Ivan suddenly laughed and got up. His hat was in his hand.
You are mistaken, my good Alyosha, he said, with an expression Alyosha had never seen in his face beforean expression of youthful sincerity and strong, irresistibly frank feeling. Katerina Ivanovna has never cared for me! She has known all the time that I cared for herthough I never said a word of my love to hershe knew, but she didnt care for me. I have never been her friend either, not for one moment; she is too proud to need my friendship. She kept me at her side as a means of revenge. She revenged with me and on me all the insults which she has been continually receiving from Dmitri ever since their first meeting. For even that first meeting has rankled in her heart as an insultthats what her heart is like! She has talked to me of nothing but her love for him. I am going now; but, believe me, Katerina Ivanovna, you really love him. And the more he insults you, the more you love himthats your laceration. You love him just as he is; you love him for insulting you. If he reformed, youd give him up at once and cease to love him. But you need him so as to contemplate continually your heroic fidelity and to reproach him for infidelity. And it all comes from your pride. Oh, theres a great deal of humiliation and selfabasement about it, but it all comes from pride. I am too young and Ive loved you too much. I know that I ought not to say this, that it would be more dignified on my part simply to leave you, and it would be less offensive for you. But I am going far away, and shall never come back. It is for ever. I dont want to sit beside a laceration.But I dont know how to speak now. Ive said everything. Goodby, Katerina Ivanovna; you cant be angry with me, for I am a hundred times more severely punished than you, if only by the fact that I shall never see you again. Goodby! I dont want your hand. You have tortured me too deliberately for me to be able to forgive you at this moment. I shall forgive you later, but now I dont want your hand. Den Dank, Dame, begehr ich nicht, he added, with a forced smile, showing, however, that he could read Schiller, and read him till he knew him by heartwhich Alyosha would never have believed. He went out of the room without saying goodby even to his hostess, Madame Hohlakov. Alyosha clasped his hands.
Ivan! he cried desperately after him. Come back, Ivan! No, nothing will induce him to come back now! he cried again, regretfully realizing it; but its my fault, my fault. I began it! Ivan spoke angrily, wrongly. Unjustly and angrily. He must come back here, come back, Alyosha kept exclaiming frantically.
Katerina Ivanovna went suddenly into the next room.
You have done no harm. You behaved beautifully, like an angel, Madame Hohlakov whispered rapidly and ecstatically to Alyosha. I will do my utmost to prevent Ivan Fyodorovitch from going.
Her face beamed with delight, to the great distress of Alyosha, but Katerina Ivanovna suddenly returned. She had two hundredrouble notes in her hand.
I have a great favor to ask of you, Alexey Fyodorovitch, she began, addressing Alyosha with an apparently calm and even voice, as though nothing had happened. A weekyes, I think it was a week agoDmitri Fyodorovitch was guilty of a hasty and unjust actiona very ugly action. There is a low tavern here, and in it he met that discharged officer, that captain, whom your father used to employ in some business. Dmitri Fyodorovitch somehow lost his temper with this captain, seized him by the beard and dragged him out into the street and for some distance along it, in that insulting fashion. And I am told that his son, a boy, quite a child, who is at the school here, saw it and ran beside them crying and begging for his father, appealing to every one to defend him, while every one laughed. You must forgive me, Alexey Fyodorovitch, I cannot think without indignation of that disgraceful action of his one of those actions of which only Dmitri Fyodorovitch would be capable in his anger and in his passions! I cant describe it even. I cant find my words. Ive made inquiries about his victim, and find he is quite a poor man. His name is Snegiryov. He did something wrong in the army and was discharged. I cant tell you what. And now he has sunk into terrible destitution, with his familyan unhappy family of sick children, and, I believe, an insane wife. He has been living here a long time; he used to work as a copying clerk, but now he is getting nothing. I thought if you that is I thought I dont know. I am so confused. You see, I wanted to ask you, my dear Alexey Fyodorovitch, to go to him, to find some excuse to go to themI mean to that captainoh, goodness, how badly I explain it!and delicately, carefully, as only you know how to (Alyosha blushed), manage to give him this assistance, these two hundred roubles. He will be sure to take it. I mean, persuade him to take it. Or, rather, what do I mean? You see its not by way of compensation to prevent him from taking proceedings (for I believe he meant to), but simply a token of sympathy, of a desire to assist him from me, Dmitri Fyodorovitchs betrothed, not from himself. But you know. I would go myself, but youll know how to do it ever so much better. He lives in Lake Street, in the house of a woman called Kalmikov. For Gods sake, Alexey Fyodorovitch, do it for me, and now now I am rather tired. Goodby!
She turned and disappeared behind the portière so quickly that Alyosha had not time to utter a word, though he wanted to speak. He longed to beg her pardon, to blame himself, to say something, for his heart was full and he could not bear to go out of the room without it. But Madame Hohlakov took him by the hand and drew him along with her. In the hall she stopped him again as before.
She is proud, she is struggling with herself; but kind, charming, generous, she exclaimed, in a halfwhisper. Oh, how I love her, especially sometimes, and how glad I am again of everything! Dear Alexey Fyodorovitch, you didnt know, but I must tell you, that we all, allboth her aunts, I and all of us, Lise, evenhave been hoping and praying for nothing for the last month but that she may give up your favorite Dmitri, who takes no notice of her and does not care for her, and may marry Ivan Fyodorovitchsuch an excellent and cultivated young man, who loves her more than anything in the world. We are in a regular plot to bring it about, and I am even staying on here perhaps on that account.
But she has been cryingshe has been wounded again, cried Alyosha.
Never trust a womans tears, Alexey Fyodorovitch. I am never for the women in such cases. I am always on the side of the men.
Mamma, you are spoiling him, Lises little voice cried from behind the door.
No, it was all my fault. I am horribly to blame, Alyosha repeated unconsoled, hiding his face in his hands in an agony of remorse for his indiscretion.
Quite the contrary; you behaved like an angel, like an angel. I am ready to say so a thousand times over.
Mamma, how has he behaved like an angel? Lises voice was heard again.
I somehow fancied all at once, Alyosha went on as though he had not heard Lise, that she loved Ivan, and so I said that stupid thing. What will happen now?
To whom, to whom? cried Lise. Mamma, you really want to be the death of me. I ask you and you dont answer.
At the moment the maid ran in.
Katerina Ivanovna is ill. She is crying, struggling hysterics.
At the moment the maid ran in.
Katerina Ivanovna is ill. She is crying, struggling hysterics.
What is the matter? cried Lise, in a tone of real anxiety. Mamma, I shall be having hysterics, and not she!
Lise, for mercys sake, dont scream, dont persecute me. At your age one cant know everything that grownup people know. Ill come and tell you everything you ought to know. Oh, mercy on us! I am coming, I am coming. Hysterics is a good sign, Alexey Fyodorovitch; its an excellent thing that she is hysterical. Thats just as it ought to be. In such cases I am always against the woman, against all these feminine tears and hysterics. Run and say, Yulia, that Ill fly to her. As for Ivan Fyodorovitchs going away like that, its her own fault. But he wont go away. Lise, for mercys sake, dont scream! Oh, yes; you are not screaming. Its I am screaming. Forgive your mamma; but I am delighted, delighted, delighted! Did you notice, Alexey Fyodorovitch, how young, how young Ivan Fyodorovitch was just now when he went out, when he said all that and went out? I thought he was so learned, such a savant, and all of a sudden he behaved so warmly, openly, and youthfully, with such youthful inexperience, and it was all so fine, like you. And the way he repeated that German verse, it was just like you! But I must fly, I must fly! Alexey Fyodorovitch, make haste to carry out her commission, and then make haste back. Lise, do you want anything now? For mercys sake, dont keep Alexey Fyodorovitch a minute. He will come back to you at once.
Madame Hohlakov at last ran off. Before leaving, Alyosha would have opened the door to see Lise.
On no account, cried Lise. On no account now. Speak through the door. How have you come to be an angel? Thats the only thing I want to know.
For an awful piece of stupidity, Lise! Goodby!
Dont dare to go away like that! Lise was beginning.
Lise, I have a real sorrow! Ill be back directly, but I have a great, great sorrow!
And he ran out of the room.
Chapter VI.
A Laceration in the Cottage
He certainly was really grieved in a way he had seldom been before. He had rushed in like a fool, and meddled in what? In a loveaffair. But what do I know about it? What can I tell about such things? he repeated to himself for the hundredth time, flushing crimson. Oh, being ashamed would be nothing; shame is only the punishment I deserve. The trouble is I shall certainly have caused more unhappiness. And Father Zossima sent me to reconcile and bring them together. Is this the way to bring them together? Then he suddenly remembered how he had tried to join their hands, and he felt fearfully ashamed again. Though I acted quite sincerely, I must be more sensible in the future, he concluded suddenly, and did not even smile at his conclusion.
Katerina Ivanovnas commission took him to Lake Street, and his brother Dmitri lived close by, in a turning out of Lake Street. Alyosha decided to go to him in any case before going to the captain, though he had a presentiment that he would not find his brother. He suspected that he would intentionally keep out of his way now, but he must find him anyhow. Time was passing: the thought of his dying elder had not left Alyosha for one minute from the time he set off from the monastery.