The Brothers Karamazov

Chapter 2

Smerdyakov with a Guitar

H

E had no time to lose indeed. Even while he was say-
ing good-bye to Lise, the thought had struck him that
he must attempt some stratagem to find his brother Dmitri,
who was evidently keeping out of his way. It was getting
late, nearly three o’clock. Alyosha’s whole soul turned to the
monastery, to his dying saint, but the necessity of seeing
Dmitri outweighed everything. The conviction that a great
inevitable catastrophe was about to happen grew stronger in
Alyosha’s mind with every hour. What that catastrophe was,
and what he would say at that moment to his brother, he
could perhaps not have said definitely. ‘Even if my benefac-
tor must die without me, anyway I won’t have to reproach
myself all my life with the thought that I might have saved
something and did not, but passed by and hastened home.
If I do as I intend, I shall be following his great precept.’
His plan was to catch his brother Dmitri unawares, to
climb over the fence, as he had the day before, get into the
garden and sit in the summer-house. If Dmitri were not
there, thought Alyosha, he would not announce himself to
Foma or the women of the house, but would remain hidden