“Mitya! What if Grushenka comes today ... or if not today, then tomorrow, or the day after?”
“Grushenka? I’ll spot her, burst in, and stop it...”
“And if ... ?”
“If there’s an if, I’ll kill. I couldn’t endure that.”
“Kill whom?”
“The old man. I wouldn’t kill her.”
“Brother, what are you saying!”
“I don’t know, I don’t know ... Maybe I won’t kill him, and maybe I will. I’m afraid that at that moment his face will suddenly become hateful to me. I hate his Adam’s apple, his nose, his eyes, his shameless sneer. I feel a personal loathing. I’m afraid of that. I may not be able to help myself ...”
“I’ll go, Mitya. I believe God will arrange it as he knows best, so that there will be no horror.”
“And I’ll sit and wait for a miracle. But if it doesn’t happen, then...”
Alyosha, in deep thought, went to see his father.
Chapter 6:
And indeed he found his father still at the table. And the table was laid, as usual, in the drawing room, though the house had an actual dining room. This drawing room was the largest room in the house, furnished with some sort of old-fashioned pretentiousness. The furniture was ancient, white, with threadbare upholstery of red half-silk. Mirrors in fanciful frames with old-fashioned carving, also white and gilt, hung in the spaces between the windows. The walls, covered with white paper, now cracked in many places, were adorned by two large portraits—one of some prince who thirty years before had been governor-general hereabouts, and the other of some bishop, also long since deceased. In the front corner were several icons, before which an oil-lamp burned all night ... not so much out of veneration as to keep the room lit through the night. Fyodor Pavlovich went to bed very late, at about three or four o’clock in the morning, and until then would pace around the room or sit in his armchair and think. This had become a habit with him. He often spent the night quite alone in the house, after sending the servants to the cottage, but usually the servant Smerdyakov stayed with him, sleeping on a bench in the front hall. The dinner was all finished when Alyosha entered, but they were still having coffee and preserves. Fyodor Pavlovich liked sweets and cognac after dinner. Ivan Fyodorovich was there at the table, also having coffee. The servants Grigory and Smerdyakov stood near the table. Both masters and servants were obviously and unusually animated. Fyodor Pavlovich loudly roared and laughed. From the front hall, Alyosha already heard his shrill laughter, by now so familiar to him, and concluded at once from the sound of it that his father was not yet drunk, but was still only in a benevolent mood.
“Here he is! Here he is!” yelled Fyodor Pavlovich, terribly glad suddenly to see Alyosha. “Join us, sit down, have some coffee—it’s lenten fare, lenten fare, and it’s hot, it’s good! I’m not offering you cognac, you’re fasting, but would you like some, would you? No, I’d better give you some liqueur, it’s fine stuff! Smerdyakov, go to the cupboard, second shelf on the right, here’s the key, get moving!”
Alyosha started to refuse the liqueur.
“We’ll serve it anyway, if not for you then for us,” Fyodor Pavlovich beamed. “But wait, did you have dinner or not?”
“I did,” said Alyosha, who in truth had had only a piece of bread and a glass of kvass in the Superior’s kitchen. “But I’d very much like some hot coffee.”
“Good for you, my dear! He’ll have some coffee. Shall we heat it up? Ah, no, it’s already boiling. Fine stuff, this coffee. Smerdyakovian! With coffee and cabbage pies, my Smerdyakov is an artist—yes, and with fish soup, too. Come for fish soup some time, let us know beforehand ... But wait, wait, didn’t I tell you this morning to move back today with your mattress and pillows? Did you bring the mattress, heh, heh, heh?”
“No, I didn’t,” Alyosha grinned too.
“Ah, but you were scared then—weren’t you scared, scared? Ah, my boy, my dear, could I offend you? You know, Ivan, I can’t resist it when he looks me in the eyes like that and laughs, I simply can’t. My whole insides begin to laugh with him, I love him so! Alyoshka, let me give you my paternal blessing.”
Alyosha stood up, but Fyodor Pavlovich had time to think better of it.
