11 The Brothers Karamazovthat they tremble or shed tears of emotion in earnest, al-
though at that very moment, or a second later, they are able
to whisper to themselves, ‘You know you are lying, you
shameless old sinner! You’re acting now, in spite of your
‘holy’ wrath.’
Dmitri frowned painfully, and looked with unutterable
contempt at his father.
‘I thought... I thought,’ he said. in a soft and, as it were,
controlled voice, ‘that I was coming to my native place with
the angel of my heart, my betrothed, to cherish his old age,
and I find nothing but a depraved profligate, a despicable
clown!’
‘A duel!’ yelled the old wretch again, breathless and splut-
tering at each syllable. ‘And you, Pyotr Alexandrovitch
Miusov, let me tell you that there has never been in all your
family a loftier, and more honest — you hear — more hon-
est woman than this ‘creature,’ as you have dared to call
her! And you, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, have abandoned your
betrothed for that ‘creature,’ so you must yourself have
thought that your betrothed couldn’t hold a candle to her.
That’s the woman called a ‘creature.’
‘Shameful!’ broke from Father Iosif.
‘Shameful and disgraceful!’ Kalganov, flushing crimson
cried in a boyish voice, trembling with emotion. He had
been silent till that moment.
‘Why is such a man alive?’ Dmitri, beside himself with
rage, growled in a hollow voice, hunching up his shoulders
till he looked almost deformed. ‘Tell me, can he be allowed
to go on defiling the earth?’ He looked round at everyone