10 The Brothers Karamazovgencies. He knew his weaknesses and was afraid of them.
There are positions in which one has to keep a sharp look-
out. And that’s not easy without a trustworthy man, and
Grigory was a most trustworthy man. Many times in the
course of his life Fyodor Pavlovitch had only just escaped
a sound thrashing through Grigory’s intervention, and
on each occasion the old servant gave him a good lecture.
But it wasn’t only thrashings that Fyodor Pavlovitch was
afraid of. There were graver occasions, and very subtle and
complicated ones, when Fyodor Pavlovitch could not have
explained the extraordinary craving for someone faith-
ful and devoted, which sometimes unaccountably came
upon him all in a moment. It was almost a morbid condi-
tion. Corrupt and often cruel in his lust, like some noxious
insect, Fyodor Pavlovitch was sometimes, in moments of
drunkenness, overcome by superstitious terror and a moral
convulsion which took an almost physical form. ‘My soul’s
simply quaking in my throat at those times,’ he used to say.
At such moments he liked to feel that there was near at hand,
in the lodge if not in the room, a strong, faithful man, vir-
tuous and unlike himself, who had seen all his debauchery
and knew all his secrets, but was ready in his devotion to
overlook all that, not to oppose him, above all, not to re-
proach him or threaten him with anything, either in this
world or in the next, and, in case of need, to defend him-
from whom? From somebody unknown, but terrible and
dangerous. What he needed was to feel that there was an-
other man, an old and tried friend, that he might call him
in his sick moments merely to look at his face, or, perhaps,