The Brothers Karamazov Read Online Free PDF Page A

made such an ineradicable impression on him. In the meantime, the Moscow lady died and Mitya passed into the care of one of her married daughters. I believe he had to change homes for a fourth time soon afterward. I won’t expand on this topic here since I will have a great deal to say later about this first-born son of Fyodor Karamazov’s, but I must supply a few facts right away, without which I could not even begin my novel.
    First of all, Mitya—that is, Dmitry Fyodorovich Karamazov—was the only one of Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov’s sons who grew up under the impression that, however hard up he might be, he would, when he came of age, come into his inheritance from his mother and that he would then be financially independent. He was unruly as a boy and as a young man. He dropped out of the classical secondary school, but later was admitted to military school. From there he was sent on active duty with an army unit in the Caucasus, where he was given an officer’s commission in the field. He was soon demoted to the ranks for fighting a duel, only to be restored to his rank again for gallantry. After this he led a wild, gay life that cost a good deal of money. Since, until he came of age, he never received a single kopek from his father, he was deep in debt by the time that day arrived. He only met and got to know the old man when he came to our town to demand an accounting of the estate left him by his mother. It would appear that, even then, Dmitry took a dislike to his father. He stayed at the paternal house only a short time, leaving as soon as he had managed to get a very small sum from the old man, together with some vague agreement about sending him the revenue from his estate. It must be noted here that on this occasion Dmitry failed to find out from his father what the total worth of his estate was or what income it yielded. Karamazov discovered right away (and this must be noted too) that his son had an erroneous and exaggerated notion of his inheritance, and this discovery pleased him for it fitted in with his own schemes. He realized that the young man was irresponsible, violent, passionate, unruly, impatient, and that he couldn’t wait to satisfy all his whims and impulses. And Karamazov now knew how to handle Dmitry: the fellow could always be placated, at least temporarily, with small handouts. Karamazov proceeded immediately to exploit his son’s weakness, putting him off with small sums. This went on for four years until, finally, Dmitry lost patience. He made a second appearance in town, this time to force on his father a final settlement of their accounts. He was quite stunned to hear from Karamazov that he had already received, in the many installments, a sum amounting to the value of his estate, that, if anything, it was he who was now in debt to his father, and that, moreover, in view of such and such an agreement which he himself had insisted upon at one point, he had renounced all further claims, etc., etc. The young man was dumbfounded, accused his father of cheating him, and acted as if he would go out of his mind.
    It was this confrontation between Karamazov and his eldest son that led to the catastrophe which is the subject (or at least the external plot) of my first, preliminary novel. But before I start on that narrative, I’ll have to say a few words about Karamazov’s other two sons and explain their origins.
    Chapter 3: The Second Marriage And The Second Family
    SHORTLY AFTER getting the four-year-old Mitya off his hands, Fyodor Karamazov married a second time. His second marriage lasted eight years. He brought back his second wife, Sofia, who was a very young girl, from another province, where he had gone to transact some small business affair with a Jew who was his partner in the deal. Drunkard and lecher though he was, Karamazov was constantly on the lookout for a profitable opportunity to invest some of his capital and, since he was unencumbered by scruples, these ventures were