Who He Is
Grigory Vasilievich is the old servant of the household of Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov, married to Marfa Ignatyevna, firm and unbending, who goes in a straight line to a goal whenever he takes it for true, honest and incorruptible (ch. I of Book III). He looked after the master's children when the father forgot them: he supported Mitya in the courtyard hut for almost a year (ch. II of Book I) and took in Ivan and Alyosha after their mother's death (ch. III of Book I). He is the man in whom Fyodor confides, without saying so, on nights of drunkenness, and the one who took in the newborn of Lisaveta and raised him as a son, Smerdyakov (ch. II of Book III). What defines him is a loyalty that does not ask whether the master deserves it: he decides, for his wife, without giving reasons, that staying with the former master, however he might be, was their duty (ch. I of Book III). Wounded in the garden on the night of the crime, he becomes the witness that the house door to the garden was open (ch. IV of Book VIII, ch. VI of Book IX).
Trajectory
In ch. III of Book I he takes the side of Fyodor's second wife, Sofya, quarrels with the master in a way almost forbidden to a servant, and once forcibly expels the orgy and the women. When the old general arrives to take the children away, he is beaten by her, bows and says that God will repay him for the orphans. In ch. IV of Book I, back in town, Fyodor comes to be watched by him almost as by a tutor, and Grigory takes Alyosha to his mother's grave, an iron slab that he paid for himself.
Ch. I of Book III presents the couple. After the emancipation of the serfs Marfa wanted to leave Fyodor, go to Moscow and open a business, and Grigory decided, without giving reasons, that staying was their duty:
И не понимай, а оно так будет. Впредь молчи., And do not understand, but so it will be. From now on, be silent.
When Marfa's son was born with six fingers, he told the priest that the child should not be baptised, because it was a dragon, and the boy died within two weeks. After that he reads the Lives of the Saints, the book of Job and the homilies of Isaac the Syrian, which he understands little of, perhaps for that reason he prizes them. Fyodor has for him what the narrator calls the need for a faithful man:
Дело было именно в том, чтобы был непременно другой человек, старинный и дружественный, чтобы в больную минуту позвать его, только с тем чтобы всмотреться в его лицо, пожалуй переброситься словцом, совсем даже посторонним каким-нибудь, и коли он ничего, не сердится, то как-то и легче сердцу, а коли сердится, ну, тогда грустней., The point was that there should be another person, an old and friendly one, whom one could call in a sick moment, merely to look at his face, perhaps to exchange a word, quite unrelated to anything, and if he is well and not angry, the heart is somehow lighter; and if he is angry, well, then it is sadder.
In ch. II of Book III he defends the master against the rumour that the father of Lisaveta's child is him, and names another culprit:
«Она сама, низкая, виновата», — говорил он утвердительно, а обидчиком был не кто иной, как «Карп с винтом», "She is to blame herself, the vile creature," he said firmly, and the offender was none other than "Karp with the Screw."
He picks up the newborn that Lisaveta bore in the little bathhouse of the garden and hands it to Marfa as a gift from the dead son:
Божье дитя-сирота — всем родня, а нам с тобой подавно. Этого покойничек наш прислал, а произошел сей от бесова сына и от праведницы. Питай и впредь не плачь, God's orphaned child is kin to everyone, and to us two all the more. This our deceased little one sent him, but this one came from a devil's son and a righteous woman. Feed him and do not weep any more.
In ch. VI of Book III he punished the boy with rods for hanging cats, told him he was not a human being, born of the damp of the bathhouse, and when at twelve the boy asked him, during the sacred history lesson, where the light of the first day came from, he answered with a slap:
Свет создал господь бог в первый день, а солнце, луну и звезды на четвертый день. Откуда же свет-то сиял в первый день?, The Lord God created the light on the first day, and the sun, the moon and the stars on the fourth day. Where, then, did the light shine from on the first day?
In ch. VII of Book III, at Fyodor's table, he tells the story of the soldier who let himself be flayed alive rather than renounce Christ, and Smerdyakov, who smiles at the door, uses the same faith that Grigory claims to have to challenge him:
попробуйте сами-с сказать сей горе, чтобы не то чтобы в море (потому что до моря отсюда далеко-с), но даже хоть в речку нашу вонючую съехала, вот что у нас за садом течет, то и увидите сами в тот же момент, что ничего не съедет-с, try telling this mountain yourself, not to move into the sea (because the sea is far from here), but even just into our stinking little river that flows behind the garden, and you will see for yourself at that very moment that nothing will move.
In ch. IX of Book III he closes the doors of the inner rooms and stands before them with arms crossed to defend the entrance, and Mitya knocks him down with a punch. In the hall, gloomy, he repeats slowly, separating the syllables:
Он меня дерзнул!, He dared to touch me!
And he says what it was for Mitya:
Я его в корыте мыл… он меня дерзнул!, I washed him in the tub... he dared to touch me!
In ch. II of Book IV and in ch. VI of Book V he is in bed in the annex, and Smerdyakov explains to Ivan that Marfa will treat him with a tincture after which the two of them will fall into a heavy sleep and will hardly hear anything. In ch. VII of Book V his waist is locked, and the day is a succession of ailments for Fyodor.
In ch. IV of Book VIII, on the night of the crime, he wakes for no reason, feels a twinge in his back, goes out to the garden from a scruple about leaving the house without a guard, sees the gate open and the master's window wide open, runs after a shadow climbing the wall and seizes its leg with both hands. It is Mitya, and he can barely cry out "parricide" before he falls. Mitya jumps back into the garden, bends over the old man and, without thinking, throws the pestle away:
он машинально отбросил его в траву. Пестик упал в двух шагах от Григория, но не в траву, а на тропинку, на самое видное место., he mechanically flung it into the grass. The pestle fell two steps from Grigory, but not in the grass; it fell on the path, in the most visible place.
In ch. II of Book IX the alarm is raised by him and by Marfa, who finds him twenty paces from the fence, wounded, murmuring that the master has been killed. In ch. III of Book IX, on learning that Grigory is alive, Mitya cries out with joy and says who he was to him:
Этот старик — ведь он носил меня на руках, господа, мыл меня в корыте, когда меня трехлетнего ребенка все покинули, был отцом родным!.., This old man carried me in his arms, gentlemen, he washed me in the tub when, as a three-year-old child, everyone had abandoned me; he was a father to me indeed!...
In ch. V of Book IX Mitya keeps silent that he jumped over the wall out of pity, and the prosecutor reads the jump as coldness:
Увы, Мите и в голову не пришло рассказать, хотя он и помнил это, что соскочил он из жалости и, став над убитым, произнес даже несколько жалких слов: «Попался старик, нечего делать, ну и лежи»., Alas, it never occurred to Mitya to tell, although he remembered it, that he jumped down out of pity and, standing over the man he took to be dead, even said a few pitiful words: "The old man has come to grief, there is nothing to be done, well, lie there."
In ch. VI of Book IX the prosecutor informs Mitya that Grigory, on regaining consciousness, says he saw the garden door wide open and believes that Mitya went out through it.
In ch. VIII of Book XI Smerdyakov tells Ivan that the open door was only imagination, which happened to suit them. In ch. II of Book XII Grigory testifies calmly and majestically, confirms the open door without giving way, and Fetyukovich questions him about the balm with which he rubbed his back and whether he did not perhaps see the gates of paradise open instead of the garden door:
Я человек подневольный [...] коли начальству угодно надо мною надсмехаться, так я снести должен., I am a man under orders [...] if the authorities choose to mock me, I must bear it.
Asked, Mitya thanks the old man for having picked the lice off him and for having forgiven him, and asks his pardon. In ch. VIII of Book XII the prosecutor reads Mitya's jump to see whether Grigory was alive, as a wish to know whether the only witness was dead, and in ch. X of Book XII the defence attorney turns the same gesture inside out, as proof that psychology is a double-edged sword.
Themes Embodied
Grigory is the law lived as duty and gratitude, with no reason given: he orders his wife to be silent with the command not to understand (ch. I of Book III), sees in the sixth finger of the son a violation of the natural order (ch. I of Book III), and measures Mitya's offence by what he did for him, the tub and the bath (ch. IX of Book III). The theme he carries is that of Family, understood as a debt owed by whoever raises and by whoever is raised, and that of Faith, put to the test by Smerdyakov at the table (ch. VII of Book III) and by Fetyukovich in court (ch. II of Book XII). It also appears in Justice and law, as the witness on whom the inquiry relies for the open door.
Grigory looks after Mitya, shelters Ivan and Alyosha for some months and raises Smerdyakov, and gives them all the same care without asking for anything; that is why Mitya's offence hurts as the breaking of an order of gratitudes (ch. IX of Book III). With Smerdyakov the same law produces the opposite of what it intends: the boy whom he told he was not a human being, born of the damp of the bathhouse, is the one who years later kills the master (ch. VI of Book III, ch. VIII of Book XI). The text does not judge the upbringing: it shows that a morality of duty without reason serves whoever receives it with gratitude, like Mitya, and not whoever receives it by asking for reasons, like Smerdyakov.
Divergent Readings
The book gives three treatments to Grigory's testimony, and none of them makes him lie. The prosecutor and the judge take the open door as decisive proof (ch. VI of Book IX). The defence attorney exposes him to ridicule with the question about the balm and the gates of paradise (ch. II of Book XII). Smerdyakov, in his confession, says that the open door was only imagination (ch. VIII of Book XI).
The open door of the house to the garden may be true, and then someone passed through it; it may be the error of a wounded man treated with balm and vodka (ch. II of Book XII), or imagination that happened to suit whoever planned the crime (ch. VIII of Book XI). The text sustains the second and third, because the confession shows the crime carried out through the window, with the signals, but it leaves one part beyond doubt: what the narrator shows Grigory seeing on the night of the crime is the gate in the fence open and the master's window wide open (ch. IV of Book VIII), and the inner door enters only in his testimony (ch. VI of Book IX). What Grigory does not do in any of the readings is invent: the dignity with which he answers the defence attorney (ch. II of Book XII) is that of a man who knows what he saw and refuses to be made a fool of.
Relationships
- Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov: the master whom he serves out of duty and whom he watches like a tutor (ch. IV of Book I); he defends him against Lisaveta's rumour (ch. II of Book III).
- Dmitri Fyodorovich Karamazov: the boy he raised in the hut (ch. II of Book I), who knocks him down with a punch (ch. IX of Book III) and who leaves him wounded in the garden (ch. IV of Book VIII); Mitya calls him a foster father (ch. III of Book IX).
- Smerdyakov: the boy he took in and raised, whom he punishes with rods and tells that he is not a human being (ch. II of Book III, ch. VI of Book III); the one who challenges him at the table (ch. VII of Book III) and whose confession contradicts the open door (ch. VIII of Book XI).
- Alexei Fyodorovich Karamazov: the boy he sheltered and to whom he takes his mother's grave (ch. IV of Book I).
- Ivan Fyodorovich Karamazov: the other son of Sofya whom he sheltered (ch. III of Book I); Ivan hears from him, in the hall, that Mitya dared to touch him (ch. IX of Book III).
- Fetyukovich: the defence attorney who questions him about the balm and the gates of paradise (ch. II of Book XII).