Page 1192 - the-brothers-karamazov

confess, too, that he did a great deal to avoid the fatal catas-
trophe. ‘To-morrow I shall try and borrow the money from
everyone,’ as he writes in his peculiar language,’ and if they
won’t give it to me, there will be bloodshed.’’
Here Ippolit Kirillovitch passed to a detailed description
of all Mitya’s efforts to borrow the money. He described
his visit to Samsonov, his journey to Lyagavy. ‘Harassed,
jeered at, hungry, after selling his watch to pay for the jour-
ney (though he tells us he had fifteen hundred roubles on
him — a likely story), tortured by jealousy at having left
the object of his affections in the town, suspecting that she
would go to Fyodor Pavlovitch in his absense, he returned
at last to the town, to find, to his joy, that she had not been
near his father. He accompanied her himself to her protec-
tor. (Strange to say, he doesn’t seem to have been jealous
of Samsonov, which is psychologically interesting.) Then he
hastens back to his ambush in the back gardens, and then
learns that Smerdyakov is in a fit, that the other servant is
ill — the coast is clear and he knows the ‘signals’ — what a
temptation! Still he resists it; he goes off to a lady who has
for some time been residing in the town, and who is high-
ly esteemed among us, Madame Hohlakov. That lady, who
had long watched his career with compassion, gave him
the most judicious advice, to give up his dissipated life, his
unseemly love-affair, the waste of his youth and vigour in
pot-house debauchery, and to set off to Siberia to the gold
mines: ‘that would be an outlet for your turbulent energies,
your romantic character, your thirst for adventure.’’
After describing the result of this conversation and the

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