MITYA: He’s turned you against me.
ALYOSHA: No.
MITYA: You’re always hurrying away.
ALYOSHA: Listening to you reminds me what I am.
MITYA: What’s that?
ALYOSHA: The same as you.
MITYA: You and me? The same?
ALYOSHA: We share the same blood, the same history. Why not the same future?
Knocking.
MITYA: You know she has her eye on you. My woman.
Says all you need is the fury of a lover’s touch and you’d be cured.
ALYOSHA: Cured?
MITYA: Of your obscene dedication to the truth.
Keep your distance, brother. She’ll test you like she’s tested the rest of us.
ALYOSHA: Stay away from father.
MITYA: Let him take everything that’s mine—?
ALYOSHA: He is playing us one against the other—
MITYA: The hate that’s in my heart—
ALYOSHA: I’m scared what you’ll do.
A beat.
FEDYA: [to himself; barely heard] If we could discard God…
MITYA: [to FEDYA] You think I don’t hear you muttering? You think it doesn’t make perfect sense?
ALYOSHA: What? What does he say?
Knocking.
MITYA: [to FEDYA] Tell him.
A beat.
Always quiet as the grave…
[To ALYOSHA] All we need do is let go of this absurd hope that there’s something more—something beyond us—and we’d know it. [To FEDYA] Isn’t that right, brother?
ALYOSHA: Know what?
MITYA: Nothing is sinful.
Knocking.
ALYOSHA: What does he know/ of sin—?
MITYA: Anything—everything—is allowed.
Knocking.
FEDYA: To kill a thing as foul and sordid as our father…?
MITYA: Under such a system, it’d almost be an obligation.
Insistent knocking.
SCENE TEN
ANNA at FEDYA’s door. She is knocking.
As she’s knocking, FEDYA opens the door in a rush.
FEDYA: What?
ANNA is dumb-struck.
What?
ANNA grasps at words.
FEDYA: Go away.
ANNA: I was sent—
FEDYA: I don’t care.
ANNA: I was sent you’re expecting me.
FEDYA: I’m not—
ANNA: For the novel—
FEDYA: The novel—?
ANNA: There’s a deadline and he gave/ me—
FEDYA: He sent you?
ANNA: This address and/ I’m here and I’m to—
FEDYA: You tell Stellovsky, Miss—
ANNA: I don’t know who you think—
FEDYA: Tell him he can threaten me all he wants—
ANNA: I don’t know anyone called Stellovsky —
FEDYA: There is no novel, there will be no novel—
ANNA: I’m the stenographer—
FEDYA slams the door shut.
[Through the door] I’m the stenographer!
A beat.
FEDYA opens the door again.
Nikolai Ivanovich sent me.
A beat.
FEDYA moves into the flat, leaving the door open. ANNA realises she’s expected to follow.
Inside, the room is still quite dark. FEDYA sits himself down and picks up his pen. His hand hovers over his notebook.
A silence.
[Filling the silence] That you weren’t here. That’s what I thought. At first. Or not answering. The number of times I knocked. I’d have gone. Given up. But Kolya— [Correcting herself] Nikolai Ivanovich—he said if you didn’t answer—
FEDYA gestures for her to be quiet.
Silence.
[Again needing to fill the silence] Your landlady, she said you were dangerous. That you wouldn’t be here. That you’re never here. She said to go home. But I could hear you talking and—
Another gesture to be quiet.
A beat.
FEDYA returns to the notebook. His hand hovering again, as though ready to write. After a moment, he gives it up. He goes about the room, opening shutters etc, letting in light.
FEDYA: A universe of ideas and what do I have to show for it? Half a page of nonsense. Sentences barely breathing. Because you knock at my door.
ANNA: I could go—
FEDYA: Too late—
ANNA: Come back—
FEDYA: It’s dead now.
Your name again?
ANNA: Anna Grigorevna.
FEDYA: I had a dream last night, Anna Grigorevna. A flea biting at me as I slept. I pulled my mattress apart searching for it, but it wouldn’t be found. So on it went. Biting and biting. Was that you, do you think?
ANNA: A dream is a dream.
FEDYA: Is that meant to be a clever answer?
ANNA: No.
FEDYA: You’re looking at my eye.
ANNA: No.
FEDYA: You are.
ANNA: I’m not.
FEDYA: You think it odd.
ANNA: No.
FEDYA: Why not? It is odd.
A fit. Last night. I fell. Knocked my eye. See? It seems I have no iris at all.
He is very close to her.
FEDYA: Kolya’s told you you’d be working for an ex-convict?
ANNA: Your sentence is finished, sir.
FEDYA: But you’re never entirely free.
Do you know why I was imprisoned?
ANNA: Yes.
FEDYA: I’m not a murderer, no matter what my landlady thinks.
ANNA: No.
FEDYA: I spoke my mind.
Nothing for you to fear.
A beat.
There must be a scrap of some abandoned novel here somewhere. Something worthless enough for Stellovsky…
FEDYA begins searching among his papers. Realising he’s not going to clear a space for her, ANNA finds herself somewhere to sit, takes her notepad etc from her case.
FEDYA has gathered together what seem like scraps of paper—bits of this and that, of various sizes. He has a handful of them. He starts organising them into some sort of order, finds the one that he’ll begin with. The whole business is quite involved and time-consuming.
He seems about to begin. Hesitates.
[Conversationally] Do you want tea?
ANNA: No.
FEDYA: Brandy?
ANNA: No.
FEDYA: The landlady used to bring me tea. When she knew I was here. Every other hour, a whole new pot. Even soup sometimes. Cake if she was feeling particularly generous. Until the incident with the rock. She thought I was going to kill her. I wasn’t. I was just working, but—. She hasn’t brought me so much as a mouthful of tea since. ‘If it’s in your head. If it’s in your head to do it,’ she says, ‘then who’s to say that your hands won’t one day follow?’
A beat.
FEDYA: You know my writing?
ANNA: A little.
FEDYA: Crime and Punishment. My last novel. You must know it.
ANNA: The work, sir.
FEDYA: Just say. If you haven’t read it.
I don’t bite.
ANNA: I haven’t read it.
FEDYA: There. Not so difficult.
Why haven’t you read it?
ANNA: I—I’ve not had the time.
FEDYA: Why, what have you been doing?
ANNA: Studying.
FEDYA: You’re a student?
ANNA: I was.
FEDYA: Of what?