Free The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky; Andrew R. MacAndrew Page A

beforehand, he particularly feared Miusov’s subtle and urbane sarcasms and the learned Ivan’s haughty insinuations. He even thought of warning the elder about these visitors, but he decided not to and kept silent. He only sent Dmitry word the day before, through a friend, that he was very fond of him and expected him to keep his promise. Dmitry was puzzled, for he could not think what he had promised Alyosha, but he answered by letter that he would do his best not to lose his temper in the event of “some despicable trick” and that, although he had great respect for the elder and for Ivan, he felt certain that some trap was being laid for him or that the whole thing was a farce. “Nevertheless, I’ll swallow my tongue rather than offend the venerable old man whom you respect so highly,” he said in concluding the letter. Alyosha hardly found this reassuring.

Book II: An Incongruous Gathering
    Chapter 1: They Arrive At The Monastery
    IT WAS a beautiful, clear, warm day in late August. The elder was to receive them at about half-past eleven, immediately after late mass. Our visitors did not attend the service, but arrived just as it was over. They drove up in two carriages. The first, an elegant barouche drawn by two fine horses, brought Peter Miusov and a distant relative, Peter Kalganov. He was a young man of twenty or so, who was preparing to enter the university, but Miusov, with whom, for some reason, he was living for the moment, was trying to persuade him to accompany him abroad, to attend the university in either Zurich or Jena and obtain his degree there. Kalganov had not yet made up his mind. He seemed absorbed in his thoughts and rather absentminded. He had a pleasant face, was well built and quite tall. At times, there was a strange fixity in his gaze: like all absent-minded people, he would often stare at you for a long time without seeing you. He was silent and rather awkward, but sometimes when he was alone with another person, he would suddenly become talkative, effusive, and was liable to burst out laughing quite unaccountably. He always dressed well, indeed with studied elegance. He had an independent income even then, and had even more sizable expectations. He and Alyosha were good friends.
    The second carriage, a jolting but roomy old hired carriage, which was drawn by a pair of sedate, pinkish-gray horses and which kept falling behind Miusov’s barouche, brought Mr. Karamazov and his son Ivan.
    As to Dmitry, he was late, although he had been informed in advance of the day and the time they were to meet.
    The visitors left their carriages outside the monastery wall, near an inn, and entered the gates on foot. I do not believe any of them, except Mr. Karamazov, had ever been in a monastery before, and, as to Miusov, it is unlikely that he had seen the inside even of a church for a good thirty years. He looked around him with a certain curiosity, trying nevertheless to appear quite casual about it all. But there was nothing there to interest a man of his mentality, except perhaps the architecture of the church and the buildings where the monks lived, though even they were quite ordinary. The last of the worshippers were coming out of church, bare-headed and crossing themselves. Among the simple people there were a few better-class people—two or three ladies and a very old general, all of whom were staying at the nearby inn. Beggars surrounded our visitors as soon as they appeared, but nobody gave them anything, except for young Kalganov who dug a ten-kopek piece out of his purse and, for some reason looking very embarrassed, pushed it hurriedly into one woman’s hand, muttering something like “to share among you.” None of his companions commented on his act, so there seemed no reason for further embarrassment, but when he became aware of it, he grew even more confused.
    It was rather strange, though; there really should have been someone to receive them, and perhaps even with some esteem: one