The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (best e book reader for android txt) 📖

absorbing interest to her at the

moment.

 

“Mamma has just told me all about the two hundred roubles,

Alexey Fyodorovitch, and your taking them to that poor officer…

and she told me all the awful story of how he had been insulted… and

you know, although mamma muddles things… she always rushes from

one thing to another… I cried when I heard. Well, did you give him

the money and how is that poor man getting on?”

 

“The fact is I didn’t give it to him, and it’s a long story,”

answered Alyosha, as though he, too, could think of nothing but his

regret at having failed, yet Lise saw perfectly well that he, too,

looked away, and that he, too, was trying to talk of other things.

 

Alyosha sat down to the table and began to tell his story, but

at the first words he lost his embarrassment and gained the whole of

Lise’s attention as well. He spoke with deep feeling, under the

influence of the strong impression he had just received, and he

succeeded in telling his story well and circumstantially. In old

days in Moscow he had been fond of coming to Lise and describing to

her what had just happened to him, what he had read, or what he

remembered of his childhood. Sometimes they had made day-dreams and

woven whole romances together-generally cheerful and amusing ones.

Now they both felt suddenly transported to the old days in Moscow, two

years before. Lise was extremely touched by his story. Alyosha

described Ilusha with warm feeling. When he finished describing how

the luckless man trampled on the money, Lise could not help clasping

her hands and crying out:

 

“So you didn’t give him the money! So you let him run away! Oh,

dear, you ought to have run after him!”

 

“No, Lise; it’s better I didn’t run after him,” said Alyosha,

getting up from his chair and walking thoughtfully across the room.

 

“How so? How is it better? Now they are without food and their

case is hopeless.”

 

“Not hopeless, for the two hundred roubles will still come to

them. He’ll take the money to-morrow. To-morrow he will be sure to

take it,” said Alyosha, pacing up and down, pondering. “You see,

Lise,” he went on, stopping suddenly before her, “I made one

blunder, but that, even that, is all for the best.”

 

“What blunder, and why is it for the best?”

 

“I’ll tell you. He is a man of weak and timorous character; he has

suffered so much and is very good-natured. I keep wondering why he

took offence so suddenly, for I assure you, up to the last minute,

he did not know that he was going to trample on the notes. And I think

now that there was a great deal to offend him… and it could not have

been otherwise in his position…. To begin with, he was sore at

having been so glad of the money in my presence and not having

concealed it from me. If he had been pleased, but not so much; if he

had not shown it; if he had begun affecting scruples and difficulties,

as other people do when they take money, he might still endure-to

take it. But he was too genuinely delighted, and that was

mortifying. Ah, Lise, he is a good and truthful man-that’s the

worst of the whole business. All the while he talked, his voice was so

weak, so broken, he talked so fast, so fast, he kept laughing such a

laugh, or perhaps he was crying-yes, I am sure he was crying, he

was so delighted-and he talked about his daughters-and about the

situation he could get in another town…. And when he had poured

out his heart, he felt ashamed at having shown me his inmost soul like

that. So he began to hate me at once. He is one of those awfully

sensitive poor people. What had made him feel most ashamed was that he

had given in too soon and accepted me as a friend, you see. At first

he almost flew at me and tried to intimidate me, but as soon as he saw

the money he had begun embracing me; he kept touching me with his

hands. This must have been how he came to feel it all so

humiliating, and then I made that blunder, a very important one. I

suddenly said to him that if he had not money enough to move to

another town, we would give it to him, and, indeed, I myself would

give him as much as he wanted out of my own money. That struck him all

at once. Why, he thought, did I put myself forward to help him? You

know, Lise, it’s awfully hard for a man who has been injured, when

other people look at him as though they were his benefactors….

I’ve heard that; Father Zossima told me so. I don’t know how to put

it, but I have often seen it myself. And I feel like that myself, too.

And the worst of it was that though he did not know, to the very

last minute, that he would trample on the notes, he had a kind of

presentiment of it, I am sure of that. That’s just what made him so

ecstatic, that he had that presentiment…. And though it’s so

dreadful, it’s all for the best. In fact, I believe nothing better

could have happened.”

 

“Why, why could nothing better have happened?” cried Lise, looking

with great surprise at Alyosha.

 

“Because if he had taken the money, in an hour after getting home,

he would be crying with mortification, that’s just what would have

happened. And most likely he would have come to me early to-morrow,

and perhaps have flung the notes at me and trampled upon them as he

did just now. But now he has gone home awfully proud and triumphant,

though he knows he has ‘ruined himself.’ So now nothing could be

easier than to make him accept the two hundred roubles by to-morrow,

for he has already vindicated his honour, tossed away the money, and

trampled it under foot…. He couldn’t know when he did it that I

should bring it to him again to-morrow, and yet he is in terrible need

of that money. Though he is proud of himself now, yet even to-day

he’ll be thinking what a help he has lost. He will think of it more

than ever at night, will dream of it, and by to-morrow morning he

may be ready to run to me to ask forgiveness. It’s just then that I’ll

appear. ‘Here, you are a proud man,’ I shall say: ‘you have shown

it; but now take the money and forgive us!’ And then he will take it!

 

Alyosha was carried away with joy as he uttered his last words,

“And then he will take it!” Lise clapped her hands.

 

“Ah, that’s true! I understand that perfectly now. Ah, Alyosha,

how do you know all this? So young and yet he knows what’s in the

heart…. I should never have worked it out.”

 

“The great thing now is to persuade him that he is on an equal

footing with us, in spite of his taking money from us,” Alyosha went

on in his excitement, “and not only on an equal, but even on a

higher footing.”

 

“‘On a higher footing’ is charming, Alexey Fyodorovitch; but go

on, go on!”

 

“You mean there isn’t such an expression as ‘on a higher footing’;

but that doesn’t matter because- “

 

“Oh, no, of course it doesn’t matter. Forgive me, Alyosha,

dear…. You know, I scarcely respected you till now-that is I

respected you but on an equal footing; but now I shall begin to

respect you on a higher footing. Don’t be angry, dear, at my

joking,” she put in at once, with strong feeling. “I am absurd and

small, but you, you! Listen, Alexey Fyodorovitch. Isn’t there in all

our analysis-I mean your analysis… no, better call it ours-aren’t we showing contempt for him, for that poor man-in analysing

his soul like this, as it were, from above, eh? In deciding so

certainly that he will take the money?”

 

“No, Lise, it’s not contempt,” Alyosha answered, as though he

had prepared himself for the question. “I was thinking of that on

the way here. How can it be contempt when we are all like him, when we

are all just the same as he is? For you know we are just the same,

no better. If we are better, we should have been just the same in

his place…. I don’t know about you, Lise, but I consider that I have

a sordid soul in many ways, and his soul is not sordid; on the

contrary, full of fine feeling…. No, Lise, I have no contempt for

him. Do you know, Lise, my elder told me once to care for most

people exactly as one would for children, and for some of them as

one would for the sick in hospitals.”

 

“Ah, Alexey Fyodorovitch. dear, let us care for people as we would

for the sick!”

 

“Let us, Lise; I am ready. Though I am not altogether ready in

myself. I am sometimes very impatient and at other times I don’t see

things. It’s different with you.”

 

“Ah, I don’t believe it! Alexey Fyodorovitch, how happy I am!”

 

“I am so glad you say so, Lise.”

 

“Alexey Fyodorovitch, you are wonderfully good, but you are

sometimes sort of formal…. And yet you are not a bit formal

really. Go to the door, open it gently, and see whether mamma is

listening,” said Lise, in a nervous, hurried whisper.

 

Alyosha went, opened the door, and reported that no one was

listening.

 

“Come here, Alexey Fyodorovitch,” Lise went on, flushing redder

and redder. “Give me your hand-that’s right. I have to make a great

confession. I didn’t write to you yesterday in joke, but in

earnest,” and she hid her eyes with her hand. It was evident that

she was greatly ashamed of the confession.

 

Suddenly she snatched his hand and impulsively kissed it three

times.

 

“Ah, Lise, what a good thing!” cried Alyosha joyfully. “You

know, I was perfectly sure you were in earnest.”

 

“Sure? Upon my word! She put aside his hand, but did not leave

go of it, blushing hotly, and laughing a little happy laugh. “I kiss

his hand and he says, ‘What a good thing!’”

 

But her reproach was undeserved. Alyosha, too, was greatly

overcome.

 

“I should like to please you always, Lise, but don’t know how to

do it.” he muttered, blushing too.

 

“Alyosha, dear, you are cold and rude. Do you see? He has chosen

me as his wife and is quite settled about it. He is sure I was in

earnest. What a thing to say! Why, that’s impertinence-that’s what it

is.”

 

“Why, was it wrong of me to feel sure?” Alyosha asked, laughing

suddenly.

 

“Ah, Alyosha, on the contrary, it was delightfully right,” cried

Lise, looking tenderly and happily at him.

 

Alyosha stood still, holding her hand in his. Suddenly he

stooped down and kissed her on her lips.

 

“Oh, what are you doing?” cried Lise. Alyosha was terribly

abashed.

 

“Oh, forgive me if I shouldn’t…. Perhaps I’m awfully

stupid…. You said I was cold, so I kissed you…. But I see it was

stupid.”

 

Lise laughed, and hid her face in her hands. “And in that

dress!” she ejaculated in the midst of her mirth. But she suddenly

ceased laughing and became serious, almost stern.

 

“Alyosha, we must put off kissing. We are not ready for that

yet, and we shall have a long time