“No, I don’t,” said Alyosha.
“Of course he concealed it from you then: it was precisely about this plan of escape. He had revealed all the main things to me three days earlier—that was when we began quarreling, and we went on quarreling for three days. We quarreled because, when he announced to me that if Dmitri Fyodorovich was convicted, he would flee abroad with that creature, I suddenly got furious— I won’t tell you why, I don’t know why myself ... Oh, of course, because of that creature, I got furious because of that creature, and precisely because she, too, was going to flee abroad, together with Dmitri!” Katerina Ivanovna suddenly exclaimed, her lips trembling with wrath. “As soon as Ivan Fyodorovich saw how furious I was because of that creature, he immediately thought I was jealous of her over Dmitri, and that it meant I still loved Dmitri. And that led to our first quarrel. I did not want to give explanations, I could not ask forgiveness; it was hard for me to think that such a man could suspect me of still loving that ... Even though I myself had already told him directly, long before , that I did not love Dmitri, but loved only him! I got furious with him only because I was so furious with that creature! Three days later, that evening when you came, he brought me a sealed envelope, to be opened at once in case something happened to him. Oh, he foresaw his illness! He revealed to me that the envelope contained details of the escape, and that if he should die or become dangerously ill, I must save Mitya alone. He left me money along with it, nearly ten thousand roubles—the same money the prosecutor mentioned in his speech, having learned somehow that he had sent it to be cashed. I was terribly struck that Ivan Fyodorovich, who was still jealous over me and still convinced that I loved Mitya, nonetheless did not abandon the idea of saving his brother, and entrusted me, me myself, with saving him! Oh, there was a sacrifice! No, you would not understand such self-sacrifice in all its fullness, Alexei Fyodorovich. I almost fell at his feet in reverence, but the thought suddenly occurred to me that he would take it simply as my joy at Mitya’s being saved (and he certainly would have thought that), and I was so annoyed simply at the possibility of such an unjust thought on his part, that I became annoyed again, and instead of kissing his feet, I made another scene! Oh, how wretched I am! It’s my character—a terrible, wretched character! Oh, one day you’ll see: I’ll do it, I’ll bring it to such a point that he, too, will leave me for some other woman, someone easier to live with, as Dmitri did, but then ... no, I couldn’t bear it, I’d kill myself! And when you came then, and I called to you and told him to come back, when he came in with you then, the hateful, contemptuous look he suddenly gave me filled me with such wrath that—remember?—I suddenly cried to you that he, he alone had convinced me that his brother Dmitri was a murderer! I slandered him on purpose, in order to hurt him once more, but he never, never tried to convince me that his brother was a murderer, on the contrary, it was I, I who kept trying to convince him! Oh, my rage was the cause of everything, everything! It was I, I who brought on that cursed scene in court! He wanted to prove to me that he was noble, and that even though I might love his brother, he still would not destroy him out of revenge and jealousy. And so he stood up in court ... I am the cause of it all, I alone am guilty!”
Never before had Katya made such confessions to Alyosha, and he felt that she had then reached precisely that degree of unbearable suffering when a proud heart painfully shatters its own pride and falls, overcome by grief. Oh, Alyosha knew yet another terrible reason for her present torment, no matter how she had concealed it from him all those days since Mitya had been convicted; but for some reason it would have been too painful for him if she had decided to lower herself so much as to begin talking with him herself, now, at that moment, about that reason. She was suffering over her “betrayal” in court, and Alyosha sensed that her conscience was urging her to confess, precisely to him, to Alyosha, with tears, with shrieks, with hysterics, beating on the floor. But he dreaded that moment and wished to spare the suffering woman. This made the errand on which he had come all the more difficult. He again began talking about Mitya.
“Never mind, never mind, don’t worry about him!” Katya began again, sharply and stubbornly. “It’s all momentary with him, I know him, I know his heart only too well. Rest assured, he’ll agree to escape. And, above all, it’s not right now; he still has time to make up his mind. Ivan Fyodorovich will be well by then, and will handle it all himself, so there will be nothing left for me to do. Don’t worry, he’ll agree to escape. He has already agreed: how can he part with that creature of his? Since they won’t let her go to penal servitude, how can he not escape? He’s afraid of you most of all, afraid you won’t approve of his escape on moral grounds, but you must magnanimously allow him to do it, since your sanction here is so necessary,” Katya added with venom. She paused briefly and grinned.
“He keeps talking there,” she started again, “about some sort of hymns, about the cross he has to bear, about some sort of duty, I remember Ivan Fyodorovich told me a lot about it then, and if you knew how he spoke!” Katya suddenly exclaimed with irrepressible feeling. “If you knew how he loved the wretched man at that moment, as he was telling about him, and how he hated him, perhaps, at the same moment! And I, oh, I listened to his story and his tears with a scornful smile! Oh, the creature! Me, I’m the creature! I gave birth to this brain fever for him! And that man, that convict, is not prepared to suffer,” Katya concluded with irritation, “how can such a man suffer? Such men never suffer!”
Some feeling of hatred and contemptuous loathing sounded in these words. And yet she had betrayed him. “Oh, well, perhaps it’s because she feels so guilty towards him that she hates him at moments,” Alyosha thought to himself. He hoped it was only “at moments.” He caught the challenge in Katya’s last words, but did not take it up.
“That is why I sent for you today, so that you would promise to convince him yourself. Or do you, too, consider it not honest to escape, not valiant, or whatever you call it ... not Christian, or what?” Katya added with even more challenge.
“No, not at all. I’ll tell him everything ... ,” Alyosha muttered. “He asks you to come and see him today,” he blurted out suddenly, looking steadily in her eyes. She shuddered all over and drew back from him a little on the sofa.
“Me ... is it possible?” she murmured, turning pale.
“It is and must be!” Alyosha began insistently, becoming animated. “He needs you very much, precisely now. I wouldn’t mention the subject and torment you beforehand if it weren’t necessary. He’s ill, he seems mad, he keeps asking for you. He doesn’t ask you to come and make peace, but just to show yourself in the doorway. A lot has happened to him since that day. He understands how incalculably guilty he is before you. He doesn’t want your forgiveness: ‘I cannot be forgiven,’ he says it himself—but only that you show yourself in the doorway ...”
“You suddenly ... ,” Katya stammered, “all these days I had a feeling you would come with that ... I just knew he would ask for me...! It’s impossible!”
“It may be impossible, but do it. Remember, for the first time he’s been struck by how he insulted you, for the first time in his life, he never grasped it so fully before! He says: if she refuses to come, then I ‘will be unhappy for the rest of my life.’ Do you hear? A man sentenced to twenty years of penal servitude still intends to be happy—isn’t that pitiful? Think: you will be visiting a man who has been guiltlessly ruined,” burst from Alyosha with a challenge, “his hands are clean, there is no blood on them! For the sake of his countless future sufferings, visit him now! Go, see him off into the darkness ... stand in the doorway, that’s all ... You really must, must do it!” Alyosha concluded, emphasizing the word “must” with incredible force.