The last words she spoke in tears; tears gushed from her eyes.
“I must tell you,” said Alyosha, also in a trembling voice, “of what took place just now between him and father.” And he described the whole scene, described how he had been sent to get money, how Mitya had burst in, beaten their father, and after that specifically and insistently confirmed that he, Alyosha, should go and “bow” ... “He went to that woman ... ,” Alyosha added softly.
“And do you think that I cannot endure that woman? He thinks that I will not endure her? But he won’t marry her,” she suddenly gave a nervous laugh. “Can a Karamazov eternally burn with such a passion? It’s passion, not love. He won’t marry her, because she won’t marry him ... ,” again Katerina Ivanovna suddenly laughed strangely.
“He may well marry her,” Alyosha said sadly, lowering his eyes.
“He won’t marry her, I tell you! That girl—she’s an angel, do you know that? Do you know it?” Katerina Ivanovna suddenly exclaimed with remarkable fervor. “The most fantastic of all fantastic beings! I know how bewitching she is, but I also know how kind, firm, noble she is. Why are you looking at me that way, Alexei Fyodorovich? Perhaps you’re surprised at my words, perhaps you don’t believe me? Agrafena Alexandrovna, my angel!” she suddenly called out to someone, looking into the other room, “come and join us! This is a dear man, this is Alyosha, he knows all about our affairs. Show yourself to him!”
“I’ve only been waiting behind the curtain for you to call me,” said a tender, even somewhat sugary woman’s voice.
The portière was raised and ... Grushenka herself, laughing and joyful, came up to the table. Something seemed to contract in Alyosha. His eyes were glued to her, he couldn’t take them off of her. Here she was, that terrible woman, that “beast,” as his brother Ivan had let slip half an hour earlier. And yet before him stood what seemed, at first glance, to be a most ordinary and simple being—a kind, nice woman; beautiful, yes, but so much like all other beautiful but “ordinary” women! It’s true that she was very good-looking indeed—with that Russian beauty loved so passionately by so many. She was a rather tall woman, slightly shorter, however, than Katerina Ivanovna (who was exceptionally tall), plump, with a soft, even, as it were, inaudible way of moving her body, and delicate as well, as though it were some sort of special sugary confection, like her voice. She came up not like Katerina Ivanovna, with strong, cheerful strides, but, on the contrary, inaudibly. Her step was completely noiseless. Softly she lowered herself into an armchair, softly rustling her ample black silk dress, and delicately wrapping her plump neck, white as foam, and her wide shoulders in an expensive black woolen shawl. She was twenty-two years old, and her face showed exactly that age. Her complexion was very white, with a pale rosy tint high on her cheeks. The shape of her face was too broad, perhaps, and her lower jaw even protruded a bit. Her upper lip was thin, and her more prominent lower lip was twice as full and seemed a little swollen. But the most wonderful, most abundant dark brown hair, dark sable eyebrows, and lovely gray blue eyes with long lashes could not fail to make even the most indifferent and absent-minded man somewhere in the crowd, on market day, in the crush, stop suddenly before this face and remember it afterwards for a long time. What struck Alyosha most of all in this face was its childlike, openhearted expression. Her look was like a child’s, her joy was like a child’s, she came up to the table precisely “joyfully,” as if she were expecting something now with the most childlike, impatient, and trusting curiosity. Her look made the soul glad—Alyosha felt it. But there was something else in her that he could not, and would not have been able to, account for, but which perhaps affected him unconsciously—namely, once again, this softness, this tenderness of her bodily movements, the feline inaudibility of her movements. And yet it was a strong and abundant body. Under the shawl one sensed her broad, full shoulders, her high, still quite youthful bosom. This body perhaps promised the forms of the Venus de Milo, one could sense that—though the proportions must have been and indeed already were somewhat exaggerated. Connoisseurs of Russian feminine beauty could have foretold with certainty, looking at Grushenka, that this fresh, still youthful beauty would lose its harmony towards the age of thirty, would grow shapeless, the face itself would become puffy, wrinkles would very quickly appear around the eyes and on the forehead, the complexion would turn coarser, ruddier perhaps—the beauty of a moment, in short, a passing beauty, such as one so often finds precisely in a Russian woman. Alyosha, of course, was not thinking of that, but, though he was fascinated, he asked himself with a certain unpleasant feeling, and as if regretfully, why she had this manner of drawing out her words instead of speaking naturally. She did it, obviously, because she found this drawn-out and too-sugary enunciation of sounds and syllables beautiful. It was, of course, simply a bad habit, in bad tone, which indicated a low upbringing and a notion of propriety vulgarly adopted in childhood. And yet this manner of speaking and intonation seemed to Alyosha almost an impossible contradiction to the childlike, open-hearted, and joyful expression of her face, to the quiet, happy, infant shining of her eyes! Katerina Ivanovna at once sat her down in an armchair facing Alyosha, and delightedly kissed her several times on her smiling lips. She seemed to be in love with her.
“We’ve met for the first time, Alexei Fyodorovich,” she said rapturously. “I wanted to know her, to see her. I would have gone to her, but she came herself as soon as I asked. I knew that we would resolve everything, everything! My heart foresaw it ... They begged me to abandon this step, but I foresaw the outcome, and I was not mistaken. Grushenka has explained everything to me, all her intentions; like a good angel, she has flown down here and brought peace and joy ...”
“My dear, worthy young lady did not scorn me,” Grushenka drawled in a singsong voice with the same lovely, joyful smile.
“Don’t you dare say such a thing to me, you enchantress, you sorceress! Scorn you? I shall kiss your lower lip one more time. It seems a little swollen, then let it be more swollen, and more, and more ... See how she laughs! Alexei Fyodorovich, it’s a joy for the heart just to look at this angel...”
Alyosha blushed, and an imperceptible trembling came over him.
“You are too kind to me, dear young lady, and perhaps I am not at all worthy of your caresses.” “Not worthy! She is not worthy!” Katerina Ivanovna again exclaimed with the same fervor. “You know, Alexei Fyodorovich, we have a fantastic little head, we’re willful and have a proud, proud little heart! We are noble, Alexei Fyodorovich, we are magnanimous, did you know that? Only we have been so unhappy! We were too ready to make all sorts of sacrifices for an unworthy, perhaps, or frivolous man. There was one man, he was an officer, too, we fell in love with him, we offered him everything, it was long ago, five years ago, and he forgot us, he got married. Now he’s a widower, he’s written, he’s coming here—and, you know, it is only him, only him and no one else that we love now and have loved all our life! He will come, and Grushenka will be happy again, and for all these five years she has been unhappy. But who will reproach her, who will boast of her favors? Only that bedridden old man, a merchant—but he has been more of a father, a friend, a protector to us. He found us in despair, in torment, abandoned by the one we loved so ... why, she wanted to drown herself then, and this old man saved her, saved her!”
“You defend me too much, dear young lady; you are in too much of a hurry with everything,” Grushenka drawled again.