The Brothers Karamazov
at her face, her gay, laughing, affectionate face, he revives at
once, lays aside all suspicion and with joyful shame abuses
himself for his jealousy.
After leaving Grushenka at the gate he rushed home. Oh,
he had so much still to do that day! But a load had been lift-
ed from his heart, anyway.
‘Now I must only make haste and find out from Smerdya-
kov whether anything happened there last night, whether,
by any chance, she went to Fyodor Pavlovitch; ough!’ float-
ed through his mind.
Before he had time to reach his lodging, jealousy had
surged up again in his restless heart.
Jealousy! ‘Othello was not jealous, he was trustful,’ ob-
served Pushkin. And that remark alone is enough to show
the deep insight of our great poet. Othello’s soul was shat-
tered and his whole outlook clouded simply because his
ideal was destroyed. But Othello did not begin hiding, spy-
ing, peeping. He was trustful, on the contrary. He had to
be led up, pushed on, excited with great difficulty before he
could entertain the idea of deceit. The truly jealous man is
not like that. It is impossible to picture to oneself the shame
and moral degradation to which the jealous man can de-
scend without a qualm of conscience. And yet it’s not as
though the jealous were all vulgar and base souls. On the
contrary, a man of lofty feelings, whose love is pure and full
of self-sacrifice, may yet hide under tables, bribe the vilest
people, and be familiar with the lowest ignominy of spying
and eavesdropping.
Othello was incapable of making up his mind to faith-