They kept a constant watch over her, but in spite of their vigilance she escaped on the very last day, and made her way into Fyodor Pavlovitch's garden.
How, in her condition, she managed to climb over the high, strong fence remained a mystery.
Some maintained that she must have been lifted over by somebody; others hinted at something more uncanny.
The most likely explanation is that it happened naturally- that Lizaveta, accustomed to clambering over hurdles to sleep in gardens, had somehow managed to climb this fence, in spite of her condition, and had leapt down, injuring herself.
Grigory rushed to Marfa and sent her to Lizaveta, while he ran to fetch an old midwife who lived close by.
They saved the baby, but Lizaveta died at dawn.
Grigory took the baby, brought it home, and making his wife sit down, put it on her lap.
"A child of God- an orphan is akin to all," he said, "and to us above others.
Our little lost one has sent us this, who has come from the devil's son and a holy innocent.
Nurse him and weep no more."
So Marfa brought up the child.
He was christened Pavel, to which people were not slow in adding Fyodorovitch (son of Fyodor).
Fyodor Pavlovitch did not object to any of this, and thought it amusing, though he persisted vigorously in denying his responsibility.
The townspeople were pleased at his adopting the foundling.
Later on, Fyodor Pavlovitch invented a surname for the child, calling him Smerdyakov, after his mother's nickname.
So this Smerdyakov became Fyodor Pavlovitch's second servant, and was living in the lodge with Grigory and Marfa at the time our story begins.
He was employed as cook.
I ought to say something of this Smerdyakov, but I am ashamed of keeping my readers' attention so long occupied with these common menials, and I will go back to my story, hoping to say more of Smerdyakov in the course of it.
Chapter 3.
The Confession of a Passionate Heart- in Verse
ALYOSHA remained for some time irresolute after hearing the command his father shouted to him from the carriage. But in spite of his uneasiness he did not stand still. That was not his way.
He went at once to the kitchen to find out what his father had been doing above.
Then he set off, trusting that on the way he would find some answer to the doubt tormenting him.
I hasten to add that his father's shouts, commanding him to return home "with his mattress and pillow" did not frighten him in the least.
He understood perfectly that those peremptory shouts were merely "a flourish" to produce an effect. In the same way a tradesman in our town who was celebrating his name-day with a party of friends, getting angry at being refused more vodka, smashed up his own crockery and furniture and tore his own and his wife's clothes, and finally broke his windows, all for the sake of effect.
Next day, of course, when he was sober, he regretted the broken cups and saucers.
Alyosha knew that his father would let him go back to the monastery next day, possibly even that evening.
Moreover, he was fully persuaded that his father might hurt anyone else, but would not hurt him.
Alyosha was certain that no one in the whole world ever would want to hurt him, and, what is more, he knew that no one could hurt him.
This was for him an axiom, assumed once for all without question, and he went his way without hesitation, relying on it.
But at that moment an anxiety of sort disturbed him, and worried him the more because he could not formulate it. It was the fear of a woman, of Katerina Ivanovna, who had so urgently entreated him in the note handed to him by Madame Hohlakov to come and see her about something.
This request and the necessity of going had at once aroused an uneasy feeling in his heart, and this feeling had grown more and more painful all the morning in spite of the scenes at the hermitage and at the Father Superior's.
He was not uneasy because he did not know what she would speak of and what he must answer.
And he was not afraid of her simply as a woman. Though he knew little of women, he spent his life, from early childhood till he entered the monastery, entirely with women.
He was afraid of that woman, Katerina Ivanovna.
He had been afraid of her from the first time he saw her.
He had only seen her two or three times, and had only chanced to say a few words to her.
He thought of her as a beautiful, proud, imperious girl.
It was not her beauty which troubled him, but something else.
And the vagueness of his apprehension increased the apprehension itself.
The girl's aims were of the noblest, he knew that. She was trying to save his brother Dmitri simply through generosity, though he had already behaved badly to her.
Yet, although Alyosha recognised and did justice to all these fine and generous sentiments, a shiver began to run down his back as soon as he drew near her house.
He reflected that he would not find Ivan, who was so intimate a friend, with her, for Ivan was certainly now with his father.
Dmitri he was even more certain not to find there, and he had a foreboding of the reason.
And so his conversation would be with her alone.
He had a great longing to run and see his brother Dmitri before that fateful interview.
Without showing him the letter, he could talk to him about it.
But Dmitri lived a long way off, and he was sure to be away from home too.
Standing still for a minute, he reached a final decision.
Crossing himself with a rapid and accustomed gesture, and at once smiling, he turned resolutely in the direction of his terrible lady.