第55章

When Fyodor Pavlovitch heard of this development in Smerdyakov he determined to make him his cook, and sent him to Moscow to be trained.He spent some years there and came back remarkably changed in appearance.He looked extraordinarily old for his age.His face had grown wrinkled, yellow, and strangely emasculate.In character he seemed almost exactly the same as before he went away.He was just as unsociable, and showed not the slightest inclination for any companionship.In Moscow, too, as we heard afterwards, he had always been silent.Moscow itself had little interest for him; he saw very little there, and took scarcely any notice of anything.He went once to the theatre, but returned silent and displeased with it.On the other hand, he came back to us from Moscow well dressed, in a clean coat and clean linen.He brushed his clothes most scrupulously twice a day invariably, and was very fond of cleaning his smart calf boots with a special English polish, so that they shone like mirrors.He turned out a first rate cook.Fyodor Pavlovitch paid him a salary, almost the whole of which Smerdyakov spent on clothes, pomade, perfumes, and such things.But he seemed to have as much contempt for the female sex as for men; he was discreet, almost unapproachable, with them.Fyodor Pavlovitch began to regard him rather differently.

His fits were becoming more frequent, and on the days he was ill Marfa cooked, which did not suit Fyodor Pavlovitch at all.

"Why are your fits getting worse?" asked Fyodor Pavlovitch, looking askance at his new cook."Would you like to get married? Shall I find you a wife?"But Smerdyakov turned pale with anger, and made no reply.Fyodor Pavlovitch left him with an impatient gesture.The great thing was that he had absolute confidence in his honesty.It happened once, when Fyodor Pavlovitch was drunk, that he dropped in the muddy courtyard three hundred-rouble notes which he had only just received.He only missed them next day, and was just hastening to search his pockets when he saw the notes lying on the table.Where had they come from?

Smerdyakov had picked them up and brought them in the day before.

"Well, my lad, I've never met anyone like you," Fyodor Pavlovitch said shortly, and gave him ten roubles.We may add that he not only believed in his honesty, but had, for some reason, a liking for him, although the young man looked as morosely at him as at everyone and was always silent.He rarely spoke.If it had occurred to anyone to wonder at the time what the young man was interested in, and what was in his mind, it would have been impossible to tell by looking at him.Yet he used sometimes to stop suddenly in the house, or even in the yard or street, and would stand still for ten minutes, lost in thought.A physiognomist studying his face would have said that there was no thought in it, no reflection, but only a sort of contemplation.There is a remarkable picture by the painter Kramskoy, called "Contemplation." There is a forest in winter, and on a roadway through the forest, in absolute solitude, stands a peasant in a torn kaftan and bark shoes.He stands, as it were, lost in thought.Yet he is not thinking; he is "contemplating." If anyone touched him he would start and look at one as though awakening and bewildered.It's true he would come to himself immediately; but if he were asked what he had been thinking about, he would remember nothing.Yet probably he has, hidden within himself, the impression which had dominated him during the period of contemplation.Those impressions are dear to him and no doubt he hoards them imperceptibly, and even unconsciously.How and why, of course, he does not know either.He may suddenly, after hoarding impressions for many years, abandon everything and go off to Jerusalem on a pilgrimage for his soul's salvation, or perhaps he will suddenly set fire to his native village, and perhaps do both.There are a good many "contemplatives"among the peasantry.Well, Smerdyakov was probably one of them, and he probably was greedily hoarding up his impressions, hardly knowing why.

Chapter 7

The ControversyBUT Balaam's ass had suddenly spoken.The subject was a strange one.Grigory had gone in the morning to make purchases, and had heard from the shopkeeper Lukyanov the story of a Russian soldier which had appeared in the newspaper of that day.This soldier had been taken prisoner in some remote part of Asia, and was threatened with an immediate agonising death if he did not renounce Christianity and follow Islam.He refused to deny his faith, and was tortured, flayed alive, and died, praising and glorifying Christ.Grigory had related the story at table.Fyodor Pavlovitch always liked, over the dessert after dinner, to laugh and talk, if only with Grigory.This afternoon he was in a particularly good-humoured and expansive mood.

Sipping his brandy and listening to the story, he observed that they ought to make a saint of a soldier like that, and to take his skin to some monastery."That would make the people flock, and bring the money in."Grigory frowned, seeing that Fyodor Pavlovitch was by no means touched, but, as usual, was beginning to scoff.At that moment Smerdyakov, who was standing by the door, smiled.Smerdyakov often waited at table towards the end of dinner, and since Ivan's arrival in our town he had done so every day.

"What are you grinning at?" asked Fyodor Pavlovitch, catching the smile instantly, and knowing that it referred to Grigory.