Текст книги "The Brothers Karamazov"

Автор книги: Федор Достоевский

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He ended on the same note of cracked and spiteful humor. Alyosha felt, however, that he already trusted him, and that if someone else were in his, Alyosha’s, place, with someone else the man would not have “talked” as he had, would not have said all that he had just said to him. This encouraged Alyosha, whose soul was trembling with tears.

“Ah, how I wish I could make peace with your boy!” he exclaimed. “If only you could arrange it...”

“Right, sir,” the captain muttered.

“But something else now, something quite different,” Alyosha went on exclaiming. “Listen: I’ve come with an errand. This same brother of mine, this Dmitri, has also insulted his fiancée, a most noble girl, of whom you’ve probably heard. I have the right to tell you of this insult, I even must do so, because when she learned of your offense and learned everything about your unfortunate situation, she charged me at once ... just now ... to bring you this assistance from her ... but just from her alone, not from Dmitri, who has abandoned her as well, not at all, and not from me, his brother, or from anyone else, but from her, just from her alone! She entreats you to accept her help ... you have both been offended by one and the same man ... She thought of you only when she suffered the same offense from him (the same in intensity) as you! It means that a sister is coming to the aid of a brother ... She precisely charged me to persuade you to accept these two hundred roubles from her as from a sister. No one will know of it, no unjust gossip will arise from it ... here are the two hundred roubles, and, I swear, you must accept them, otherwise ... otherwise it follows that everyone in the world must be enemies of each other! But there are brothers in the world, too ... You have a noble soul ... you must understand, you must . . .!”

And Alyosha held out to him two new, iridescent hundred-rouble bills. They were both standing precisely by the big stone near the fence, and there was no one around. The bills seemed to make a terrible impression on the captain: he started, but at first only as if from astonishment; he had not imagined anything of the sort and did not at all expect such an outcome. Even in sleep he did not dream of anyone’s help, not to mention so large a sum. He took the bills, and for a moment almost could not reply; something quite new flashed in his face.

“Is this for me, for me, sir, so much money, two hundred roubles? Good heavens! But I haven’t seen so much money for the past four years—Lord! And she says that a sister ... and it’s true ... really true?”

“I swear that everything I told you is true!” Alyosha cried. The captain blushed.

“Listen, sir, my dear, listen, if I do accept it, won’t that make me dishonorable? In your eyes, Alexei Fyodorovich, won’t it, won’t it make me dishonorable? No, Alexei Fyodorovich, listen, listen to me, sir,” he was hurrying, touching Alyosha all the time with both hands, “here you are persuading me to accept it, telling me that a ‘sister’ has sent it, but inside, in your own heart– won’t you hold me in contempt if I accept it, sir, eh?”

“But, no, of course not! I swear to you by my own salvation, I will not! And no one will ever know of it but us: you, I, and she, and one other lady, her great friend ...”

“Forget the lady! Listen, Alexei Fyodorovich, listen to me, sir, because the moment has now come for you to listen, sir, because you cannot even understand what these two hundred roubles can mean for me now,” the poor man went on, gradually getting into a sort of confused, almost wild ecstasy. He was befuddled, as it were, and was speaking extremely quickly and hastily, as if he were afraid he might not be allowed to get it all out. “Besides the fact that it has been acquired honestly, from such a respected and holy ‘sister,’ sir, do you know that I can now get treatment for mama and Ninochka—my hunchbacked angel, my daughter? Dr. Herzenstube came once out of the goodness of his heart, and examined them both for a whole hour. ‘I can make nothing of it,’ he said, but still, the mineral water they sell at the local pharmacy (he gave a prescription for it) will undoubtedly do her good, and he also prescribed a footbath with medications. The mineral water costs thirty kopecks, and she would have to drink maybe forty jugs of it. So I took the prescription and put it on the shelf under the icons, and it’s still there. And for Ninochka he prescribed baths in some solution, hot baths, every day, morning and evening, but how could we dream of such a treatment, sir, in our place, in our castle, with no maid, with no help, with no tub or water, sir? And Ninochka is rheumatic all over, I didn’t even tell you that yet, at night her whole right side aches, she suffers, and would you believe it, God’s angel, she keeps it in, so as not to disturb us, she doesn’t groan, so as not to wake us up. We eat whatever we can get, and she always takes the worst piece, what should only be thrown to a dog: ‘I’m not worthy of it,’ is what she means, ‘I’m taking food from you, I’m just a burden to you.’ That’s what her angelic eyes mean to say. It weighs on her that we serve her: ‘I don’t deserve it, I don’t deserve it, I’m a worthless cripple, I’m useless,’ but I wouldn’t say she was worthless, sir, when she’s been the salvation of us all with her angelic meekness; without her, without her quiet word, we’d have hell, sir, she’s even softened Varya. And don’t condemn Varvara Nikolaevna either, sir; she, too, is an angel, she, too, is an offended one. She came home this summer and brought sixteen roubles with her that she’d earned giving lessons and set aside so that in September, now, that is, she could go back to Petersburg. And we took her money and lived on it, and she has nothing to go back with, that’s how things are, sir. And she can’t go back, because she slaves for us—we’ve saddled and harnessed her like a nag, she takes care of everything, mends, washes, sweeps the floor, puts mama to bed, and mama is fussy, sir, mama is tearful, sir, and mama is mad, sir...! But now, with these two hundred roubles, I can hire a maid, sir, do you understand, Alexei Fyodorovich, I can undertake treatment for my dear ones, sir, send the student to Petersburg, sir, and buy beef, and introduce a new diet, sir. Lord, but this is a dream!”

Alyosha was terribly glad that he had caused so much happiness and that the poor man had agreed to be made happy.

“Wait, Alexei Fyodorovich, wait,” the captain again seized upon a new dream that had just come to him, and again rattled on in a frenzied patter, “do you know, perhaps now Ilyushka and I will indeed realize our dream: we’ll buy a horse and a covered cart, and the horse will be black, he asked that it be black, and we’ll set off as we were picturing it two days ago. I know a lawyer

in B–province, my childhood friend, sir, and I was told by a reliable man

that if I came he might give me a position as a clerk in his office, and who knows, maybe he would ... So I could put mama in the cart, and Ninochka in the cart, and let Ilyushechka drive, and I’d go by foot, by foot, and so I’d take them all away, sir ... Lord, if only I could get one miserable debt paid back to me, then maybe there would even be enough for that, sir!” “There will be enough, there will be!” Alyosha exclaimed. “Katerina Ivanovna will send you more, as much as you want, and, you know, I have some money, too, take what you need, as you would from a brother, from a friend, you can pay it back later ... (You’ll get rich, you will!) And, you know, you could never have thought of anything better than this move to another province! It will be your salvation, and, above all, your boy’s—and, you know, you should hurry, before winter, before the cold, and you will write to us from there, and we will remain brothers ... No, it’s not a dream!”

Alyosha was about to embrace him, he was so pleased. But glancing at him, he suddenly stopped: the man stood, stretching his neck, stretching his lips, with a pale and frenzied face, whispering something with his lips, as if he were trying to utter something; there was no sound, but he kept whispering with his lips. It was somehow strange.

“What’s wrong with you?” Alyosha suddenly started for some reason.

“Alexei Fyodorovich ... I ... you ... ,” the captain muttered and broke off, staring strangely and wildly straight in his face, with the look of a man who has decided to throw himself off a cliff, and at the same time smiling, as it were, with his lips only. “I, sir ... you, sir ... And would you like me to show you a nice little trick, sir?” he suddenly whispered in a quick, firm whisper, his voice no longer faltering.

“What little trick?”

“A little trick, a bit of hocus-pocus,” the captain kept whispering; his mouth became twisted to the left side, his left eye squinted, he went on staring at Alyosha as if his eyes were riveted to him.

“But what’s wrong with you? What trick?” Alyosha cried, now quite alarmed.

“Watch this!” the captain suddenly shrieked.

And holding up both iridescent bills, which all the while, during the whole conversation, he had been holding by the corner between the thumb and index finger of his right hand, he suddenly seized them in some kind of rage, crumpled them, and clutched them tightly in his right fist.

“See that, sir, see that?” he shrieked to Alyosha, pale and frenzied, and suddenly, raising his fist, he threw both crumpled bills with all his might on the sand. “See that, sir?” he shrieked again, pointing at them with his finger. “Well, so, there, sir...!”

And suddenly raising his right foot, he fell to trampling them with his heel, in wild anger, gasping and exclaiming each time his foot struck:

“There’s your money, sir! There’s your money, sir! There’s your money, sir! There’s your money, sir!” Suddenly he leaped back and straightened up before Alyosha. His whole figure presented a picture of inexplicable pride. “Report to those who sent you that the whiskbroom does not sell his honor, sir!” he cried out, raising his arm in the air. Then he quickly turned and broke into a run; but he had not gone even five steps when, turning all the way around, he suddenly made a gesture to Alyosha with his hand. Then, before he had gone even five more steps, he turned around again, this time for the last time, and now there was no twisted laugh on his face, but, on the contrary, it was all shaken with tears. In a weeping, faltering, spluttering patter, he cried out:

“And what would I tell my boy, if I took money from you for our disgrace?” And having said this, he broke into a run, this time without turning around. Alyosha looked after him with inexpressible sadness. Oh, he understood that the captain had not known until the very last moment that he would crumple the bills and fling them down. The running man did not once look back, and Alyosha knew that he would not look back. He did not want to pursue him or call out to him, and he knew why. When the captain was out of sight, Alyosha picked up the two bills. They were just very crumpled, flattened, and pressed into the sand, but were perfectly intact and crisp as new when Alyosha spread them and smoothed them out. Having smoothed them out, he folded them, put them in his pocket, and went to report to Katerina Ivanovna on the success of her errand.

BOOK V: PRO AND CONTRA

Chapter 1: A Betrothal

Madame Khokhlakov was again the first to meet Alyosha. She was in a hurry; something important had happened: Katerina Ivanovna’s hysterics had ended in a fainting spell, then she felt “terrible, horrible weakness, she lay down, rolled up her eyes, and became delirious. Now there’s fever, we sent for Herzenstube, we sent for her aunts. The aunts are already here, but Herzen-stube still isn’t. They’re all sitting in her room and waiting. Who knows what may come of it? And she’s unconscious. What if it’s brain fever?”

Exclaiming this, Madame Khokhlakov looked seriously frightened: “Now this is serious, serious!” she added at every word, as if everything that had happened to her before were not serious. Alyosha listened to her with sorrow; he tried to begin telling her of his own adventures, but she interrupted him at the first words: she had no time, she asked him to sit with Lise and wait for her there.

“Lise, my dearest Alexei Fyodorovich,” she whispered almost in his ear, “Lise has given me a strange surprise just now, but she has also moved me, and so my heart forgives her everything. Imagine, no sooner had you gone than she suddenly began sincerely regretting that she had supposedly been laughing at you yesterday and today. But she wasn’t laughing, she was only joking. Yet she so seriously regretted it, almost to the point of tears, that I was surprised. She has never so seriously regretted laughing at me, she has always made light of it. And you know, she laughs at me all the time. But now she’s serious, now everything has become serious. She values your opinion highly, Alexei Fyodorovich, and, if possible, do not be offended, and do not bear her a grudge. I myself am forever sparing her, because she’s such a smart little girl—don’t you think so? She was saying just now that you were a friend of her childhood—’the most serious friend of my childhood’—imagine that, the most serious—and what about me? In this regard she has the most serious feelings, and even memories, and above all, these phrases and words of hers, the most unexpected little words, that suddenly pop out when you least expect them. Recently, for instance, talking about a pine tree: there was a pine tree standing in our garden when she was very little, maybe it’s still standing, so there’s no need to speak in the past tense. Pines are not people, Alexei Fyodorovich, they take a long time to change. ‘Mama,’ she said, ‘how I pine for that pine’—you see, ‘pine’ and ‘pine’—but she put it some other way, because something’s confused here, pineis such a silly word, only she said something so original on the subject that I decidedly cannot begin to repeat it. Besides, I’ve forgotten it all. Well, good-bye, I am deeply shaken, and am probably losing my mind. Ah, Alexei Fyodorovich, twice in my life I’ve lost my mind and had to be treated. Go to Lise. Cheer her up, as you always manage to do so charmingly. Lise,” she called, going up to her door, “here I’ve brought you your much-insulted Alexei Fyodorovich, and he’s not at all angry, I assure you; quite the opposite, he’s surprised you could think so!”

“Merci, maman.Come in, Alexei Fyodorovich.”

Alyosha went in. Lise looked somehow embarrassed and suddenly blushed all over. She seemed to be ashamed of something, and, as always happens in such cases, she quickly began speaking of something quite unrelated, as if at that moment only this unrelated thing interested her.

“Mama suddenly told me just now, Alexei Fyodorovich, the whole story about the two hundred roubles, and about this errand of yours ... to that poor officer ... and the whole awful story, how he was offended, and, you know, though mama gets everything mixed up ... she keeps jumping all over ... I still cried when I heard it. Well, what happened? Did you give him the money, and how is the wretched man now ... ?”

“That’s just it—I didn’t, but it’s a long story,” Alyosha replied, as if for his part what concerned him most was precisely that he had not given the money, but at the same time Lise saw perfectly well that he, too, was looking away and was also obviously trying to speak of unrelated matters. Alyosha sat down at the table and began telling his story, but from the first words he lost all his embarrassment and, in turn, carried Lise away. He spoke under the influence of strong emotion and the recent extraordinary impression, and succeeded in telling it well and thoroughly. Earlier, while still in Moscow, still in Lise’s childhood, he had enjoyed visiting her and telling her now something that had just happened to him, now something he had read, or again something he remembered from his own childhood. Sometimes they even both daydreamed together and made up long stories between them, mostly gay and amusing ones. Now it was as if they were suddenly transported back to that time in Moscow two years before. Lise was greatly moved by his story. Alyosha managed to paint the image of “Ilyushechka” for her with ardent feeling. And when he finished describing in great detail the scene of the wretched man trampling on the money, Lise clasped her hands and cried out with irrepressible feeling: “So you didn’t give him the money, you just let him run away like that! My God, but you should at least have run after him and caught him...”

“No, Lise, it’s better that I didn’t run after him,” Alyosha said, getting up from his chair and anxiously pacing the room.

“How better? Why better? Now they’ll die without bread!”

“They won’t die, because these two hundred roubles will still catch up with them. He’ll take them tomorrow, despite all. Yes, tomorrow he’ll certainly take them,” Alyosha said, pacing back and forth in thought. “You see, Lise,” he went on, suddenly stopping in front of her, “I made a mistake there, but the mistake has turned out for the better.”

“What mistake, and why for the better?”

“This is why: he’s a cowardly man and has a weak character. He’s so worn out, and very kind. And now I keep wondering: why is it that he suddenly got so offended and trampled on the money—because, I assure you, until the very last minute he did not know he was going to trample on it. And it seems to me that he was offended by a number of things ... in his position it could hardly be otherwise ... First, he was offended because he had been too glad of the money in front of me, and hadn’t concealed it from me. If he had been glad but not overly so, if he hadn’t shown it, if he had given himself airs as others do when they’re accepting money, making faces, then he might have stood it and accepted, but he was too honestly glad, and that is what was offensive. ‘ Ah, Lise, he’s an honest and kind man—that’s the whole trouble in such cases! All the while he was speaking then, his voice was so weak, weakened, and he spoke so fast, so fast, and he kept laughing with such a little giggle, or else he just wept ... really, he wept, he was so delighted ... and he spoke of his daughters ... and of the position he would find in another town ... And just when he had poured out his soul, he suddenly became ashamed that he had shown me his whole soul like that. And he immediately began to hate me. He’s the sort of man who feels terribly shamed by poverty. But above all he was offended because he had accepted me too quickly as a friend and given in to me too soon; first he attacked me, tried to frighten me, then suddenly, as soon as he saw the money, he began embracing me. Because he did embrace me, and kept touching me with his hands. That is precisely why he came to feel such humiliation, and it was just there that I made that mistake, a very serious one: I suddenly said to him that if he didn’t have enough money to move to another town, he would be given more, and that even I myself would give him as much of my own money as he wanted. And that suddenly struck him: why, indeed, should I up and help him? You know, Lise, it’s terribly difficult for an offended man when everyone suddenly starts looking like his benefactor ... I knew that; the elder told me so. I don’t know how to put it, but I’ve noticed it often myself. And I feel exactly the same way. And above all, though he didn’t know until the very last minute that he would trample on the bills, he did anticipate it, he must have. That’s what made his delight so intense, because he anticipated ... And so, though this is all so bad, it’s still for the better. I even think that it’s for the best, that it even could not be better ...”

“Why, why couldn’t it be better?” Lise exclaimed, looking at Alyosha in great astonishment.

“Because, Lise, if he had taken the money instead of trampling on it, he’d have gone home, and within an hour he’d have been weeping over his humiliation—that’s certainly what would have happened. He would weep, and perhaps tomorrow, at the first light, he would come to me, and maybe throw the bills at me and trample on them as he did today. But now he’s gone off feeling terribly proud and triumphant, though he knows that he’s ‘ruined himself.’ And so nothing could be easier now than to get him to accept these same two hundred roubles, maybe even tomorrow, because he has already proved his honor, thrown down the money, trampled on it ... He couldn’t have known, when he was trampling on it, that I would bring it to him again tomorrow. And at the same time he needs this money terribly. Although he is proud of himself now, even today he’ll start thinking about the help he has lost. During the night the thought will become stronger still, he will dream about it, and by tomorrow morning he will perhaps be ready to run to me and ask forgiveness. And at that moment I shall appear: ‘Here,’ I’ll say, ‘you are a proud man, you’ve proved it, take the money now, forgive us.’ And this time he will take it!”

Alyosha said in a sort of rapture: “And this time he will take it!” Lise clapped her hands.

“Ah, it’s true, ah, I suddenly understand it so terribly well! Ah, Alyosha, how do you know all that? So young, and he already knows what’s in the soul ... I could never have thought that up ...”

“Now, above all, he must be convinced that he is on an equal footing with all of us, in spite of his taking money from us,” Alyosha continued in his rapture, “and not only on an equal but even on a greater footing...”

‘“On a greater footing’—how charming, Alexei Fyodorovich, but go on, go on!”

“You mean I didn’t put it right. . . about a greater footing ... but no matter, because ...”

“Oh, no matter, no matter, of course no matter! Forgive me, Alyosha dear ... You know, until now I almost didn’t respect you ... that is, I respected you, but on an equal footing, and now I shall respect you on a greater footing ... Dear, don’t be angry at my ’witticisms,’” she went on at once with strong feeling, “I’m funny, I’m little, but you, you ... Listen, Alexei Fyodorovich, isn’t there something in all this reasoning of ours, I mean, of yours ... no, better, of ours ... isn’t there some contempt for him, for this wretched man ... that we’re examining his soul like this, as if we were looking down on him? That we have decided so certainly, now, that he will accept the money?”

“No, Lise, there is no contempt in it,” Alyosha answered firmly, as if he were already prepared for the question. “I thought it over myself, on the way here. Consider, what contempt can there be if we ourselves are just the same as he is, if everyone is just the same as he is? Because we are just the same, not better. And even if we were better, we would still be the same in his place. . . I don’t know about you, Lise, but for myself I consider that my soul is petty in many ways. And his is not petty, on the contrary, it is very sensitive ... No, Lise, there is no contempt for him! You know, Lise, my elder said once that most people need to be looked after like children, and some like the sick in hospitals ...”

“Ah, Alexei Fyodorovich, my darling, let’s look after people that way!”

“Yes, let’s, Lise, I’m ready—only personally I’m not quite ready. I’m sometimes very impatient, and sometimes I don’t see things. With you it’s quite different.”

“Ah, I don’t believe it! Alexei Fyodorovich, how happy I am!”

“How good that you say so, Lise. “

“Alexei Fyodorovich, you are wonderfully good, but sometimes it’s as if you’re a pedant ... and then one looks, and you’re not a pedant at all. Go to the door, open it quietly, and see whether mama is eavesdropping,” Lise suddenly whispered in a sort of nervous, hurried whisper.

Alyosha went, opened the door a little, and reported that no one was eavesdropping.

“Come here, Alexei Fyodorovich,” Lise went on, blushing more and more, “give me your hand, so. Listen, I must make you a great confession: yesterday’s letter was not a joke, it was serious...”

And she hid her eyes with her hand. One could see that she was very ashamed to be making this confession. Suddenly she seized his hand and impetuously kissed it three times.

“Ah, Lise, isn’t that wonderful,” Alyosha exclaimed joyfully. “And I was completely sure that you wrote it seriously.”

“He was sure—just imagine!” she suddenly pushed his hand aside, without, however, letting go of it, blushing terribly and laughing a little happy laugh, “I kiss his hand and he says ‘how wonderful.’” But her reproach was unjust: Alyosha, too, was in great confusion. “I wish you would always like me, Lise, but I don’t know how to do it,” he barely murmured, blushing himself.

“Alyosha, dear, you are cold and impudent. Just look at him! He was so good as to choose me for his spouse, and left it at that! He was quite sure I wrote to him seriously—how nice! It’s impudence, that’s what it is!”

“Why, is it bad that I was sure?” Alyosha suddenly laughed.

“Ah, Alyosha, on the contrary, it is terribly good,” Lise looked at him tenderly and with happiness. Alyosha stood still holding her hand in his. Suddenly he leaned forward and kissed her full on the lips.

“What’s this now? What are you doing?” Lise cried. Alyosha was quite lost.

“Forgive me if I’m not ... Maybe it was a terribly silly ... You said I was cold, so I up and kissed you ... Only I see it came out silly...”

Lise laughed and hid her face in her hands.

“And in that dress!” escaped her in the midst of her laughter, but she suddenly stopped laughing and became all serious, almost severe.

“Well, Alyosha, we must put off kissing, because neither of us knows how to do it yet, and we still have a long time to wait,” she ended suddenly. “You’d better tell me why you’re taking me—such a fool, such a sick little fool, and you so intelligent, so intellectual, so observant? Ah, Alyosha, I’m terribly happy, because I’m not worthy of you at all!”

“You are, Lise. In a few days I’ll be leaving the monastery for good. Going out into the world, one ought to get married, that I know. And so he told me. Who better could I have than you ... and who else but you would have me? I’ve already thought it over. First, you’ve known me since childhood, and second, you have very many abilities that are not in me at all. Your soul is lighter than mine; above all, you are more innocent than I am, and I’ve already touched many, many things ... Ah, you don’t know it, but I, too, am a Karamazov! What matter if you laugh and joke, and at me, too? On the contrary, laugh—I’m so glad of it ... But you laugh like a little girl, and inside you think like a martyr...”

“A martyr? How so?”

“Yes, Lise, your question just now: aren’t we contemptuous of that wretched man, dissecting his soul like that—that was a martyr’s question ... you see, I can’t express it at all, but someone in whom such questions arise is capable of suffering. Sitting in your chair, you must already have thought a lot ...”

“Alyosha, give me your hand, why are you taking it away?” Lise said in a voice somehow flat, weakened from happiness. “Listen, Alyosha, what are you going to wear when you leave the monastery, what kind of clothes? Don’t laugh, don’t be angry, it’s very, very important for me.”

“I haven’t thought about clothes yet, Lise, but I’ll wear whatever you like.” “I want you to have a dark blue velvet jacket, a white piqué waistcoat, and a gray soft felt hat ... Tell me, did you really believe that I didn’t love you this morning, when I renounced my letter from yesterday?”

“No, I didn’t believe it.”

“Oh, impossible man, incorrigible!”

“You see, I knew that you ... seemed to love me, but I pretended to believe that you didn’t love me, so that you would feel ... more comfortable ...”

“Worse still! The worst and best of all. Alyosha, I love you terribly. Today, when you were about to come, I bet myself: I’ll ask him for yesterday’s letter, and if he calmly takes it out and gives it to me (as might always be expected of him), that will mean that he doesn’t love me at all, feels nothing, and is simply a silly and unworthy boy, and I am ruined. But you left the letter in your cell, and that encouraged me: isn’t it true that you left it in the cell because you anticipated that I would demand the letter back, so that you wouldn’t have to give it back? It’s true, isn’t it?”

“Oh, Lise, it’s not true at all, because the letter is with me now, and it was with me then, too, in this pocket. Here it is.”

Laughing, Alyosha took the letter out and showed it to her from afar.

“Only I won’t give it to you, I’ll hold it up for you to see.”

“What? So you lied to me then? You, a monk, lied?”

“Perhaps I lied,” Alyosha went on laughing. “I lied so as not to give you back the letter. It is very dear to me,” he added suddenly with strong feeling, blushing again, “it will be so forever, and I will never give it to anyone!”

Lise looked at him with admiration.

“Alyosha,” she murmured again, “look out the door, see if mama is eavesdropping.”

“Very well, Lise, I will look, only wouldn’t it be better not to look? Why suspect your mother of such meanness?”

“Meanness? What meanness? That she’s eavesdropping on her daughter is her right, it’s not meanness,” Lise flared up. “And you may rest assured, Alexei Fyodorovich, that when I myself am a mother and have a daughter like me, I shall certainly eavesdrop on her.”

“Really, Lise? That’s not good.”

“Oh, my God, what’s mean about it? If it were an ordinary social conversation and I eavesdropped, that would be mean, but when her own daughter has locked herself up with a young man ... Listen, Alyosha, I want you to know that I will spy on you, too, as soon as we are married, and I also want you to know that I will open all your letters and read everything ... So be forewarned ...”

“Yes, of course, if that is ... ,” muttered Alyosha, “only it’s not good . . .” “Ah, what contempt! Alyosha, dear, let’s not quarrel from the very first moment—it’s better if I tell you the whole truth: of course it’s very bad to eavesdrop, and of course I am wrong and you are right, but I will eavesdrop anyway.”