Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com 

Chapter 2

At His Father’s

F

IRST of all, Alyosha went to his father. On the way he
remembered that his father had insisted the day before
that he should come without his brother Ivan seeing him.
‘Why so?’ Alyosha wondered suddenly. ‘Even if my father
has something to say to me alone, why should I go in un-
seen? Most likely in his excitement yesterday he meant to
say something different,’ he decided. Yet he was very glad
when Marfa Ignatyevna, who opened the garden gate to
him (Grigory, it appeared, was ill in bed in the lodge), told
him in answer to his question that Ivan Fyodorovitch had
gone out two hours ago.
‘And my father?’
‘He is up, taking his coffee,’ Marfa answered somewhat
drily.
Alyosha went in. The old man was sitting alone at the
table wearing slippers and a little old overcoat. He was
amusing himself by looking through some accounts, rath-
er inattentively however. He was quite alone in the house,
for Smerdyakov too had gone out marketing. Though he
had got up early and was trying to put a bold face on it, he