feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/shmoop/The Brothers Karamazov/section_14_part_0.txt
feat_book_id: The Brothers Karamazov.book 3.chapter 2
feat_summary_id: book 3, chapter 2
feat_summary: {"name": "Book 3, Chapter 2", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201023112808/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/brothers-karamazov/summary/book-3-chapter-2", "summary": "Stinking Lizaveta was just 20 years old when she gave birth to her son. Her father was an unemployed drunkard who beat her whenever she came home, but generally Stinking Lizaveta wandered around town dressed only in a simple shift, despite the best efforts of the townspeople to clothe her. Simple-minded and mute, Stinking Lizaveta would often sleep outside in random gardens. One night, or so the rumors went, Fyodor and some other drunken gentlemen were headed home from the club and found Stinking Lizaveta. One of them asked whether she could ever be considered a woman, and they all laughed, except for Fyodor. The gentlemen encouraged Fyodor to have sex with her, but he refused. A few months after this incident, everyone noticed to their shock that Lizaveta was pregnant. While Fyodor denied it, everyone assumed he was the father, a rumor that only seemed confirmed with Lizaveta gave birth in his kitchen garden. Grigory and Marfa raised the child as their own, and Fyodor even took a liking to him, naming him Smerdyakov, after his mother's last name. Smerdyakov grew to be a cook in Fyodor's household.", "analysis": ""}
text: Chapter II. Lizaveta
  
  
  There was one circumstance which struck Grigory particularly, and
  confirmed a very unpleasant and revolting suspicion. This Lizaveta was a
  dwarfish creature, "not five foot within a wee bit," as many of the pious
  old women said pathetically about her, after her death. Her broad,
  healthy, red face had a look of blank idiocy and the fixed stare in her
  eyes was unpleasant, in spite of their meek expression. She wandered
  about, summer and winter alike, barefooted, wearing nothing but a hempen
  smock. Her coarse, almost black hair curled like lamb's wool, and formed a
  sort of huge cap on her head. It was always crusted with mud, and had
  leaves, bits of stick, and shavings clinging to it, as she always slept on
  the ground and in the dirt. Her father, a homeless, sickly drunkard,
  called Ilya, had lost everything and lived many years as a workman with
  some well-to-do tradespeople. Her mother had long been dead. Spiteful and
  diseased, Ilya used to beat Lizaveta inhumanly whenever she returned to
  him. But she rarely did so, for every one in the town was ready to look
  after her as being an idiot, and so specially dear to God. Ilya's
  employers, and many others in the town, especially of the tradespeople,
  tried to clothe her better, and always rigged her out with high boots and
  sheepskin coat for the winter. But, although she allowed them to dress her
  up without resisting, she usually went away, preferably to the cathedral
  porch, and taking off all that had been given her--kerchief, sheepskin,
  skirt or boots--she left them there and walked away barefoot in her smock
  as before. It happened on one occasion that a new governor of the
  province, making a tour of inspection in our town, saw Lizaveta, and was
  wounded in his tenderest susceptibilities. And though he was told she was
  an idiot, he pronounced that for a young woman of twenty to wander about
  in nothing but a smock was a breach of the proprieties, and must not occur
  again. But the governor went his way, and Lizaveta was left as she was. At
  last her father died, which made her even more acceptable in the eyes of
  the religious persons of the town, as an orphan. In fact, every one seemed
  to like her; even the boys did not tease her, and the boys of our town,
  especially the schoolboys, are a mischievous set. She would walk into
  strange houses, and no one drove her away. Every one was kind to her and
  gave her something. If she were given a copper, she would take it, and at
  once drop it in the alms-jug of the church or prison. If she were given a
  roll or bun in the market, she would hand it to the first child she met.
  Sometimes she would stop one of the richest ladies in the town and give it
  to her, and the lady would be pleased to take it. She herself never tasted
  anything but black bread and water. If she went into an expensive shop,
  where there were costly goods or money lying about, no one kept watch on
  her, for they knew that if she saw thousands of roubles overlooked by
  them, she would not have touched a farthing. She scarcely ever went to
  church. She slept either in the church porch or climbed over a hurdle
  (there are many hurdles instead of fences to this day in our town) into a
  kitchen garden. She used at least once a week to turn up "at home," that
  is at the house of her father's former employers, and in the winter went
  there every night, and slept either in the passage or the cowhouse. People
  were amazed that she could stand such a life, but she was accustomed to
  it, and, although she was so tiny, she was of a robust constitution. Some
  of the townspeople declared that she did all this only from pride, but
  that is hardly credible. She could hardly speak, and only from time to
  time uttered an inarticulate grunt. How could she have been proud?
  
  It happened one clear, warm, moonlight night in September (many years ago)
  five or six drunken revelers were returning from the club at a very late
  hour, according to our provincial notions. They passed through the "back-
  way," which led between the back gardens of the houses, with hurdles on
  either side. This way leads out on to the bridge over the long, stinking
  pool which we were accustomed to call a river. Among the nettles and
  burdocks under the hurdle our revelers saw Lizaveta asleep. They stopped
  to look at her, laughing, and began jesting with unbridled licentiousness.
  It occurred to one young gentleman to make the whimsical inquiry whether
  any one could possibly look upon such an animal as a woman, and so
  forth.... They all pronounced with lofty repugnance that it was
  impossible. But Fyodor Pavlovitch, who was among them, sprang forward and
  declared that it was by no means impossible, and that, indeed, there was a
  certain piquancy about it, and so on.... It is true that at that time he
  was overdoing his part as a buffoon. He liked to put himself forward and
  entertain the company, ostensibly on equal terms, of course, though in
  reality he was on a servile footing with them. It was just at the time
  when he had received the news of his first wife's death in Petersburg,
  and, with crape upon his hat, was drinking and behaving so shamelessly
  that even the most reckless among us were shocked at the sight of him. The
  revelers, of course, laughed at this unexpected opinion; and one of them
  even began challenging him to act upon it. The others repelled the idea
  even more emphatically, although still with the utmost hilarity, and at
  last they went on their way. Later on, Fyodor Pavlovitch swore that he had
  gone with them, and perhaps it was so, no one knows for certain, and no
  one ever knew. But five or six months later, all the town was talking,
  with intense and sincere indignation, of Lizaveta's condition, and trying
  to find out who was the miscreant who had wronged her. Then suddenly a
  terrible rumor was all over the town that this miscreant was no other than
  Fyodor Pavlovitch. Who set the rumor going? Of that drunken band five had
  left the town and the only one still among us was an elderly and much
  respected civil councilor, the father of grown-up daughters, who could
  hardly have spread the tale, even if there had been any foundation for it.
  But rumor pointed straight at Fyodor Pavlovitch, and persisted in pointing
  at him. Of course this was no great grievance to him: he would not have
  troubled to contradict a set of tradespeople. In those days he was proud,
  and did not condescend to talk except in his own circle of the officials
  and nobles, whom he entertained so well.
  
  At the time, Grigory stood up for his master vigorously. He provoked
  quarrels and altercations in defense of him and succeeded in bringing some
  people round to his side. "It's the wench's own fault," he asserted, and
  the culprit was Karp, a dangerous convict, who had escaped from prison and
  whose name was well known to us, as he had hidden in our town. This
  conjecture sounded plausible, for it was remembered that Karp had been in
  the neighborhood just at that time in the autumn, and had robbed three
  people. But this affair and all the talk about it did not estrange popular
  sympathy from the poor idiot. She was better looked after than ever. A
  well-to-do merchant's widow named Kondratyev arranged to take her into her
  house at the end of April, meaning not to let her go out until after the
  confinement. They kept a constant watch over her, but in spite of their
  vigilance she escaped on the very last day, and made her way into Fyodor
  Pavlovitch's garden. How, in her condition, she managed to climb over the
  high, strong fence remained a mystery. Some maintained that she must have
  been lifted over by somebody; others hinted at something more uncanny. The
  most likely explanation is that it happened naturally--that Lizaveta,
  accustomed to clambering over hurdles to sleep in gardens, had somehow
  managed to climb this fence, in spite of her condition, and had leapt
  down, injuring herself.
  
  Grigory rushed to Marfa and sent her to Lizaveta, while he ran to fetch an
  old midwife who lived close by. They saved the baby, but Lizaveta died at
  dawn. Grigory took the baby, brought it home, and making his wife sit
  down, put it on her lap. "A child of God--an orphan is akin to all," he
  said, "and to us above others. Our little lost one has sent us this, who
  has come from the devil's son and a holy innocent. Nurse him and weep no
  more."
  
  So Marfa brought up the child. He was christened Pavel, to which people
  were not slow in adding Fyodorovitch (son of Fyodor). Fyodor Pavlovitch
  did not object to any of this, and thought it amusing, though he persisted
  vigorously in denying his responsibility. The townspeople were pleased at
  his adopting the foundling. Later on, Fyodor Pavlovitch invented a surname
  for the child, calling him Smerdyakov, after his mother's nickname.
  
  So this Smerdyakov became Fyodor Pavlovitch's second servant, and was
  living in the lodge with Grigory and Marfa at the time our story begins.
  He was employed as cook. I ought to say something of this Smerdyakov, but
  I am ashamed of keeping my readers' attention so long occupied with these
  common menials, and I will go back to my story, hoping to say more of
  Smerdyakov in the course of it.
  
  
  
  
  
feat_summary_name: Book 3, Chapter 2
target: Stinking Lizaveta was just 20 years old when she gave birth to her son. Her father was an unemployed drunkard who beat her whenever she came home, but generally Stinking Lizaveta wandered around town dressed only in a simple shift, despite the best efforts of the townspeople to clothe her. Simple-minded and mute, Stinking Lizaveta would often sleep outside in random gardens. One night, or so the rumors went, Fyodor and some other drunken gentlemen were headed home from the club and found Stinking Lizaveta. One of them asked whether she could ever be considered a woman, and they all laughed, except for Fyodor. The gentlemen encouraged Fyodor to have sex with her, but he refused. A few months after this incident, everyone noticed to their shock that Lizaveta was pregnant. While Fyodor denied it, everyone assumed he was the father, a rumor that only seemed confirmed with Lizaveta gave birth in his kitchen garden. Grigory and Marfa raised the child as their own, and Fyodor even took a liking to him, naming him Smerdyakov, after his mother's last name. Smerdyakov grew to be a cook in Fyodor's household.