“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...”