X. Обе вместе

His mind too was as if splintered and scattered, while at the same time he felt that he was afraid to gather up what had scattered and draw a single idea out of all the agonizing contradictions he had lived through that day.

Something verged almost on despair, which had never before been in Alyosha's heart.

Over everything there loomed, like a mountain, the chief, fatal, and insoluble question: how would it end between his father and his brother Dmitri before this terrible woman?

Now he had become a witness himself.

He had been present there himself and had seen the two of them face to face.

And yet only his brother Dmitri stood to be the wretched one, wholly and terribly wretched: an unmistakable disaster lay in wait for him.

There turned out to be other people too whom all of this concerned, and perhaps far more than it had seemed to Alyosha before.

Something even enigmatic was emerging.

His brother Ivan had taken a step toward him, the very thing Alyosha had so long wished for, and now for some reason he himself felt that this step toward closeness had frightened him.

And those women?

A strange thing: earlier that day he had set off to Katerina Ivanovna's in extraordinary confusion, but now he felt none at all; on the contrary, he was hurrying to her of his own accord, as though expecting to find in her some guidance.

And yet to deliver his message to her was now plainly harder than earlier: the matter of the three thousand had been settled once and for all, and his brother Dmitri, feeling himself now dishonored and already without any hope, would surely not stop at anything more, not before any depth of ruin.

On top of that, he had been told to report to Katerina Ivanovna the scene that had just taken place at their father's as well.

It was already seven o'clock and growing dark when Alyosha set out for Katerina Ivanovna's; she occupied one very spacious and comfortable house on Bolshaya Street.

Alyosha knew that she lived with two aunts.

One of them, however, was actually only the aunt of her sister Agafya Ivanovna; she was that wordless person in her father's house who had looked after Katerina there together with her sister when she had come to them from the boarding school.

The other aunt, on the other hand, was a refined and imposing Moscow lady, though one of impoverished means.

It was understood that both of them deferred in everything to Katerina Ivanovna and attended on her solely for the sake of decorum.

Katerina Ivanovna, for her part, deferred only to her benefactress, the general's widow, who had stayed behind on account of illness in Moscow and to whom she was obliged to send two letters a week with detailed news of herself.

When Alyosha entered the hall and asked the maid who opened the door to announce him, in the drawing room they had evidently already learned of his arrival (perhaps they had noticed him from the window), but Alyosha suddenly heard some sort of noise, the sound of running women's footsteps and rustling dresses: perhaps two or three women had hurried out.

It struck Alyosha as strange that his arrival could have produced such a commotion.

He was, however, shown into the drawing room at once.

It was a large room, furnished with elegant and abundant furniture, not at all in the provincial manner.

There were many sofas and settees, small couches, large and little tables; there were pictures on the walls, vases and lamps on the tables, there were many flowers, there was even an aquarium by the window.

Because of the dusk the room was somewhat dim.

Alyosha made out on the sofa, where someone had evidently just been sitting, a tossed-aside silk mantilla, and on the table before the sofa two half-finished cups of chocolate, biscuits, a crystal dish of blue raisins, and another of sweets.

Someone was being entertained.

Alyosha guessed that he had walked in upon guests, and he winced.

But at that very instant the portière was lifted and, with quick, hurried steps, Katerina Ivanovna came in, holding out both hands to Alyosha with a joyful, rapturous smile.

At the same moment a servant brought in and set on the table two lighted candles.

"Thank God, here you are at last! I have been begging God for you alone all day! Sit down."

Katerina Ivanovna's beauty had struck Alyosha even before, when his brother Dmitri, some three weeks earlier, had brought him to her for the first time to present and introduce him, at Katerina Ivanovna's own urgent wish.

No conversation between them had got going at that meeting, however.

Assuming that Alyosha was very much embarrassed, Katerina Ivanovna had as it were spared him and had spent that whole visit talking with Dmitri Fyodorovich.

Alyosha had said nothing, but he had observed a great deal quite well.

He had been struck by the imperiousness, the proud ease, the self-assurance of this haughty girl.

And all of this was beyond doubt.

Alyosha felt that he was not exaggerating.

He had found that her large, black, burning eyes were beautiful and especially suited to her pale, even somewhat pale-yellow, elongated face.

But in those eyes, as in the outline of her lovely lips, there was something with which his brother might, of course, have fallen terribly in love, but which, perhaps, could not be loved for long.

He had said his thought almost outright to Dmitri when, after the visit, his brother had pressed him, imploring him not to conceal what impression he had carried away from seeing his bride.

"You will be happy with her, but perhaps… an uneasy happiness."

"That's just it, brother — such women stay just as they are; they do not submit before fate. So you think I won't love her forever?"

"No, perhaps you will love her forever, but perhaps you won't always be happy with her…"

Alyosha had given his opinion then, blushing and vexed with himself that, having yielded to his brother's entreaties, he had voiced such "foolish" thoughts.

Because his opinion had struck him himself as dreadfully foolish the moment he had voiced it.

And besides, he had felt ashamed to pronounce judgment on a woman so authoritatively.

It was with all the greater astonishment, then, that he felt now, at his first glance at Katerina Ivanovna as she hurried out to him, that perhaps he had been very much mistaken back then.

This time her face shone with an unfeigned, simple-hearted kindness, with a frank and ardent sincerity.

Of all the former "pride and haughtiness" that had so struck Alyosha at the time, only one thing was now noticeable: a bold, noble energy and a kind of clear, mighty faith in herself.

Alyosha understood, from his first glance at her, from her first words, that the whole tragedy of her position with regard to the man she so loved was not in the least a secret to her, that she perhaps already knew everything, decidedly everything.

And yet, in spite of that, there was so much light in her face, so much faith in the future.

Alyosha suddenly felt himself, before her, seriously and deliberately to blame.

He was conquered and drawn to her at once.

Besides all this, he noticed from her very first words that she was in some kind of intense excitement, perhaps quite uncharacteristic of her — an excitement bordering almost even on a kind of rapture.

"I have been waiting for you so because it is from you alone that I can now learn the whole truth — from no one else!"

"I have come…" Alyosha muttered, faltering, "I… he sent me…"

"Ah, he sent you — well, that is just what I had a presentiment of. Now I know everything, everything!" cried Katerina Ivanovna, her eyes suddenly flashing.

"Wait, Alexei Fyodorovich, let me tell you in advance why I have been waiting for you so.

You see, I perhaps know far more than even you yourselves do; it is not news from you that I need.

Here is what I need from you: I must know your own, personal, latest impression of him; I need you to tell me in the most direct, unvarnished, even coarse terms (oh, as coarse as you like!) — how you yourself look upon him now and upon his situation after your meeting with him today.

That will perhaps be better than if I myself, whom he no longer wishes to visit, were to have it out with him in person.

Have you understood what I want from you?

Now, with what message did he send you to me (I just knew he would send you!) — speak plainly, give me his very last word!.."

"He bade me… send his regards, and say that he will never come again… yes, send his regards to you."

"His regards? That is just how he put it, that is the very word he used?"

"Yes."

"In passing, perhaps, by accident — slipped on the word, put down the wrong word, not the one he meant?"

"No, he charged me precisely to pass on this very word: 'his regards.' He asked some three times that I not forget to deliver it."

Katerina Ivanovna flushed.

"Help me now, Alexei Fyodorovich — now is just when I need your help: I will tell you my thought, and you have only to tell me whether I am thinking rightly or not.