"Not at all answered a man's voice politely, but with emphatic dignity.It was clear that the man had the best of the position, and that the woman was making advances."I believe the man must be Smerdyakov," thought Alyosha, "from his voice.And the lady must be the daughter of the house here, who has come from Moscow, the one who wears the dress with a tail and goes to Marfa for soup.""I am awfully fond of verses of all kinds, if they rhyme," the woman's voice continued."Why don't you go on?"The man sang again:
What do I care for royal wealth If but my dear one be in health?
Lord have mercy On her and on me!
On her and on me!
On her and on me!
"It was even better last time," observed the woman's voice."You sang 'If my darling be in health'; it sounded more tender.I suppose you've forgotten to-day.""Poetry is rubbish!" said Smerdyakov curtly.
"Oh, no! I am very fond of poetry."
"So far as it's poetry, it's essential rubbish.Consider yourself, who ever talks in rhyme? And if we were all to talk in rhyme, even though it were decreed by government, we shouldn't say much, should we? Poetry is no good, Marya Kondratyevna.""How clever you are! How is it you've gone so deep into everything?" The woman's voice was more and more insinuating.
"I could have done better than that.I could have known more than that, if it had not been for my destiny from my childhood up.Iwould have shot a man in a duel if he called me names because I am descended from a filthy beggar and have no father.And they used to throw it in my teeth in Moscow.It had reached them from here, thanks to Grigory Vassilyevitch.Grigory Vassilyevitch blames me for rebelling against my birth, but I would have sanctioned their killing me before I was born that I might not have come into the world at all.They used to say in the market, and your mamma too, with great lack of delicacy, set off telling me that her hair was like a mat on her head, and that she was short of five foot by a wee bit.Why talk of a wee bit while she might have said 'a little bit,' like everyone else? She wanted to make it touching, a regular peasant's feeling.Can a Russian peasant be said to feel, in comparison with an educated man?
He can't be said to have feeling at all, in his ignorance.From my childhood up when I hear 'a wee bit,' I am ready to burst with rage.Ihate all Russia, Marya Kondratyevna."
"If you'd been a cadet in the army, or a young hussar, you wouldn't have talked like that, but would have drawn your sabre to defend all Russia.""I don't want to be a hussar, Marya Kondratyevna, and, what's more, I should like to abolish all soldiers.""And when an enemy comes, who is going to defend us?""There's no need of defence.In 1812 there was a great invasion of Russia by Napoleon, first Emperor of the French, father of the present one, and it would have been a good thing if they had conquered us.Aclever nation would have conquered a very stupid one and annexed it.
We should have had quite different institutions.""Are they so much better in their own country than we are? Iwouldn't change a dandy I know of for three young englishmen,"observed Marya Kondratyevna tenderly, doubtless accompanying her words with a most languishing glance.
"That's as one prefers."
"But you are just like a foreigner- just like a most gentlemanly foreigner.I tell you that, though it makes me bashful.""If you care to know, the folks there and ours here are just alike in their vice.They are swindlers, only there the scoundrel wears polished boots and here he grovels in filth and sees no harm in it.
The Russian people want thrashing, as Fyodor Pavlovitch said very truly yesterday, though he is mad, and all his children.""You said yourself you had such a respect for Ivan Fyodorovitch.""But he said I was a stinking lackey.He thinks that I might be unruly.He is mistaken there.If I had a certain sum in my pocket, Iwould have left here long ago.Dmitri Fyodorovitch is lower than any lackey in his behaviour, in his mind, and in his poverty.He doesn't know how to do anything, and yet he is respected by everyone.I may be only a soup-maker, but with luck I could open a cafe restaurant in Petrovka, in Moscow, for my cookery is something special, and there's no one in Moscow, except the foreigners, whose cookery is anything special.Dmitri Fyodorovitch is a beggar, but if he were to challenge the son of the first count in the country, he'd fight him.
Though in what way is he better than I am? For he is ever so much stupider than I am.Look at the money he has wasted without any need!""It must be lovely, a duel," Marya Kondratyevna observed suddenly.
"How so?"
"It must be so dreadful and so brave, especially when young officers with pistols in their hands pop at one another for the sake of some lady.A perfect picture! Ah, if only girls were allowed to look on, I'd give anything to see one!""It's all very well when you are firing at someone, but when he is firing straight in your mug, you must feel pretty silly.You'd be glad to run away, Marya Kondratyevna.""You don't mean you would run away?" But Smerdyakov did not deign to reply.After a moment's silence the guitar tinkled again, and he sang again in the same falsetto:
Whatever you may say, I shall go far away.
Life will be bright and gay In the city far away.
I shall not grieve, I shall not grieve at all, I don't intend to grieve at all.
Then something unexpected happened.Alyosha suddenly sneezed.They were silent.Alyosha got up and walked towards them.He found Smerdyakov dressed up and wearing polished boots, his hair pomaded, and perhaps curled.The guitar lay on the garden-seat.His companion was the daughter of the house, wearing a light-blue dress with a train two yards long.She was young and would not have been bad-looking, but that her face was so round and terribly freckled.
"Will my brother Dmitri soon be back? asked Alyosha with as much composure as he could.
Smerdyakov got up slowly; Marya Kondratyevna rose too.