“I have ventured to trouble you, madame, in connection with our mutual acquaintance Dmitri Fyodorovich Karamazov,” Perkhotin began, but as soon as he spoke this name, his hostess’s face suddenly showed the greatest irritation. She all but shrieked and furiously interrupted him: “How long, how long must I be tormented by that awful man?” she cried in frenzy. “How dare you, my dear sir, how could you venture to disturb a lady not of your acquaintance, in her own house, and at such an hour ... and come to her to speak of a man who, right here, in this very drawing room, just three hours ago, came to murder me, stamped his feet, and walked out as no one walks out of a decent house. Let me tell you, my dear sir, that I will lodge a complaint against you, I will not stand for it, now kindly leave my house at once ... I am a mother, I shall ... I ... I...”

“Murder! So he wanted to murder you, too?”

“Why, did he already murder someone else?” Madame Khokhlakov asked impetuously.

“Be so good, madame, as to listen for only half a minute, and I shall explain everything in two words,” Perkhotin answered firmly. “Today, at five o’clock in the afternoon, Mr. Karamazov borrowed ten roubles from me as a friend, and I know for certain that he had no money, yet this same day, at nine o’clock, he walked into my rooms holding out for all to see a wad of hundred-rouble bills, approximately two or even three thousand roubles. His hands and face were all covered with blood, and it appeared as if he were mad. To my question as to where he got so much money, he replied with precision that he had just received it from you, and that you had loaned him the sum of three thousand roubles to go, he said, to the gold mines...”

Madame Khokhlakov’s face suddenly acquired a look of extraordinary and morbid excitement.

“Oh, God! He’s murdered his old father!” she cried out, clasping her hands. “I gave him no money, none! Oh, run, run...! Not a word more! Save the old man, run to his father, run!”

“I beg your pardon, madame, so you did not give him any money? You firmly recall that you did not give him any?”

“I did not! I did not! I refused him because he was unable to appreciate it. He walked out furious and stamped his feet. He rushed at me, but I jumped aside ... And I shall also tell you, as a man from whom I now have no intention of concealing anything, that he even spat at me, can you imagine it? But why are you standing? Ah, do sit down ... Forgive me, I ... Or, no, run, run, you must run and save the unfortunate old man from a horrible death!”

“But if he has already killed him?”

“Ah, my God, of course! What are we going to do now? What do you think we should do now?”

Meanwhile she sat Pyotr Ilyich down, and sat down herself facing him. Pyotr Ilyich gave her a brief but rather clear account of the affair, at least that part of the affair he himself had witnessed earlier; he also told her of his visit to Fenya, and mentioned the news of the pestle. All these details struck the agitated lady no end, so that she kept crying out and covering her eyes with her hands . . .

“Imagine, I foresaw it all! I am endowed with this property: whatever I imagine always happens. How often, how often have I looked at that terrible man and thought: here is a man who will end up by murdering me. And now it’s happened ... That is, if he hasn’t killed me now, but only his father, it is most likely because the hand of God is obviously protecting me, and, besides, he was ashamed to murder me because I myself, here on this very spot, put an icon around his neck with a relic of the great martyr Varvara ... How close I was to death at that moment! I went up to him, quite close, and he stretched out his neck to me! You know, Pyotr Ilyich (forgive me, you did say your name was Pyotr Ilyich?) ... you know, I do not believe in miracles, but this icon and this obvious miracle with me now—it astounds me, and I’m beginning to believe in anything again. Have you heard about the elder Zosima ... ? Ah, anyway, I don’t know what I’m saying ... And imagine, even with the icon on his neck, he still spat at me ... Of course, he only spat, he didn’t murder me, and ... and ... so that’s where he galloped off to! But what of us, where shall we go now, what do you think?”

Pyotr Ilyich stood up and announced that he would now go directly to the police commissioner and tell him everything, and let him do as he thinks best.

“Ah, he is a wonderful, wonderful man, I know Mikhail Makarovich. Of course, go precisely to him. How resourceful you are, Pyotr Ilyich, and what a good idea you’ve come up with; you know, in your place I’d never have been able to come up with that!”

“All the more so in that I, too, am well acquainted with the commissioner,” observed Pyotr Ilyich, still standing and evidently wishing somehow to tear himself away from the impetuous lady, who would not let him say good-bye to her and leave.

“And you know, you know,” she went on prattling, “you must come back and tell me what you see and learn ... and what they find out ... and what they will decide about him, and where they will condemn him to. Tell me, we don’t have capital punishment, do we? But you must come, even if it’s three o’clock in the morning, even if it’s four, even half past four ... Tell them to wake me up, to shake me if I don’t get up ... Oh, God, but I’ll never be able to fall asleep. You know, why don’t I go with you myself?”

“N-no, madame, but if you would now write three lines with your own hand, just in case, saying that you did not give Dmitri Fyodorovich any money, it might not be amiss ... just in case...”

“Certainly!” the delighted Madame Khokhlakov leaped to her bureau. “And you know, you amaze me, you simply astound me with your resourcefulness and your skill in these matters ... Are you in service here? I’m so pleased to know you’re in service here...”

And while she spoke, she quickly inscribed the following three lines in a large hand on a half sheet of writing paper:

Never in my life did I lend the unfortunate Dmitri Fyodorovich Karamazov (for he is unfortunate now, in any case) the sum of three thousand roubles today, or any other money, never, never! I swear to it by all that is holy in our world.

Khokhlakov

“Here is the note!” she turned quickly to Pyotr Ilyich. “Go now and save. It is a great deed on your part.”

And she crossed him three times. She even ran out to see him to the front hall.

“How grateful I am to you! You wouldn’t believe how grateful I am to you now, for having come to me first. How is it we’ve never met? I shall be flattered to receive you in my house in the future. And how pleased I am to know that you’re in service here ... and with your precision, your resourcefulness ... They must appreciate you, they must finally understand you, and whatever I can do for you, believe me ... Oh, I love young people so! I am in love with young people. Young people—they are the foundation for all of today’s suffering Russia, her only hope ... Oh, go, go...!”

But Pyotr Ilyich had already run out, otherwise she would not have let him go so soon. All the same, Madame Khokhlakov made quite a pleasant impression on him, which even somewhat softened his alarm at getting involved in such a bad affair. Tastes are extremely divergent, that is a known fact. “She’s not as old as all that,” he thought with pleasure. “On the contrary, I might have taken her for her own daughter.”

As for Madame Khokhlakov, she was simply enchanted with the young man. “Such skill, such exactitude, and in so young a man, in our time, and all that with such manners and appearance! And yet they say our modern young men cannot do anything, but here’s an example for you,” and so on and so forth. So that she simply forgot all about the “terrible incident,” and only on the point of going to bed did she suddenly recall again “how close she had been to death.” “Ah,” she said, “it’s terrible, terrible!” and at once fell into a sound and sweet sleep. By the way, I would not go into such petty and incidental details if the eccentric encounter I have just described, between a young official and a widow not all that old, had not afterwards served as the foundation for the whole life’s career of that precise and accurate young man, which is still recalled with astonishment in our town, and of which we, too, shall perhaps have a special word to say, once we have concluded our long story of the Karamazov brothers.