No one saw us then. God alone saw us; I hope He will record it to my credit.
You must thank your brother, Alexey Fyodorovitch.
No, sir, I won't thrash my boy for your satisfaction."
He had gone back to his original tone of resentful buffoonery.
Alyosha felt, though, that he trusted him, and that if there had been someone else in his, Alyosha's place, the man would not have spoken so openly and would not have told what he had just told.
This encouraged Alyosha, whose heart was trembling on the verge of tears.
"Ah, how I would like to make friends with your boy!" he cried. "If you could arrange it- "
"Certainly, sir," muttered the captain.
"But now listen to something quite different!" Alyosha went on.
"I have a message for you. That same brother of mine, Dmitri, has insulted his betrothed, too, a noble-hearted girl of whom you have probably heard.
I have a right to tell you of her wrong; I ought to do so, in fact, for, hearing of the insult done to you and learning all about your unfortunate position, she commissioned me at once- just now- to bring you this help from her- but only from her alone, not from Dmitri, who has abandoned her. Nor from me, his brother, nor from anyone else, but from her, only from her!
She entreats you to accept her help....You have both been insulted by the same man. She thought of you only when she had just received a similar insult from him- similar in its cruelty, I mean.
She comes like a sister to help a brother in misfortune.... She told me to persuade you to take these two hundred roubles from her, as from a sister, knowing that you are in such need.
No one will know of it, it can give rise to no unjust slander. There are the two hundred roubles, and I swear you must take them unless- unless all men are to be enemies on earth!
But there are brothers even on earth.... You have a generous heart... you must see that, you must," and Alyosha held out two new rainbow-coloured hundred-rouble notes.
They were both standing at the time by the great stone close to the fence, and there was no one near.
The notes seemed to produce a tremendous impression on the captain. He started, but at first only from astonishment. Such an outcome of their conversation was the last thing he expected.
Nothing could have been farther from his dreams than help from anyone- and such a sum!
He took the notes, and for a minute he was almost unable to answer, quite a new expression came into his face.
"That for me? So much money- two hundred roubles!
Good heavens!
Why, I haven't seen so much money for the last four years! Mercy on us!
And she says she is a sister.... And is that the truth?"
"I swear that all I told you is the truth,"cried Alyosha.
The captain flushed red.
"Listen, my dear, listen. If I take it, I shan't be behaving like a scoundrel?
In your eyes, Alexey Fyodorovitch, I shan't be a scoundrel?
No, Alexey Fyodorovitch, listen, listen," he hurried, touching Alyosha with both his hands. "You are persuading me to take it, saying that it's a sister sends it, but inwardly, in your heart won't you feel contempt for me if I take it, eh?"
"No, no, on my salvation I swear I shan't!
And no one will ever know but me- I, you and she, and one other lady, her great friend."
"Never mind the lady!
Listen, Alexey Fyodorovitch, at a moment like this you must listen, for you can't understand what these two hundred roubles mean to me now." The poor fellow went on rising gradually into a sort of incoherent, almost wild enthusiasm.
He was thrown off his balance and talked extremely fast, as though afraid he would not be allowed to say all he had to say. "Besides its being honestly acquired from a 'sister,' so highly respected and revered, do you know that now I can look after mamma and Nina, my hunchback angel daughter?
Doctor Herzenstube came to me in the kindness of his heart and was examining them both for a whole hour.
'I can make nothing of it,' said he, but he prescribed a mineral water which is kept at a chemist's here. He said it would be sure to do her good, and he ordered baths, too, with some medicine in them.
The mineral water costs thirty copecks, and she'd need to drink forty bottles perhaps: so I took the prescription and laid it on the shelf under the ikons, and there it lies.
And he ordered hot baths for Nina with something dissolved in them, morning and evening. But how can we carry out such a cure in our mansion, without servants, without help, without a bath, and without water?
Nina is rheumatic all over, I don't think I told you that. All her right side aches at night, she is in agony, and, would you believe it, the angel bears it without groaning for fear of waking us.
We eat what we can get, and she'll only take the leavings, what you'd scarcely give to a dog.
'I am not worth it, I am taking it from you, I am a burden on you,' that's what her angel eyes try to express.
We wait on her, but she doesn't like it.
'I am a useless cripple, no good to anyone.' As though she were not worth it, when she is the saving of all of us with her angelic sweetness. Without her, without her gentle word it would be hell among us! She softens even Varvara.
And don't judge Varvara harshly either, she is an angel too, she, too, has suffered wrong.
She came to us for the summer, and she brought sixteen roubles she had earned by lessons and saved up, to go back with to Petersburg in September, that is now.
But we took her money and lived on it, so now she has nothing to go back with.
Though indeed she couldn't go back, for she has to work for us like a slave. She is like an overdriven horse with all of us on her back. She waits on us all, mends and washes, sweeps the floor, puts mamma to bed. And mamma is capricious and tearful and insane!
And now I can get a servant with this money, you understand, Alexey Fyodorovitch, I can get medicines for the dear creatures, I can send my student to Petersburg, I can buy beef, I can feed them properly.
Good Lord, but it's a dream!"
Alyosha was delighted that he had brought him such happiness and that the poor fellow had consented to be made happy.
"Stay, Alexey Fyodorovitch, stay," the captain began to talk with frenzied rapidity, carried away by a new day-dream. "Do you know that Ilusha and I will perhaps really carry out our dream. We will buy a horse and cart, a black horse, he insists on its being black, and we will set off as we pretended the other day.