The Brothers Karamazov | Page 3

but was at that time quite a young .man, and
distinguished among the Miusovs as a man of enlightened ideas and of
European culture, who had been in the capitals and abroad. Towards
the end of his life he became a Liberal of the type common in the
forties and fifties. In the course of his career he had come into contact
with many of the most Liberal men of his epoch, both in Russia and
abroad. He had known Proudhon and Bakunin personally, and in his
declining years was very fond of describing the three days of the Paris
Revolution of February, 1848, hinting that he himself had almost taken
part in the fighting on the barricades. This was one of the most grateful
recollections of his youth. He had an independent property of about a
thousand souls, to reckon in the old style. His splendid estate lay on the
outskirts of our little town and bordered on the lands of our famous
monastery, with which Pyotr Alexandrovitch began an endless lawsuit,
almost as soon as he came into the estate, concerning the rights of
fishing in the river or wood-cutting in the forest, I don't know exactly

which. He regarded it as his duty as a citizen and a man of culture to
open an attack upon the "clericals." Hearing all about Adelaida
Ivanovna, whom he, of course, remembered, and in whom he had at
one time been interested, and learning of the existence of Mitya, he
intervened, in spite of all his youthful indignation and contempt for
Fyodor Pavlovitch. He made the latter's acquaintance for the first time,
and told him directly that he wished to undertake the child's education.
He used long afterwards to tell as a characteristic touch, that when he
began to speak of Mitya, Fyodor Pavlovitch looked for some time as
though he did not understand what child he was talking about, and even
as though he was surprised to hear that he had a little son in the house.
The story may have been exaggerated, yet it must have been something
like the truth.
Fyodor Pavlovitch was all his life fond of acting, of suddenly playing
an unexpected part, sometimes without any motive for doing so, and
even to his own direct disadvantage, as, for instance, in the present case.
This habit, however, is characteristic of a very great number of people,
some of them very clever ones, not like Fyodor Pavlovitch. Pyotr
Alexandrovitch carried the business through vigorously, and was
appointed, with Fyodor Pavlovitch, joint guardian of the child, who had
a small property, a house and land, left him by his mother. Mitya did, in
fact, pass into this cousin's keeping, but as the latter had no family of
his own, and after securing the revenues of his estates was in haste to
return at once to Paris, he left the boy in charge of one of his cousins, a
lady living in Moscow. It came to pass that, settling permanently in
Paris he, too, forgot the child, especially when the Revolution of
February broke out, making an impression on his mind that he
remembered all the rest of his life. The Moscow lady died, and Mitya
passed into the care of one of her married daughters. I believe he
changed his home a fourth time later on. I won't enlarge upon that now,
as I shall have much to tell later of Fyodor Pavlovitch's firstborn, and
must confine myself now to the most essential facts about him, without
which I could not begin my story.
In the first place, this Mitya, or rather Dmitri Fyodorovitch, was the
only one of Fyodor Pavlovitch's three sons who grew up in the belief

that he had property, and that he would be independent on coming of
age. He spent an irregular boyhood and youth. He did not finish his
studies at the gymnasium, he got into a military school, then went to
the Caucasus, was promoted, fought a duel, and was degraded to the
ranks, earned promotion again, led a wild life, and spent a good deal of
money. He did not begin to receive any income from Fyodor
Pavlovitch until he came of age, and until then got into debt. He saw
and knew his father, Fyodor Pavlovitch, for the first time on coming of
age, when he visited our neighbourhood on purpose to settle with him
about his property. He seems not to have liked his father. He did not
stay long with him, and made haste to get away, having only succeeded
in obtaining a sum of money, and entering into an agreement for future
payments from the estate, of the revenues and value of which he was
unable (a fact worthy of note), upon this occasion, to get a statement