"What should I forgive you for, sir? You've never done me any harm.""No, for everyone, for everyone, you here alone, on the road, will you forgive me for everyone? Speak, simple peasant heart!""Oh, sir! I feel afraid of driving you, your talk is so strange."But Mitya did not hear.He was frantically praying and muttering to himself.
"Lord, receive me, with all my lawlessness, and do not condemn me.
Let me pass by Thy judgment...do not condemn me, for I have condemned myself, do not condemn me, for I love Thee, O Lord.I am a wretch, but I love Thee.If Thou sendest me to hell, I shall love Thee there, and from there I shall cry out that I love Thee for ever and ever....But let me love to the end....Here and now for just five hours...till the first light of Thy day...for I love the queen of my soul...I love her and I cannot help loving her.Thou seest my whole heart...I shall gallop up, I shall fall before her and say, 'You are right to pass on and leave me.Farewell and forget your victim...never fret yourself about me!'""Mokroe!" cried Andrey, pointing ahead with his whip.
Through the pale darkness of the night loomed a solid black mass of buildings, flung down, as it were, in the vast plain.The village of Mokroe numbered two thousand inhabitants, but at that hour all were asleep, and only here and there a few lights still twinkled.
"Drive on, Andrey, I come!" Mitya exclaimed, feverishly.
"They're not asleep," said Andrey again, pointing with his whip to the Plastunovs' inn, which was at the entrance to the village.The six windows, looking on the street, were all brightly lighted up.
"They're not asleep," Mitya repeated joyously."Quicker, Andrey!
Gallop! Drive up with a dash! Set the bells ringing! Let all know that I have come.I'm coming! I'm coming, too!"Andrey lashed his exhausted team into a gallop, drove with a dash and pulled up his steaming, panting horses at the high flight of steps.
Mitya jumped out of the cart just as the innkeeper, on his way to bed, peeped out from the steps curious to see who had arrived.
"Trifon Borissovitch, is that you?"
The innkeeper bent down, looked intently, ran down the steps, and rushed up to the guest with obsequious delight.
"Dmitri Fyodorovitch, your honour! Do I see you again?"Trifon Borissovitch was a thick-set, healthy peasant, of middle height, with a rather fat face.His expression was severe and uncompromising, especially with the peasants of Mokroe, but he had the power of assuming the most obsequious countenance, when he had an inkling that it was to his interest.He dressed in Russian style, with a shirt buttoning down on one side, and a full-skirted coat.He had saved a good sum of money, but was for ever dreaming of improving his position.More than half the peasants were in his clutches, everyone in the neighbourhood was in debt to him.From the neighbouring landowners he bought and rented lands which were worked by the peasants, in payment of debts which they could never shake off.
He was a widower, with four grown-up daughters.One of them was already a widow and lived in the inn with her two children, his grandchildren, and worked for him like a charwoman.Another of his daughters was married to a petty official, and in one of the rooms of the inn, on the wall could be seen, among the family photographs, a miniature photograph of this official in uniform and official epaulettes.The two younger daughters used to wear fashionable blue or green dresses, fitting tight at the back, and with trains a yard long, on Church holidays or when they went to pay visits.But next morning they would get up at dawn, as usual, sweep out the rooms with a birch-broom, empty the slops, and clean up after lodgers.
In spite of the thousands of roubles he had saved, Trifon Borissovitch was very fond of emptying the pockets of a drunken guest, and remembering that not a month ago he had, in twenty-four hours, made two if not three hundred roubles out of Dmitri, when he had come on his escapade with Grushenka, he met him now with eager welcome, scenting his prey the moment Mitya drove up to the steps.
"Dmitri Fyodorovitch, dear sir, we see you once more!""Stay, Trifon Borissovitch," began Mitya, "first and foremost, where is she?""Agrafena Alexandrovna?" The inn-keeper understood at once, looking sharply into Mitya's face."She's here, too...""With whom? With whom?"
"Some strangers.One is an official gentleman, a Pole, to judge from his speech.He sent the horses for her from here; and there's another with him, a friend of his, or a fellow traveller, there's no telling.They're dressed like civilians.""Well, are they feasting? Have they money?""Poor sort of a feast! Nothing to boast of, Dmitri Fyodorovitch.""Nothing to boast of? And who are the others?""They're two gentlemen from the town....They've come back from Tcherny, and are putting up here.One's quite a young gentleman, a relative of Mr.Miusov he must be, but I've forgotten his name...
and I expect you know the other, too, a gentleman called Maximov.He's been on a pilgrimage, so he says, to the monastery in the town.He's travelling with this young relation of Mr.Miusov.""Is that all?"
"Stay, listen, Trifon Borissovitch.Tell me the chief thing:
What of her? How is she?"
"Oh, she's only just come.She's sitting with them.""Is she cheerful? Is she laughing?"
"No, I think she's not laughing much.She's sitting quite dull.
She's combing the young gentleman's hair.""The Pole- the officer?"
"He's not young, and he's not an officer, either.Not him, sir.
It's the young gentleman that's Mr.Miusov's relation.I've forgotten his name.""Kalganov?"
"That's it, Kalganov!"
