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Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov
ALEXEY Fyodorovitch Karamazov was the thi rd son
of Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov, a landowner well
known in our distri ct in his own day , and still
remembered among us owing to his gloomy and tragic
death, which happened thirt een years ago, and which I
shall describe in its proper place. For the present I will
only say tha t this ?lando wner? ? for so we used to call
him, al thoug h he hardly spent a day of his life on his own
estate ? was a strange type, ye t one pretty frequently to
be met with, a type abject and vicious and at the same
time senseless. But he was one of those sensel ess persons
who are very well capable of looking after their worldly
affairs, and, apparently, after nothing else. Fyodor
Pavlovitch, for instance, began with next to nothing; hi s
estate was o f the smallest; he ran to dine at other men?s
tables, and fastened on them as a toady, yet at his death it
appeared that he had a hundred thousand roubles in hard
cash. At the same time, he wa s all hi s life one of the most
senseless, fan tasti cal fello ws in the whole district. I repeat,
it was not stupidity ? the majority of these fantastical
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fellows are shrewd and intelligent enough ? but just
senselessness, and a peculiar national form of it.
He was married twice, and had three sons, the eldest,
Dmitri, by his first wife, and two, Ivan and Alexey, by his
second. Fyodor Pavlovitch?s first wife, Adelaida Ivanovna,
belonged to a fairly rich and distinguished noble family,
also landow ners in our district, the Miusovs. How it came
to pass that an heiress, who was also a beauty, and
moreover o ne of those vigorous intelligent girls, so
common in this generation, but sometimes al so to be
found in the last, could have married such a worthless,
puny weakling, as we all ca lled him, I won?t attempt to
explain. I knew a yo ung lady of the last ?romantic?
generation who after some years of an enigmatic passi on
for a gentleman, whom she might quite easily have
married at a ny moment, invented insuperable obstacles to
their union, and ended by throwin g herself one stormy
night into a rather deep and rapid river from a high bank,
almost a precipice, and so peri shed, entirely to satisfy her
own caprice, and to be li ke Shakespeare?s Opheli a. Indeed,
if thi s preci pice, a chosen and favourite spot of hers, had
been less picturesque, if there had been a prosaic flat bank
in its place, most likely the suicide would ne ver have
taken place. This is a fact, and probably there have been
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not a few similar instances in the last two or three
generations. Adelaida Ivanovna Miusov?s action w as
similarly, no doubt, an echo of other people?s ideas, and
was due to the irritation caused by lack of mental freedom.
She wanted, perhaps, to show her feminine independence,
to overrid e class distinctions and the despotism of her
family. And a pliable imagination persuaded her, we must
suppose, for a brief moment, th at Fyodor Pavlovitch, in
spite of his parasitic p osition, was one of the bold and
ironical spiri ts of tha t pro gressi ve epoch, though he was, in
fact, an ill-natured buffoon and nothing more. What gave
the marriage piquancy was that it was preceded by an
elopement, and this greatly captivate d Adelaida Ivanovna?s
fancy. Fyod or Pavlovitch?s posi tion at the ti me made hi m
specially eager for any such enterprise, for he was
passionately anxious to ma ke a career in one way or
another. To attach himself to a good family and obtain a
dowry was an alluring pr ospect. As for mutual love it did
not exist apparently, eit her in the bride or in him, in spite
of Adelaida I vanovna?s be auty. Thi s w as, perhaps, a unique
case of the kind in the life of Fyodor Pavlovitch, who was
always of a voluptuous temper, and ready to run after any
petticoa t on the slightest encourag ement. She seems to
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have been the only woman who mad e no particul ar appeal
to his senses.
Immediatley after the elopement Adelaida Ivanovna
discerned in a flash that she had no feeling for her husband
but contempt. The marriage accordingly showed itself in
its true colours with extraor dinary rapidity. Although the
family accepted the event pre tty quickly and apportioned
the runaway bride her dowry, the husband and wife began
to lead a most disorderly life, and there were everlasting
scenes betw een them. It was said that the you ng wife
showed incomparably more generosity and di gnity than
Fyodor Pavlovitch, who, as is now k nown, got hold of all
her money up to twenty five thousand roubles as soon a s
she receiv ed it, so that thos e thousands were lo st to her
forever. The little village and the rather fine town house
which formed part of her do wry he did his utmost for a
long time to transfer to his name, by means of some deed
of conveyance. He w ould probably have succeeded,
merely from her moral fatigue and desire to get ri d of him,
and from the contemp t and lo athi ng he aroused by his
persistent and shameless importuni ty. But, fortunately,
Adelaida Ivanovna?s family intervened and circumvented
his greediness. It is known for a fact that frequent fights
took place between the husband and wife, but rumour had
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it that Fyodor Pavlovitch did not beat his wife but was
beaten by her, for she was a hot-tempered, bold, dark-
browed, impatient woman, possessed of remarkable
physical strength. Finally, sh e left the house and ran away
from Fyodor Pavlovitch with a destitute divinity student,
leaving Mitya, a child of three years old, in her husband?s
hands. Immediately Fyodor Pavlovitch introduced a
regular harem into the house, and abandoned himself to
orgies of drunkenness. In the intervals he used to drive all
over the province, complaining te arfully to each and all of
Adelaida Ivanovna?s havi ng left him, going into details too
disgraceful for a husband to mention in regard t o his own
married life. What seemed to gratify him and flatter his
self-love most was to play the ridiculous part of the injured
husband, and to parade his woes with embellishments.
?One would think that y ou?d got a p romotion, Fyodor
Pavlovitch, you seem so pleased in spite of your sorrow,?
scoffers said to him. Ma ny even added that he was glad of
a new comic part in which to play the buffoon, and that i t
was si mply to make it funnier that he pretended to be
unaware of his ludicrous position. B ut, who k nows, it may
have been simplicity. At last he succeeded in getting on
the track of his runaway wife. The poor woman turned
out to be in Petersburg, where she had gone with her
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divinity student, and where she had thrown herself into a
life of comp lete emancipation. Fyod or Pavlovitch at once
began bustling about, making preparations to go to
Petersburg, with what object he could not hi mself have
said. He would perhaps have really gone; bu t having
determined to do so he felt at once entitled to fortify
himself for the journey by another bout of reckless
drinking. And just at that ti me his wife?s family received
the news of her death in Petersburg. She had died quite
suddenly in a garret, according to one story, of typhus, or
as another version had it, of starvation. Fyodor Pavlovitch
was drunk w hen he heard of his wife ?s death, and the story
is that he ran out into th e street and began shouting with
joy, raising his hands to He aven: ?Lord, now lettest Thou
Thy servant depart in peace ,? but others say he wept
without restraint like a little child, so much so that people
were sorry f or him, in spite of the repulsion he inspired. It
is quite possible that both v ersions were true, that he
rejoiced at his release, and at the sa me time wept for her
who released him. As a general rule, people, even the
wicked, are much more naive and si mple-hearted than we
suppose. And we ourselves are, too.
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