“Just now you said — something quite different,” Katerina Ivanovna whispered faintly.
“Ah, just now! But, you know, I’m such a soft-hearted, silly creature. Only think what he’s gone through on my account! What if when I go home I feel sorry for him? What then?”
“I never expected-”
“Ah, young lady, how good and generous you are compared with me! Now perhaps you won’t care for a silly creature like me, now you know my character. Give me your sweet little hand, angelic lady,” she said tenderly, and with a sort of reverence took Katerina Ivanovna’s hand.
“Here, dear young lady, I’ll take your hand and kiss it as you did mine. You kissed mine three times, but I ought to kiss yours three hundred times to be even with you. Well, but let that pass. And then it shall be as God wills. Perhaps I shall be your slave entirely and want to do your bidding like a slave. Let it be as God wills, without any agreements and promises. What a sweet hand — what a sweet hand you have! You sweet young lady, you incredible beauty!”
She slowly raised the hands to her lips, with the strange object indeed of “being even” with her in kisses.
Katerina Ivanovna did not take her hand away. She listened with timid hope to the last words, though Grushenka’s promise to do her bidding like a slave was very strangely expressed. She looked intently into her eyes; she still saw in those eyes the same simplehearted, confiding expression, the same bright gaiety.
“She’s perhaps too naive,” thought Katerina Ivanovna, with a gleam of hope.
Grushenka meanwhile seemed enthusiastic over the “sweet hand.” She raised it deliberately to her lips. But she held it for two or three minutes near her lips, as though reconsidering something.
“Do you know, angel lady,” she suddenly drawled in an even more soft and sugary voice, “do you know, after all, I think I won’t kiss your hand?” And she laughed a little merry laugh.
“As you please. What’s the matter with you?” said Katerina Ivanovna, starting suddenly.
“So that you may be left to remember that you kissed my hand, but I didn’t kiss yours.”
There was a sudden gleam in her eyes. She looked with awful intentness at Katerina Ivanovna.
“Insolent creature!” cried Katerina Ivanovna, as though suddenly grasping something. She flushed all over and leapt up from her seat.
Grushenka too got up, but without haste.
“So I shall tell Mitya how you kissed my hand, but I didn’t kiss yours at all. And how he will laugh!”
“Vile slut! Go away!”
“Ah, for shame, young lady! Ah, for shame! That’s unbecoming for you, dear young lady, a word like that.”
“Go away! You’re a creature for sale” screamed Katerina Ivanovna. Every feature was working in her utterly distorted face.
“For sale indeed! You used to visit gentlemen in the dusk for money once; you brought your beauty for sale. You see, I know.”
Katerina Ivanovna shrieked, and would have rushed at her, but Alyosha held her with all his strength.
“Not a step, not a word! Don’t speak, don’t answer her. She’ll go away — she’ll go at once.”
At that instant Katerina Ivanovna’s two aunts ran in at her cry, and with them a maidservant. All hurried to her.
“I will go away,” said Grushenka, taking up her mantle from the sofa. “Alyosha, darling, see me home!”
“Go away — go away, make haste!” cried Alyosha, clasping his hands imploringly.
“Dear little Alyosha, see me home! I’ve got a pretty little story to tell you on the way. I got up this scene for your benefit, Alyosha. See me home, dear, you’ll be glad of it afterwards.”
Alyosha turned away, wringing his hands. Grushenka ran out of the house, laughing musically.
Katerina Ivanovna went into a fit of hysterics. She sobbed, and was shaken with convulsions. Everyone fussed round her.
“I warned you,” said the elder of her aunts. “I tried to prevent your doing this. You’re too impulsive. How could you do such a thing? You don’t know these creatures, and they say she’s worse than any of them. You are too self-willed.”
“She’s a tigress!” yelled Katerina Ivanovna. “Why did you hold me, Alexey Fyodorovitch? I’d have beaten her — beaten her!”
She could not control herself before Alyosha; perhaps she did not care to, indeed.
“She ought to be flogged in public on a scaffold!”
Alyosha withdrew towards the door.
“But, my God!” cried Katerina Ivanovna, clasping her hands. “He! He! He could be so dishonourable, so inhuman! Why, he told that creature what happened on that fatal, accursed day! ‘You brought your beauty for sale, dear young lady.’ She knows it! Your brother’s a scoundrel, Alexey Fyodorovitch.”
Alyosha wanted to say something, but he couldn’t find a word. His heart ached.
“Go away, Alexey Fyodorovitch! It’s shameful, it’s awful for me! Tomorrow, I beg you on my knees, come tomorrow. Don’t condemm me. Forgive me. I don’t know what I shall do with myself now!”
Alyosha walked out into the street reeling. He could have wept as she did. Suddenly he was overtaken by the maid.
“The young lady forgot to give you this letter from Madame Hohlakov; it’s been left with us since dinnertime.”
Alyosha took the little pink envelope mechanically and put it, almost unconsciously, into his pocket.
CHAPTER 11
Another Reputation Ruined
IT was not much more than three-quarters of a mile from the town to the monastery. Alyosha walked quickly along the road, at that hour deserted. It was almost night, and too dark to see anything clearly at thirty paces ahead. There were crossroads halfway. A figure came into sight under a solitary willow at the crossroads. As soon as Alyosha reached the crossroads the figure moved out and rushed at him, shouting savagely: “Your money or your life!”
“So it’s you, Mitya,” cried Alyosha, in surprise, violently startled however.
“Ha ha ha! You didn’t expect me? I wondered where to wait for you. By her house? There are three ways from it, and I might have missed you. At last I thought of waiting here, for you had to pass here, there’s no other way to the monastery. Come, tell me the truth. Crush me like a beetle. But what’s the matter?”
“Nothing, brother — it’s the
