The Brothers Karamazov
kill him, perhaps I shall. I’m afraid he’ll suddenly be so
loathsome to me at that moment. I hate his double chin, his
nose, his eyes, his shameless grin. I feel a personal repul-
sion. That’s what I’m afraid of, that’s what may be too much
for me.’... This personal repulsion was growing unendurable.
Mitya was beside himself, he suddenly pulled the brass pes-
tle out of his pocket.
‘God was watching over me then,’ Mitya himself said af-
terwards. At that very moment Grigory waked up on his
bed of sickness. Earlier in the evening he had undergone
the treatment which Smerdyakov had described to Ivan. He
had rubbed himself all over with vodka mixed with a secret,
very strong decoction, had drunk what was left of the mix-
ture while his wife repeated a ‘certain prayer’ over him, after
which he had gone to bed. Marfa Ignatyevna had tasted the
stuff, too, and, being unused to strong drink, slept like the
dead beside her husband.
But Grigory waked up in the night, quite suddenly, and,
after a moment’s reflection, though he immediately felt a
sharp pain in his back, he sat up in bed. Then he deliberated
again, got up and dressed hurriedly. Perhaps his conscience
was uneasy at the thought of sleeping while the house was
unguarded ‘in such perilous times.’ Smerdyakov, exhausted
by his fit, lay motionless in the next room. Marfa Ignatyev-
na did not stir. ‘The stuff ’s been too much for the woman,’
Grigory thought, glancing at her, and groaning, he went out
on the steps. No doubt he only intended to look out from
the steps, for he was hardly able to walk, the pain in his back
and his right leg was intolerable. But he suddenly remem-