I. Сговор

She was in a hurry: something important had happened: Katerina Ivanovna's hysterics had ended in a fainting fit, and then had come on "a terrible, dreadful weakness; she had lain down, rolled up her eyes, and begun to rave.

Now there was fever; they had sent for Herzenstube, they had sent for the aunts.

The aunts are here already, but Herzenstube is not yet.

They are all sitting in her room and waiting.

Something will come of it, and she lies there unconscious.

And what if it turns to brain fever!"

As she cried this out, Madame Hohlakova wore a look of genuine fright: "This is serious now, serious!"—she added to every word, as though everything that had befallen her before had not been serious.

Alyosha listened to her with sorrow; he had begun to set out his own adventures to her as well, but she cut him off at his very first words: she had no time for it, she begged him to sit with Lise and to wait for her there.

"Lise, dearest Alexei Fyodorovich,"—she whispered to him almost in his ear,—"Lise has just surprised me strangely, but she has also touched me, and so my heart forgives her everything.

Just imagine, the moment you had gone, she suddenly, in all sincerity, began to repent of having seemingly laughed at you yesterday and today.

But she really was not laughing, she was only joking.

Yet she repented so seriously, almost to the point of tears, that I was astonished.

Never before had she seriously repented when she laughed at me, but always treated it as a jest.

And you know, she laughs at me every single minute.

But now she is in earnest, now it has all turned serious.

She values your opinion extraordinarily, Alexei Fyodorovich, and if you can, do not take offense at her and bear her no grudge.

I myself do nothing but spare her, because she is so very clever—would you believe it?

She was saying just now that you had been the friend of her childhood,—'the most serious friend of my childhood,'—just imagine that, the most serious, and what about me, then?

On that score she has extraordinarily serious feelings and even memories, but the main thing is these phrases and little turns of speech, the most unexpected little turns, so that you never expect them, and then suddenly out one pops.

Lately, for instance, about a pine—there used to stand a pine in our garden in her earliest childhood, perhaps it is standing there still, so there is no need to speak in the past tense.

Pines are not people, they do not change for a long time, Alexei Fyodorovich. 'Mama,' she says, 'I remember that pine as in a dream'—that is, 'a pine, as in a dream'—somehow she put it differently, because there is a muddle here, 'pine' is a silly word, but the point is she said something to me on the subject so original that I positively could not undertake to repeat it.

And besides, I have forgotten it all.

Well, good-bye, I am terribly shaken and surely going out of my mind.

Ah, Alexei Fyodorovich, twice in my life I have gone out of my mind, and they treated me for it.

Go in to Lise.

Cheer her up, as you always know so charmingly how to do. Lise,"—she called out, going up to her door,—"here I have brought you Alexei Fyodorovich, whom you so insulted, and he is not in the least angry, I assure you, on the contrary, he is amazed that you could have thought such a thing!"

"Merci, maman; come in, Alexei Fyodorovich."

Alyosha went in.

Lise looked somehow embarrassed and suddenly flushed all over.

She was evidently ashamed of something and, as always happens in such cases, began very quickly to talk about something entirely beside the point, as though that irrelevant matter were the only thing that interested her at that moment.

"Mama has just suddenly told me, Alexei Fyodorovich, the whole story of those two hundred roubles and of this errand of yours… to that poor officer… and she told me the whole dreadful story of how he was insulted, and, you know, although mama tells it very incoherently… she keeps jumping about… still, I listened and I cried.

Well, what came of it, did you give him the money, and how is that unfortunate man now?.."

"That's just it, I did not give it to him, and there is a whole story behind it,"—answered Alyosha, as though, for his part, he were most of all troubled precisely by his not having given over the money, while Lise noticed perfectly well that he too was looking aside and was likewise evidently trying to talk about something beside the point.

Alyosha sat down at the table and began to tell the tale, but from his very first words he completely stopped being embarrassed and in his turn carried Lise away.

He spoke under the sway of a strong feeling and of a recent, extraordinary impression, and he managed to tell it well and in full detail.

Even earlier, back in Moscow, when Lise was still a child, he had liked to come to her and tell her either of what had just happened to him, or of what he had read, or to recall things from the childhood he had lived through.

Sometimes the two of them even dreamed together and made up whole tales between them, but for the most part cheerful, funny ones.

Now it was as though they had both suddenly been carried back to the old Moscow days, a couple of years ago.

Lise was extraordinarily moved by his story.

With ardent feeling Alyosha managed to draw before her the image of "little Ilyusha."

And when he had finished, in every particular, the scene of how that unfortunate man had trampled the money, Lise clasped her hands and cried out in an irrepressible feeling:

"So you did not give him the money, so you simply let him run off!

Good heavens, you might at least have run after him yourself and caught up with him…"

"No, Lise, it is better that I did not run after him,"—said Alyosha, rising from his chair and pacing the room anxiously.

"How is it better, why better?

Now they will be without bread and will perish!"

"They will not perish, because those two hundred roubles will not pass them by all the same.

He will take them tomorrow regardless.

Tomorrow he will certainly take them,"—pronounced Alyosha, striding along in thought.—"You see, Lise,"—he went on, suddenly stopping before her,—"I myself made a mistake here, but even the mistake turned out for the best."

"What mistake, and why for the best?"

"Here is why: he is a timid man and weak in character.

He is so worn out, and very kind.

I keep thinking now: what was it that made him take offense so suddenly and trample the money, because, I assure you, up to the very last instant he himself did not know that he would trample it.

And it seems to me that he took offense at a great many things here… and it could not have been otherwise, given his position…

In the first place, he took offense at the very fact that he had rejoiced too much over the money in front of me and had not hidden it from me.

Had he rejoiced, but not too much, had he not shown it, had he put on airs as others do when they take money, made a show of reluctance, then he might still have endured it and accepted, but as it was he rejoiced too truthfully, and that is just what is humiliating.

Ah, Lise, he is a truthful and kind man, and that is precisely the whole trouble in cases like this!

The whole time he was talking, his voice was so weak, so feeble, and he spoke so very fast, kept somehow giggling with a sort of little laugh, or else was already weeping… honestly, he was weeping, he was in such rapture… and he spoke of his daughters… and of the post he would be given in another town…

And the moment he had poured out his soul, suddenly he felt ashamed of having shown me his whole soul like that.

And so at once he came to hate me.

And he is one of those terribly bashful poor people.

But the chief thing is, he took offense at having accepted me as his friend too quickly and given in to me too quickly; at first he threw himself at me, frightened me, and then suddenly, the moment he saw the money, he began to embrace me.

For he kept embracing me, kept touching me with his hands.

It was precisely in such a frame of mind that he was bound to feel the whole of this humiliation, and just then I happened to make a mistake, a very serious one: I suddenly up and told him that if he had not enough money for the move to another town, he would be given more, and that I myself would even give him as much as he liked out of my own money.

That is what suddenly struck him: why, he thought, must I too leap forward to help him?

You know, Lise, it is dreadfully hard for an injured man when everyone begins to look upon him as his benefactors… I have heard this, the elder told me so.

I do not know how to put it, but I have often seen it for myself, too.

Why, I feel exactly the same way myself.

And the main thing is that, although he did not know up to the very last instant that he would trample the banknotes, still he had a foreboding of it, that is beyond doubt.

That is precisely why his ecstasy was so strong, because he had a foreboding of it…