The Brothers Karamazov

0 The Brothers Karamazov

One day, quite unexpectedly indeed, after he had been
talking with great fervour a long time, I saw him suddenly
turn pale, and his face worked convulsively, while he stared
persistently at me.
‘What’s the matter?’ I said; ‘do you feel ill?’ — he had just
been complaining of headache.
‘I... do you know... I murdered someone.’
He said this and smiled with a face as white as chalk.
‘Why is it he is smiling?’ The thought flashed through my
mind before I realised anything else. I too turned pale.
‘What are you saying?’ I cried.
‘You see,’ he said, with a pale smile, ‘how much it has cost
me to say the first word. Now I have said it, I feel I’ve taken
the first step and shall go on.’
For a long while I could not believe him, and I did not
believe him at that time, but only after he had been to see
me three days running and told me all about it. I thought he
was mad, but ended by being convinced, to my great grief
and amazement. His crime was a great and terrible one.
Fourteen years before, he had murdered the widow of
a landowner, a wealthy and handsome young woman who
had a house in our town. He fell passionately in love with
her, declared his feeling and tried to persuade her to marry
him. But she had already given her heart to another man,
an officer of noble birth and high rank in the service, who
was at that time away at the front, though she was expect-
ing him soon to return. She refused his offer and begged
him not to come and see her. After he had ceased to visit
her, he took advantage of his knowledge of the house to en-