present remedies have not helped, he will venture to try others. The sick man was put to bed in the cottage, in a small room next to the quarters of Grigory and Marfa Ignatievna. For the rest of the day, Fyodor Pavlovich suffered one disaster after another: Marfa Ignatievna cooked dinner, and the soup, compared with Smerdyakov’s cooking, came out “like swill,” while the chicken was so dry that teeth could not chew it. In reply to the bitter, though just, reproaches of her master, Marfa Ignatievna objected that the chicken was a very old one to begin with, and that she had never been to cooking school. Towards evening another care cropped up: it was reported to Fyodor Pavlovich that Grigory, who had fallen ill two days before, was now almost completely bedridden with his lower back out. Fyodor Pavlovich finished tea as early as possible and locked himself up alone in the house. He was in terrible and anxious expectation. It so happened that he expected Grushenka’s arrival almost certainly that very evening; at least he had gotten from Smerdyakov, still early that morning, almost an assurance that “she has now undoubtedly promised to arrive, sir.” The irrepressible old man’s heart was beating anxiously; he paced his empty rooms and listened. He had to be on the alert: Dmitri Fyodorovich could be watching out for her somewhere, and when she knocked at the window (Smerdyakov had assured Fyodor Pavlovich two days before that he had told her where and how to knock), he would have to open the door as quickly as possible and by no means keep her waiting in the entryway even for a second, or else, God forbid, she might become frightened and run away. It was bothersome for Fyodor Pavlovich, but never had his heart bathed in sweeter hopes: for it was possible to say almost for certain that this time she would surely come ... !
BOOK VI: THE RUSSIAN MONK
Chapter 1:
