“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.”

“Do, then. You won’t spy out anything of the sort in me,” Alyosha laughed.

“And, Alyosha, will you submit to me? This, too, ought to be decided beforehand.”

“I will, certainly, with the greatest pleasure, only not in the most important things. If you disagree with me about the most important things, I will still do as duty tells me.”

“That’s how it should be. And you should know that I, too, on the contrary, am not only ready to submit to you in the most important things, but will also yield to you in everything, and I will give you my oath on it right now—in everything and for my whole life,” Lise cried out fervently, “and happily, happily! What’s more, I swear to you that I shall never eavesdrop on you, not once ever, nor shall I read even one of your letters, for you are right and I am not. And though I shall want terribly to eavesdrop, I know it, I still shan’t do it, because you consider it ignoble. You are like my providence now ... Listen, Alexei Fyodorovich, why have you been so sad these days, both yesterday and today? I know you have cares, great troubles, but I see that you have some special sadness besides, perhaps some secret one, don’t you?”

“Yes, Lise, I have a secret one, too,” Alyosha said sadly. “I can see that you love me if you’ve guessed that.”

“What is this sadness? About what? Can you tell me?” Lise pleaded timidly.

“I’ll tell you later, Lise ... later ... ,” Alyosha became embarrassed. “Now perhaps you wouldn’t understand it. And perhaps I wouldn’t be able to explain it myself.”

“Besides, I know that your brothers and your father are tormenting you.”

“Yes, my brothers, too,” said Alyosha, as if thinking to himself.

“I don’t like your brother Ivan Fyodorovich, Alyosha,” Lise suddenly remarked.

Alyosha noted her remark with a certain surprise, but did not take it up.

“My brothers are destroying themselves,” he went on, “my father, too. And they’re destroying others with them. This is the ‘earthy force of the Karama-zovs,’ as Father Paissy put it the other day—earthy and violent, raw ... Whether the Spirit of God is moving over that force—even that I do not know. I only know that I myself am a Karamazov ... I am a monk, a monk? Am I a monk, Lise? Didn’t you say somehow a moment ago that I was a monk?”

“Yes, I said that.”

“And, look, maybe I don’t even believe in God.” “You don’t believe? What’s the matter with you?” Lise asked softly and cautiously. But Alyosha did not answer. There was, in these too-sudden words, something too mysterious and too subjective, perhaps not clear to himself, but that undoubtedly tormented him.