The Brothers Karamazovsubject at that moment, and so might race off in a minute to
something else and quite forget the newspaper.
Alyosha was well aware that the story of the terrible
case had spread all over Russia. And, good heavens! what
wild rumours about his brother, about the Karamazovs,
and about himself he had read in the course of those two
months, among other equally credible items! One paper
had even stated that he had gone into a monastery and be-
come a monk, in horror at his brother’s crime. Another
contradicted this, and stated that he and his elder, Father
Zossima, had broken into the monastery chest and ‘made
tracks from the monastery.’ The present paragraph in the
paper Gossip was under the heading, ‘The Karamazov Case
at Skotoprigonyevsk.’ (That, alas! was the name of our lit-
tle town. I had hitherto kept it concealed.) It was brief, and
Madame Hohlakov was not directly mentioned in it. No
names appeared, in fact. It was merely stated that the crim-
inal, whose approaching trial was making such a sensation
— retired army captain, an idle swaggerer, and reaction-
ary bully — was continually involved in amorous intrigues,
and particularly popular with certain ladies ‘who were pin-
ing in solitude.’ One such lady, a pining widow, who tried
to seem young though she had a grown-up daughter, was
so fascinated by him that only two hours before the crime
she offered him three thousand roubles, on condition that
he would elope with her to the gold mines. But the criminal,
counting on escaping punishment, had preferred to murder
his father to get the three thousand rather than go off to Si-
beria with the middle-aged charms of his pining lady. This