Текст книги "The Brothers Karamazov"

Автор книги: Федор Достоевский

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Текущая страница: 18 (всего у книги 70 страниц)

“Very little now.”

“And are you afraid of water?” asked Lise. “That’s enough, Lise. Perhaps I did speak too hastily about the rabid boy, and you have your conclusions ready. Katerina Ivanovna just learned that you are here, Alexei Fyodorovich, and rushed to me, she’s thirsting, thirsting to see you.”

“Oh, mama! Go and see her yourself, he can’t go now, he’s suffering too much.”

“I’m not suffering at all, I’m quite able to go ... ,” said Alyosha.

“What? You’re leaving? So that’s how you are! That’s how you are!”

“Why not? When I’m through, I’ll come back here, and we can talk again as much as you please. But I would like to see Katerina Ivanovna now, because in any event I want very much to return to the monastery as soon as possible today.”

“Mama, take him and go at once. Alexei Fyodorovich, you needn’t bother to stop and see me after Katerina Ivanovna, but go straight back to your monastery where you belong! And I want to sleep, I didn’t sleep all night.”

“Oh, Lise, these are more of your jokes, but I wish you really would sleep!” Madame Khokhlakov exclaimed.

“I don’t know what I ... I’ll stay for another three minutes if you wish, even five,” Alyosha muttered.

“Even five! Take him away, mama! Quickly! He’s a monster!”

“Lise, you have lost your mind! Let us go, Alexei Fyodorovich, she is too capricious today, I’m afraid of upsetting her. Oh, what grief a nervous woman is, Alexei Fyodorovich! And maybe she really does want to sleep after seeing you. How quickly you managed to make her sleepy, and how lucky it is!”

“Ah, mama, what a nice thing to say! I kiss you for it, dear mama!”

“And I kiss you, too, Lise. Listen, Alexei Fyodorovich,” Madame Khokhlakov began speaking mysteriously and importantly, in a quick whisper, as she left with Alyosha, “I don’t want to suggest anything, or to lift the veil, but you go in and you will see for yourself what’s going on in there, it’s terrible, it’s the most fantastic comedy: she loves your brother Ivan Fyodorovich, and is persuading herself as hard as she can that she loves your brother Dmitri Fyodorovich. It’s terrible! I’ll go in with you, and if they don’t send me away, I’ll stay to the end.”

Chapter 5: Strain in the Drawing Room

But in the drawing room the conversation was already coming to an end. Katerina Ivanovna was greatly excited, though she had a determined look. At the moment when Alyosha and Madame Khokhlakov entered, Ivan Fyodorovich was just getting up to leave. His face was somewhat pale, and Alyosha looked at him anxiously. The thing was that one of Alyosha’s doubts, a disturbing mystery that had been tormenting him for some time, was now being resolved. Over the past month it had been suggested to him several times and from different sides that his brother Ivan loved Katerina Ivanovna, and, most important, that he indeed meant to “win her away” from Mitya. Until very recently, this had seemed monstrous to Alyosha, though it troubled him very much. He loved both his brothers and feared such rivalry between them. But meanwhile, Dmitri Fyodorovich himself had suddenly declared outright to him yesterday that he was even glad of this rivalry with his brother Ivan and that it would be a great help to him, Dmitri. In what would it be a help? In marrying Grushenka? But this step Alyosha considered a desperate and last one. Besides all of which, Alyosha had unquestioningly believed until just the evening before that Katerina Ivanovna herself passionately and persistently loved his brother Dmitri—but he had believed it only until the evening before. Besides, he kept imagining for some reason that she could not love a man like Ivan, but loved his brother Dmitri precisely as he was, despite all the monstrosity of such a love. Yesterday, however, in the scene with Grushenka, he suddenly imagined, as it were, something different. The word “strain,” just uttered by Madame Khokhlakov, made him almost jump, because precisely that night, half-awake at dawn, probably in response to a dream, he had suddenly said: “Strain, strain!” He had been dreaming all night about yesterday’s scene at Katerina Ivanovna’s. Now suddenly the direct and persistent assurance of Madame Khokhlakov that Katerina Ivanovna loved his brother Ivan, and deliberately, out of some kind of play, out of “strain,” was deceiving herself and tormenting herself with her affected love for Dmitri, out of some kind of supposed gratitude—struck Alyosha: “Yes, perhaps the whole truth indeed is precisely in those words!” But in that case where did his brother Ivan stand? Alyosha sensed by some sort of instinct that a character like Katerina Ivanovna must rule, and that she could only rule over a man like Dmitri, but by no means over a man like Ivan. For only Dmitri (in the long run, let us say) might finally submit to her “for his own happiness” (which Alyosha even desired) , but not Ivan, Ivan could not submit to her, and such submission would not bring him happiness. Such was the notion that Alyosha had somehow involuntarily formed of Ivan. And so all these hesitations and considerations flew and flashed through his mind now, as he was entering the drawing room. And one more thought flashed—suddenly and irrepressibly: “What if she loves no one, neither one nor the other?” I will note that Alyosha was ashamed, as it were, of such thoughts, and had reproached himself for them whenever, during the past month, they had occurred to him. “What do I know of love and of women, and how can I resolve on such conclusions?” he thought in self-reproach after each such thought or conjecture. And yet it was impossible not to think. He understood instinctively that now, for example, this rivalry was all too important a question in the fate of his brothers, and all too much depended on it. “Viper will eat viper,” his brother Ivan had said yesterday, speaking with irritation about their father and Dmitri. So in his eyes their brother Dmitri was a viper, and perhaps had long been a viper? Perhaps since Ivan had first met Katerina Ivanovna? These words, of course, had es-caped Ivan unwittingly, but they were all the more important for that. If so, what sort of peace could there be? On the contrary, weren’t there only new pretexts for hatred and enmity in their family? And, above all, whom should he, Alyosha, feel pity for, and what should he wish for each of them? He loved them both, but what could he wish for each of them amid such terrible contradictions? One could get completely lost in this tangle, and Alyosha’s heart could not bear uncertainty, for the nature of his love was always active. He could not love passively; once he loved, he immediately also began to help. And for that one had to have a goal, one had to know firmly what was good and needful for each of them, and becoming firmly convinced of the correctness of the goal, naturally also to help each of them. But instead of a firm goal there was only vagueness and confusion in everything. “Strain” had just been uttered! But what could he understand even of this strain? He did not understand the first thing in all this tangle!

Seeing Alyosha, Katerina Ivanovna quickly and joyfully said to Ivan Fyodorovich, who had already gotten up from his place to leave: “One minute! Stay for just one more minute. I want to hear the opinion of this man, whom I trust with my whole being. Don’t you leave either, Katerina Osipovna,” she added, addressing Madame Khokhlakov. She sat Alyosha down next to herself, and Khokhlakov sat opposite them next to Ivan Fyodorovich. “Here are all my friends, the only ones I have in the world, my dear friends,” she began ardently, in a voice that trembled with tears of genuine suffering, and again Alyosha’s heart went out to her at once. “You, Alexei Fyodorovich, were a witness yesterday to that ... horror, and you saw how I was. You did not see it, Ivan Fyodorovich, but he did. What he thought of me yesterday I do not know, but one thing I do know—that if the same thing were to repeat itself today, now, I should express the same feelings as yesterday—the same feelings, the same words, and the same movements. You remember my movements, Alexei Fyodorovich, you yourself restrained me in one of them . . .” (saying this, she blushed, and her eyes flashed). “I declare to you, Alexei Fyodorovich, that I cannot be reconciled with anything. Listen, Alexei Fyodorovich, I do not even know whether I love him now. He has become pitifulto me, which is a poor sign of love. If I loved him, if I still loved him, then perhaps I should not pity him now, but, on the contrary, should hate him...”

Her voice trembled, and tears glistened on her eyelashes. Alyosha started inwardly: “This girl is truthful and sincere,” he thought, “and ... and she no longer loves Dmitri!”

“That’s right! Right!” Madame Khokhlakov exclaimed.

“Wait, my dear Katerina Osipovna, I haven’t said the main thing, I haven’t said the final thing that I decided during the night. I feel that my decision, perhaps, is terrible—terrible for me—but I have a feeling that I shall never change it for anything, not for anything, for the rest of my life it will be so. My dear, my kind, my constant and generous advisor and profound reader of hearts, my only friend in the world, Ivan Fyodorovich, approves of me in everything and praises my decision ... He knows what it is.”

“Yes, I approve of it,” Ivan Fyodorovich said in a quiet but firm voice.

“But I wish that Alyosha, too (ah, Alexei Fyodorovich, forgive me for calling you simply Alyosha), I wish Alexei Fyodorovich to tell me now, before my two friends, whether I am right or not. I have an instinctive feeling that you, Alyosha, my dear brother (because you are my dear brother),” she said again rapturously, grasping his cold hand with her hot one, “I have a feeling that your decision, your approval, in spite of all my torments, will bring me peace, because after your words I shall calm down and be reconciled—I feel it.”

“I don’t know what you are going to ask me,” Alyosha spoke out, his face burning, “I only know that I love you, and at this moment I wish for your happiness more than for my own...! But I know nothing about these affairs ... ,” he suddenly hastened to add for some reason.

“In these affairs, Alexei Fyodorovich, in these affairs the main thing now is honor and duty, and something else, I don’t know what, but something higher, even perhaps higher than duty itself. My heart tells me of this irresistible feeling, and it draws me irresistibly. But it can all be said in two words. I’ve already made up my mind: even if he marries that ... creature,” she began solemnly, “whom I can never, never forgive, I still will not leavehim! From now on I will never, never leave him!” she spoke with a sort of strain, in a sort of pale, forced ecstasy. “I do not mean that I shall drag myself after him, trying to throw myself in front of his eyes every minute, tormenting him—oh, no, I shall go to another town, anywhere you like, but I will watch him all my life, all my life, untiringly. And when he becomes unhappy with that woman, and he certainly will and very soon, then let him come to me and he will find a friend, a sister ... Only a sister, of course, and that will be so forever, but he will finally be convinced that this sister really is his loving sister, who has sacrificed her whole life for him. I will do it, I will insist that he finally know me and tell me everything without being ashamed!” she exclaimed as if in frenzy. “I will be his god, to whom he shall pray—that, at least, he owes me for his betrayal and for what I suffered yesterday because of him. And let him see throughout his whole life, that all my life I will be faithful to him and to the word I once gave, despite the fact that he was faithless and betrayed me. I shall ... I shall become simply the means of his happiness (or how should I say it?), the instrument, the mechanism of his happiness, and that for my whole life, my whole life, so that he may see it from now on, all his life! That is the whole of my decision. Ivan Fyodorovich approves of me in the highest degree.”

She was breathless. She might have wished to express her thought in a more dignified, artful, and natural way, but it came out too hastily and too baldly. There was too much youthful uncontrol, too much that still echoed with yesterday’s irritation and the need to show her pride—she felt it herself. Her face suddenly somehow darkened, an ugly look came into her eyes. Alyosha noticed it all immediately, and his heart was moved to compassion. And just then his brother Ivan added to it.

“I only expressed my thought,” he said. “In any other woman, all of that would have come out in a broken and forced way—but not so in you. Another woman would be wrong, but you are right. I do not know what is behind it, but I see that you are sincere in the highest degree, and therefore you are right ...”

“But only for this moment ... And what is this moment? Just yesterday’s insult—that’s all it is!” Madame Khokhlakov, though she obviously did not want to interfere, could not contain herself and suddenly spoke this very correct thought. “Yes, yes,” Ivan interrupted, with a sort of sudden passion, clearly angry that he had been interrupted, “yes, and in another woman this moment would be only yesterday’s impression, and no more than a moment, but with Katerina Ivanovna’s character, this moment will last all her life. What for others would be just a promise, for her is an everlasting, heavy, perhaps grim, but unfailing, duty. And she will be nourished by this feeling of fulfilled duty! Your life, Katerina Ivanovna, will now be spent in the suffering contemplation of your own feelings, of your own high deed and your own grief, but later this suffering will mellow, and your life will then turn into the sweet contemplation of a firm and proud design, fulfilled once and for all, truly proud in its own way, and desperate in any case, but which you have carried through, and this awareness will finally bring you the most complete satisfaction and will reconcile you to all the rest ...”

He spoke decidedly with a sort of malice, evidently deliberate, and even, perhaps, not wishing to conceal his intentions—that is, that he was speaking deliberately and in mockery.

“Oh God, how all that is wrong!” Madame Khokhlakov again exclaimed.

“You speak, Alexei Fyodorovich! I desperately need to know what you will tell me!” exclaimed Katerina Ivanovna, and she suddenly dissolved in tears. Alyosha got up from the sofa.

“It’s nothing, nothing!” she went on crying. “It’s because I’m upset, because of last night, but near two such friends as you and your brother, I still feel myself strong ... for I know ... you two will never leave me ...”

“Unfortunately, I must go to Moscow, tomorrow perhaps, and leave you for a long time ... And that, unfortunately, cannot be changed ... ,” Ivan Fyodorovich suddenly said.

“To Moscow, tomorrow!” suddenly Katerina Ivanovna’s whole face became distorted. “But ... but, my God, how fortunate!” she cried in a voice instantly quite changed and having instantly chased away her tears so that no trace of them was left. Precisely in an instant an astonishing change took place in her, which greatly amazed Alyosha: instead of the poor, insulted girl who had just been crying in a sort of strain of emotion, there suddenly appeared a woman in complete possession of herself and even greatly pleased, as if she were suddenly rejoicing at something.

“Oh, not fortunate that I must abandon you, of course not that,” she suddenly corrected herself, as it were, with a charming worldly smile, “a friend like you could not think that; on the contrary, I am only too unhappy to be losing you” (she suddenly dashed impulsively to Ivan Fyodorovich and, grasping both his hands, pressed them with ardent feeling), “but what is fortunate is that you yourself, personally, will now be able to tell auntie and Agasha, in Moscow, of my whole situation, my whole present horror, with complete frankness to Agasha, but sparing dear auntie, as you will know how to do. You cannot imagine how unhappy I was yesterday and this morning, wondering how I could ever write them this terrible letter ... because there was no way in the world to say it in a letter ... But now it will be easy for me to write, because you are going to be there in person and will explain it all. Oh, how glad I am! But I am only glad for that, again believe me. You yourself, of course, are irreplaceable for me ... I’ll run at once and write the letter,” she suddenly concluded, and even turned to leave the room.

“And what of Alyosha? What of Alexei Fyodorovich’s opinion, which it was so necessary for you to hear?” Madame Khokhlakov cried. There was a caustic and angry note in her words.

“I haven’t forgotten that,” Katerina Ivanovna suddenly halted, “and why are you so hostile to me in such a moment, Katerina Osipovna?” she said with bitter, burning reproach. “What I said before, I will say again: his opinion is necessary to me; moreover, I need his decision! It shall be as he says—that is how much, on the contrary, I thirst for your words, Alexei Fyodorovich ... But what’s wrong?”

“I never thought, I could not have imagined it!” Alyosha suddenly exclaimed ruefully.

“What? What?”

“He is going to Moscow, and you cry that you’re glad—you cried it on purpose! And then you immediately started explaining that you are not glad about that, but, on the contrary, are sorry to be ... losing a friend, but this, too, you acted on purpose ... acted as if you were in a comedy, in a theater .. .!”

“In a theater? Why? What do you mean?” Katerina Ivanovna exclaimed, deeply astonished, frowning, and blushing all over.

“But no matter how much you assure him that you will miss him as a friend, you still insist right in his face that you are happy he’s going away ... ,” Alyosha spoke somehow quite breathlessly now. He was standing at the table and would not sit down.

“What are you saying? I don’t understand ...”

“I don’t know myself ... I suddenly had a sort of illumination. I know I’m not putting it well, but I’ll still say everything,” Alyosha continued in the same trembling and faltering voice. “My illumination is that you perhaps do not love my brother Dmitri at all ... from the very beginning ... And Dmitri perhaps does not love you at all either ... from the very beginning ... but only honors you ... I really don’t know how I dare to say all this now, but someone has to speak the truth ... because no one here wants to speak the truth ...”

“What truth?” cried Katerina Ivanovna, and something hysterical rang in her voice.

“This truth,” Alyosha stammered, as if throwing himself off the roof. “Call Dmitri now—I’ll go and find him—and let him come here and take you by the hand, and then take my brother Ivan by the hand, and let him unite your hands. For you are tormenting Ivan only because you love him ... and you are tormenting him because you love Dmitri from strain ... not in truth ... because you’ve convinced yourself of it ...”

Alyosha suddenly broke off and fell silent.

“You ... you ... you’re a little holy fool, that’s what you are!” Katerina Ivanovna suddenly snapped, her face pale now and her lips twisted in anger. Ivan Fyodorovich suddenly laughed and got up from his seat. His hat was in his hand.

“You are mistaken, my good Alyosha,” he said, with an expression on his face that Alyosha had never seen there before—an expression of some youthful sincerity and strong, irresistibly frank emotion. “Katerina Ivanovna has never loved me! She knew all along that I loved her, though I never said a word to her about my love—she knew, but she did not love me. Nor have I been her friend, not even once, not even for one day; the proud woman did not need my friendship. She kept me near her for constant revenge. She took revenge on me and was revenged through me for all the insults she endured continually and every moment throughout all this time from Dmitri, insults that started with their very first meeting ... Because their very first meeting, too, remained in her heart as an insult. That is what her heart is like! All I did all the time was listen to her love for him. I am leaving now; but know, Katerina Ivanovna, that you indeed love only him. And the more he insults you, the more you love him. That is your strain. You precisely love him as he is, you love him insulting you. If he reformed, you would drop him at once and stop loving him altogether. But you need him in order to continually contemplate your high deed of faithfulness, and to reproach him for his unfaithfulness. And it all comes from your pride. Oh, there is much humility and humiliation in it, but all of it comes from pride ... I am too young and loved you too much. I know I shouldn’t be telling you this, that it would be more dignified on my part simply to walk out of here; it would not be so insulting to you. But I am going far away and shall never come back. It is forever ... I do not want to sit next to a strain ... However, I cannot even speak anymore, I’ve said everything. . . Farewell, Katerina Ivanovna, you must not be angry with me, because I am punished a hundred times more than you: punished already by this alone, that I shall never see you again. Farewell. I do not want your hand. You’ve been tormenting me so consciously that I am unable to forgive you at the moment. Later I shall forgive you, but no hand now:

Den Dank, Dame, begehr ich nicht,” ^[118]he added with a crooked smile, incidentally proving, quite unexpectedly, that he, too, could read Schiller, enough so as to learn him by heart, which Alyosha would not have believed before. He walked out of the room without even saying good-bye to the hostess, Madame Khokhlakov. Alyosha clasped his hands.

“Ivan,” he called after him desperately, “come back, Ivan! No, no, nothing will bring him back now!” he exclaimed again in a rueful illumination; “but it’s my fault, mine, I started it! Ivan spoke spitefully, wrongly. Unjustly and spitefully ... ,” Alyosha kept exclaiming like a half-wit.

Katerina Ivanovna suddenly went into the other room.

“You did nothing wrong, you were lovely, like an angel,” Madame Khokhlakov whispered quickly and ecstatically to the rueful Alyosha. “I will do all I can to keep Ivan Fyodorovich from leaving ...”

Joy shone in her face, to Alyosha’s great chagrin; but Katerina Ivanovna suddenly returned. In her hands she had two hundred-rouble bills.

“I have a great favor to ask of you, Alexei Fyodorovich,” she began, addressing Alyosha directly, in a seemingly calm and level voice, quite as though nothing had just happened. “A week ago—yes, a week, I think– Dmitri Fyodorovich committed a rash and unjust act, a very ugly act. There is a bad place here, a tavern. In it he met that retired officer, that captain, whom your father employed in some business of his. Dmitri Fyodorovich got very angry with this captain for some reason, seized him by the beard in front of everyone, led him outside in that humiliating position, and led him a long way down the street, and they say that the boy, the captain’s son, who goes to the local school, just a child, saw it and went running along beside them, crying loudly and begging for his father, and rushing up to everyone asking them to defend him, but everyone laughed. Forgive me, Alexei Fyodorovich, I cannot recall without indignation this shameful act of his ... one of those acts that Dmitri Fyodorovich alone could bring himself to do, in his wrath ... and in his passions! I cannot even speak of it, I am unable to ... my words get confused. I made inquiries about this offended man, and found out that he is very poor. His last name is Snegiryov. He did something wrong in the army and was expelled, I can’t talk about that, and now he and his family, a wretched family of sick children and a wife—who, it seems, is insane– have fallen into abject poverty. He has been living in town for a long time, he was doing something, worked somewhere as a scrivener, and now suddenly he’s not being paid. I looked at you ... that is, I thought—I don’t know, I’m somehow confused—you see, I wanted to ask you, Alexei Fyodorovich, my kindest Alexei Fyodorovich, to go to him, to find an excuse, to visit them, this captain, I mean—oh, God! I’m so confused—and delicately, carefully—precisely as only you could manage” (Alyosha suddenly blushed)—”manage to give him this assistance, here, two hundred roubles. He will surely accept ... I mean, persuade him to accept ... Or, no, what do I mean? You see, it’s not a payment to him for conciliation, so that he will not complain (because it seems he wanted to lodge a complaint), but simply compassion, a wish to help, from me, from me, Dmitri Fyodorovich’s fiancée, not from him ... Well, you’ll find away ... I would go myself, but you will know much better how to do it. He lives on Lake Street, in the house of a woman named Kalmykov ... For God’s sake, Alexei Fyodorovich, do this for me, and now ... now I’m a little tired. Good-bye...”

She suddenly turned and disappeared again behind the portière, so quickly that Alyosha did not have time to say a word—and he wanted to. He wanted to ask forgiveness, to blame himself, to say at least something, because his heart was full, and he decidedly did not want to go from the room without that. But Madame Khokhlakov seized his hand and herself led him out. In the front hall she stopped him again as before.

“She’s proud, fighting against herself, but kind, lovely, magnanimous!” exclaimed Madame Khokhlakov in a half-whisper. “Oh, how I love her, especially sometimes, and how glad I am now once more again about everything, everything! Dear Alexei Fyodorovich, you did not know this, but you must know that all of us, all of us—I, and her two aunts—well, all of us, even Lise, for as much as a whole month now, have been wishing and praying for one thing only: that she would break with your beloved Dmitri Fyodorovich, who does not even want to know her and does not love her in the least, and marry Ivan Fyodorovich, an educated and excellent young man, who loves her more than anything in the world. We’ve joined in a whole conspiracy here, and that is perhaps the only reason I haven’t gone away ...”

“But she was crying, she’s been insulted again!” Alyosha exclaimed.

“Don’t believe in women’s tears, Alexei Fyodorovich—I’m always against the women in such cases, and for the men.”

“Mama, you are spoiling and ruining him,” Lise’s thin little voice came from behind the door.

“No, I was the cause of it all, I am terribly to blame!” the inconsolable Alyosha repeated in a burst of agonizing shame for his escapade, and even covered his face with his hands in shame. “On the contrary, you acted like an angel, an angel, I will gladly say it a thousand times over.”

“Mama, how did he act like an angel?” once more Lise’s voice was heard.

“I suddenly fancied for some reason, looking at all that,” Alyosha continued as if he hadn’t heard Liza, “that she loves Ivan, and so I said that foolishness ... and now what will happen?”

“To whom, to whom?” Lise exclaimed. “Mama, you really will be the death of me. I’m asking you and you don’t even answer.”

At that moment the maid ran in.

“Katerina Ivanovna is sick ... She’s crying ... hysterics, thrashing.”

“What is it?” cried Lise, her voice alarmed now. “Mama, it’s I who am going to have hysterics, not her!”

“Lise, for God’s sake, don’t shout, don’t destroy me. You are still too young to know everything that grown-ups know. I’ll run and tell you everything you ought to know. Oh, my God! I must run, run ... Hysterics! It’s a good sign, Alexei Fyodorovich, it’s excellent that she’s in hysterics. It’s precisely as it should be. In such cases I am always against the women, against all these hysterics and women’s tears. Yulia, run and tell her I’m flying. And it’s her own fault that Ivan Fyodorovich walked out like that. But he won’t go away. Lise, for God’s sake, stop shouting! Oh, yes, you’re not shouting, it’s I who am shouting, forgive your mama, but I’m in ecstasy, ecstasy, ecstasy! And did you notice, Alexei Fyodorovich, what youthfulness came out in Ivan Fyodorovich just now, he said it all and walked out! I thought he was such a scholar, an academician, and he suddenly spoke so ardently—ardently, openly, and youthfully, naively and youthfully, and it was all so beautiful, beautiful, just like you ... And he recited that little German verse, just like you! But I must run, run. Hurry, Alexei Fyodorovich, do that errand for her quickly and come back soon. Lise, do you need anything? For God’s sake don’t keep Alexei Fyodorovich for a minute, he will come back to you right away ...”

Madame Khokhlakov finally ran off. Alyosha, before leaving, was about to open the door to Lise’s room.

“No you don’t!” Lise cried out. “Not now you don’t! Speak like that, through the door. How did you get to be an angel? That’s all I want to know.”

“For my terrible foolishness, Lise! Good-bye.”

“Don’t you dare go like that!” cried Lise.

“Lise, I am in real grief! I’ll come back right away, but I am in great, great grief!”

And he ran out of the room.

Chapter 6: Strain in the Cottage

He was indeed in real grief, of a kind he had seldom experienced before. He had gone and “put his foot in it”—and in what? An affair of the heart!”But what do I know of that, what kind of judge am I in such matters?” he repeated to himself for the hundredth time, blushing. “Oh, shame would be nothing, shame would be only the punishment I deserve—the trouble is that now I will undoubtedly be the cause of new misfortunes ... And the elder sent me to reconcile and unite. Is this any way to unite?” Here again he recalled how he had “united” their hands, and again he felt terribly ashamed. “Though I did it all sincerely, I must be smarter in the future,” he suddenly concluded, and did not even smile at his conclusion.

For Katerina Ivanovna’s errand he had to go to Lake Street, and his brother Dmitri lived just on the way there, not far from Lake Street, in a lane. Alyosha decided to stop at his place in any case, before going to the captain’s, though he had a premonition that he would not find him at home. He suspected that his brother would perhaps somehow be deliberately hiding from him now, but he had to find him at all costs. Time was passing: the thought of the dying elder had never left him, not for a minute, not for a second, from the moment he left the monastery.