Who She Is
Agrafena Alexandrovna, Grushenka in the popular diminutive, is the woman around whom the rivalry between Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov and his son Dmitri Fyodorovich Karamazov revolves, and the pole that common readings reduce to the other point of the triangle with Katerina Ivanovna. She is twenty-two when Alyosha first sees her, of Russian beauty, very white skin, grey-blue eyes, a childlike air and a drawl in her speech that contrasts with a girl's gaiety (ch. X of Book III). Five years earlier she had been seduced and abandoned by a Polish officer, and what saved her from suicide was the old merchant Samsonov, her father and friend (ch. X of Book III), who four years ago, when she was eighteen, frightened and thin, had set her up in a rented pavilion belonging to the widow Morozova. From there she came out a determined woman, good at business, who even bought bills for a few kopecks in partnership with Fyodor (ch. III of Book VII). What sets her apart from the role of the seductress is the turn of Book VII: she asks Rakitin to bring Alyosha so that she can destroy him, and it is she who disarms herself, and hers is the fable of the onion, which becomes one of the central images of mercy in the novel (ch. III of Book VII).
Trajectory
Until ch. X of Book III, she exists only as an absence, described by Mitya in terms that mix desire and hatred. In ch. V of Book III, he tells Alyosha what she did to him and what her body remembers:
Грянула гроза, ударила чума, заразился и заражен доселе, и знаю, что уж всё кончено, что ничего другого и никогда не будет. Цикл времен совершен., The storm broke, the plague struck, I caught it and I am infected to this day, and I know that everything is over, that nothing else will ever be. The cycle of time is complete.
У Грушеньки, шельмы, есть такой один изгиб тела, он и на ножке у ней отразился, даже в пальчике-мизинчике на левой ножке отозвался., Grushenka, the rascal, has a certain curve of the body, and it shows even in her little foot, it echoes even in the little toe of her left foot.
In ch. VII of Book II, Rakitin assures Alyosha that she is playing with father and son, waiting for the best offer, and asks him to bring her so that she can take his cassock off. In ch. IX of Book III, Mitya bursts into the old man's house looking for her, and she is not there. The old man, delighted to learn that she will not go to Mitya, asks him to find out whom she prefers, but he soon takes it back: she will not tell the truth. In ch. X of Book III, in Katerina Ivanovna's drawing room, she appears on stage for the first time, at the invitation of the hostess, who kisses her on the lips and hands. Grushenka denies having promised to save Mitya, says she is capricious and that she may go back to him, and Katerina turns pale. When asking for her hand to even the score, she raises it to her lips and stops in mid-air:
А так и оставайтесь с тем на память, что вы-то у меня ручку целовали, а я у вас нет., Then keep this as a souvenir: that you kissed my little hand, and I did not kiss yours.
When Katerina calls her a venal creature, she replies:
Ну уж и продажная. Сами вы девицей к кавалерам за деньгами в сумерки хаживали, свою красоту продавать приносили, ведь я же знаю., Well, venal indeed. You yourself, as a young girl, used to go to gentlemen for money at dusk, you brought your beauty to sell, I know it well.
She leaves laughing, tells Alyosha that she put on the scene for him and that afterwards she will enjoy it. In ch. III of Book VII, dressed in black silk, she waits for a courier from Mokroye with news of the officer; she had told Mitya that she would spend the night counting money with Samsonov. When Rakitin and Alyosha arrive, she shouts, thinking it is the captain breaking down the door, and is delighted to recognize them. Alyosha sees another woman, simple and quick. She sits on his lap and he does not move; Alyosha tells Rakitin what he saw in her:
нашел сестру искреннюю, нашел сокровище — душу любящую… [...] Ты мою душу сейчас восстановила., I have found a sincere sister, I have found a treasure, a loving soul... [...] You have just restored my soul.
Grushenka tells the two of them to be quiet and tells Alyosha the fable she heard from the cook Matryona, the one about the wicked woman who gave an onion to a beggar:
Жила-была одна баба злющая-презлющая и померла. И не осталось после нее ни одной добродетели. Схватили ее черти и кинули в огненное озеро. А ангел-хранитель ее стоит да и думает: какую бы мне такую добродетель ее припомнить, чтобы богу сказать. Вспомнил и говорит богу: она, говорит, в огороде луковку выдернула и нищенке подала. И отвечает ему бог: возьми ж ты, говорит, эту самую луковку, протяни ей в озеро, пусть ухватится и тянется, и коли вытянешь ее вон из озера, то пусть в рай идет, а оборвется луковка, то там и оставаться бабе, где теперь. Побежал ангел к бабе, протянул ей луковку: на, говорит, баба, схватись и тянись. И стал он ее осторожно тянуть и уж всю было вытянул, да грешники прочие в озере, как увидали, что ее тянут вон, и стали все за нее хвататься, чтоб и их вместе с нею вытянули. А баба-то была злющая-презлющая, и почала она их ногами брыкать: „Меня тянут, а не вас, моя луковка, а не ваша“. Только что она это выговорила, луковка-то и порвалась. И упала баба в озеро и горит по сей день. А ангел заплакал и отошел, There was once a woman, wicked, most wicked, and she died. And no virtue of hers remained. The devils seized her and threw her into the lake of fire. Her guardian angel stood there and thought: what virtue of hers could I recall to tell God? He remembered and said to God: she, he says, pulled an onion out of the garden and gave it to a beggar. And God answered him: take that very onion, he says, and hold it out to her over the lake, let her catch hold and pull herself up, and if you can draw her out of the lake, let her go to paradise, but if the onion breaks, let her stay where she is now. The angel ran to the woman and held out the onion: here, he says, woman, catch hold and pull. And he began to draw her out gently, and had almost got her out entirely, but the other sinners in the lake saw her being pulled out and all grabbed hold of her, so that they too would be drawn out with her. And the woman was wicked, most wicked, and she began to kick them with her feet: "It's me being pulled, not you, my onion, not yours." No sooner had she said it than the onion broke. And the woman fell back into the lake and burns to this day. And the angel wept and went away.
She hands Rakitin the twenty-five rubles for bringing Alyosha, and makes to Alyosha alone the whole confession:
Хотела я тебя погубить, Алеша, правда это великая, совсем положила [...] Но на тебя глядя, положила: его проглочу. Проглочу и смеяться буду., I wanted to ruin you, Alyosha, that is the great truth, I had quite decided [...] But looking at you, I decided: I will devour him. I will devour him and laugh.
She tells of the five years of hatred for her offender, and falls on her knees at his feet, hoping that someone will love her, vile as she is. Alyosha answers that what he gave her was only one onion, the smallest of all:
луковку я тебе подал, одну самую малую луковку, только, только!.., It was an onion I gave you, one single, the smallest onion, only that, only that!...
When the courier arrives, she reads the note, turns pale, calls herself a bitch who should crawl, and soon, with blood rushing to her face, shouts that she is leaving. From the window she sends a message to Mitya:
Подлецу досталась Грушенька, а не тебе, благородному!, Grushenka went to the scoundrel, and not to you, the noble one!
In ch. VII of Book VIII, in Mokroye, she screams when she sees Mitya. When the pan reveals that Mitya offered him money to go away, she feels sold and turns against both of them: she realizes the officer came to marry for money, and says aloud, in front of everyone:
Дура, дура была я, что пять лет себя мучила! Да и не за него себя мучила вовсе, я со злобы себя мучила! Да и не он это вовсе! Разве он был такой? Это отец его какой-то! [...] Тот был сокол, а это селезень., I was a fool, a fool, to torment myself for five years! And I wasn't tormenting myself over him at all, I was tormenting myself out of spite! And it isn't even him! Was he ever like that? That's some father of his! [...] That one was a falcon, and this one is a drake.
In ch. VIII of Book VIII, after the orgy of music and wine, it is Mitya who finds her behind the curtain, weeping, and hears her say to herself:
Его ли любила али только злобу мою? Нет, его! Ох, его!, Was it him I loved, or only my spite? No, him! Oh, him!
She asks him whom he loves there, says she will plough the land with him, and when the curtain opens and the police chief and the examining magistrate enter, she stares over his head, frightened. In ch. III of Book IX, kept in the neighbouring room during Mitya's interrogation, she cannot hold back, rushes into the room and cries out:
Это я, я, окаянная, я виновата!, It was I, I, accursed woman, I am to blame!
In ch. VIII of Book IX, brought in by the police chief, pale and grave, in her black shawl, she answers the magistrates' questions as if Mitya were an acquaintance she did not like and who attracted her out of base malice, to amuse herself with his jealousy. But when Mitya swears before her that he is not guilty of his father's blood, she crosses herself before the icon:
Как он теперь сказал, тому и верьте! Знаю его: сболтнуть что сболтнет, али для смеху, али с упрямства, но если против совести, то никогда не обманет. Прямо правду скажет, тому верьте!, Believe what he has just said! I know him: he may blurt out anything, whether for a joke or out of stubbornness, but if it is against his conscience, he never lies. He will tell the plain truth, believe that!
In ch. I of Book XI, two months after the arrest, she has got over five weeks of illness, one of them unconscious, thinner, with a steady gaze and a line between her eyebrows. She goes to the prison every day, quarrels with Mitya, and tells Alyosha about his jealousy:
Мне не то обидно, что он меня, такую, приревновал, а то стало бы мне обидно, коли бы вовсе не ревновал [...] Только мне то обидно, что он меня вовсе не любит и теперь нарочно приревновал, It does not offend me that he is jealous of me, of the way I am; it would offend me if he were not jealous at all [...] Only what offends me is that he does not love me at all, and now he is jealous on purpose.
What troubles her most is that Mitya talks endlessly about a boy and swears he will go to Siberia for him, although he did not kill anyone:
За дитё-то это я теперь и в Сибирь пойду, я не убил, но мне надо в Сибирь пойти!, For that child I will now go even to Siberia, I did not kill, but I must go to Siberia!
In ch. IV of Book XII, in court, she testifies dressed in black, proud, with moments of roughness and sincerity, and says that Smerdyakov is the wrongdoer and that the cause of everything is Katerina, the destroyer. In ch. V of Book XII, when she is led away, she throws herself towards Mitya:
Митя! [...] погубила тебя твоя змея! Вон она вам себя показала!, Mitya! [...] your serpent has ruined you! Look how she has shown herself to you!
In ch. XIV of Book XII, at the back of the hall, her cry is heard when the verdict is read. In ch. II of the Epilogue, at the hospital, she enters the room when Katerina is there, and Katerina asks her to forgive her, and Grushenka does not forgive.
Themes Embodied
Grushenka enacts a pride that grows from an old wound, not from vanity: five years of abandonment and shame turn first into calculation and cruelty, the humiliation of Katerina, and then, before someone who does not judge her, into confession and surrender (ch. X of Book III, ch. III of Book VII). The parable of the onion is the key she herself chooses to describe herself, a soul with no other virtue that nearly saves itself through a minimal gesture, and the novel uses it to measure both her and Alyosha, who answers that he gave her only one onion, the smallest (ch. III of Book VII, ch. IV of Book VII). The theme she carries is that of Suffering, lived in the waiting for the officer and in the guilt she attributes to herself (ch. III of Book IX).
What she wants is to be loved as vile as she is, and not only despite the shame of the five years (ch. III of Book VII); what she fears is having to crawl before the man who abandoned her (ch. III of Book VII); what she knows, in Book VIII, is that the falcon she loved was only a memory (ch. VII of Book VIII); where she is wrong is in thinking that the old wound is love. Beside Katerina Ivanovna, Grushenka shows the forgiveness one receives, since Alyosha's gesture disarms her without her asking for anything, while Katerina shows the forgiveness one declares and does not feel (ch. III of Book VII, ch. II of the Epilogue).
Divergent Readings
The book places around her opposing readings. For Mitya, she is a plague (ch. V of Book III) and "infernal" (ch. XI of Book III); for Katerina, a tigress and a venal creature (ch. X of Book III); for Rakitin, the sinner whom Alyosha failed to convert (ch. III of Book VII). For Alyosha, a sincere sister, a loving soul (ch. III of Book VII). And for herself, after the arrest, the one to blame for everything (ch. III of Book IX), who before the magistrates swears that Mitya, even when he talks nonsense out of stubbornness, does not deceive against his conscience (ch. VIII of Book IX).
Readings differ on whether Grushenka is danger or salvation, a femme fatale or a saint. Those of Mitya and Katerina read her by what she does to them; Alyosha's reads her by what she is when nothing is at stake. The book gives reason to both, because the same woman who humiliates Katerina and lies to Mitya about Samsonov is the one who tells the onion story and swears by his conscience (ch. X of Book III, ch. III of Book VII, ch. VIII of Book IX). Against the femme fatale reading, it is worth noting that she disarms herself before someone who does not judge her; against the saint reading, Alyosha's gesture lasts only minutes, and when the note arrives she runs to Mokroye (ch. III of Book VII).
Relationships
- Dmitri Fyodorovich Karamazov: the man she chooses after Mokroye, despite her own pride and his (ch. VII of Book VIII, ch. VIII of Book VIII).
- Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov: the suitor she never visits on the night of the crime, although he is waiting for her with the envelope of three thousand rubles (ch. VII of Book V, ch. II of Book IX).
- Katerina Ivanovna: a declared rival, the two humiliate each other in Katerina's drawing room (ch. X of Book III) and meet again at the hospital without forgiving each other (ch. II of the Epilogue).
- Alexei Fyodorovich Karamazov: the only one who treats her as a sister without judging her, and it is that gesture which disarms her (ch. III of Book VII).
- Rakitin: her cousin, whom she uses as an intermediary and treats as a lackey (ch. III of Book VII, ch. IV of Book XII).