"One loves people for some reason, but what have either of you done for me?""You should love people without a reason, as Alyosha does.""How does he love you? How has he shown it, that you make such a fuss about it?"Grushenka was standing in the middle of the room; she spoke with heat and there were hysterical notes in her voice.
"Hush, Rakitin, you know nothing about us! And don't dare to speak to me like that again.How dare you be so familiar! Sit in that corner and be quiet, as though you were my footman! And now, Alyosha, I'll tell you the whole truth, that you may see what a wretch I am! I am not talking to Rakitin, but to you.I wanted to ruin you, Alyosha, that's the holy truth; I quite meant to.I wanted to so much, that Ibribed Rakitin to bring you.And why did I want to do such a thing?
You knew nothing about it, Alyosha, you turned away from me; if you passed me, you dropped your eyes.And I've looked at you a hundred times before to-day; I began asking everyone about you.Your face haunted my heart.'He despises me,' I thought; 'he won't even look at me.' And I felt it so much at last that I wondered at myself for being so frightened of a boy.I'll get him in my clutches and laugh at him.I was full of spite and anger.Would you believe it, nobody here dares talk or think of coming to Agrafena Alexandrovna with any evil purpose.Old Kuzma is the only man I have anything to do with here; I was bound and sold to him; Satan brought us together, but there has been no one else.But looking at you, I thought, I'll get him in my clutches and laugh at him.You see what a spiteful cur I am, and you called me your sister! And now that man who wronged me has come; I sit here waiting for a message from him.And do you know what that man has been to me? Five years ago, when Kuzma brought me here, I used to shut myself up, that no one might have sight or sound of me.I was a silly slip of a girl; I used to sit here sobbing;I used to lie awake all night, thinking: 'Where is he now, the man who wronged me? He is laughing at me with another woman, most likely.If only I could see him, if I could meet him again, I'd pay him out, I'd pay him out!' At night I used to lie sobbing into my pillow in the dark, and I used to brood over it; I used to tear my heart on purpose and gloat over my anger.'I'll pay him out, I'll pay him out! That's what I used to cry out in the dark.And when I suddenly thought that I should really do nothing to him, and that he was laughing at me then, or perhaps had utterly forgotten me, I would fling myself on the floor, melt into helpless tears, and lie there shaking till dawn.In the morning I would get up more spiteful than a dog, ready to tear the whole world to pieces.And then what do you think? I began saving money, I became hardhearted, grew stout- grew wiser, would you say? No, no one in the whole world sees it, no one knows it, but when night comes on, I sometimes lie as I did five years ago, when I was a silly girl, clenching my teeth and crying all night, thinking, 'I'll pay him out, I'll pay him out!' Do you hear? Well then, now you understand me.A month ago a letter came to me- he was coming, he was a widower, he wanted to see me.It took my breath away;then I suddenly thought: 'If he comes and whistles to call me, I shall creep back to him like a beaten dog.' I couldn't believe myself.Am I so abject? Shall I run to him or not? And I've been in such a rage with myself all this month that I am worse than I was five years ago.Do you see now, Alyosha, what a violent, vindictive creature Iam? I have shown you the whole truth! I played with Mitya to keep me from running to that other.Hush, Rakitin, it's not for you to judge me, I am not speaking to you.Before you came in, I was lying here waiting, brooding, deciding my whole future life, and you can never know what was in my heart.Yes, Alyosha, tell your young lady not to be angry with me for what happened the day before yesterday....Nobody in the whole world knows what I am going through now, and no one ever can know....For perhaps I shall take a knife with me to-day, Ican't make up my mind..."
And at this "tragic" phrase Grushenka broke down, hid her face in her hands, flung herself on the sofa pillows, and sobbed like a little child.
Alyosha got up and went to Rakitin.
"Misha," he said, "don't be angry.She wounded you, but don't be angry.You heard what she said just now? You mustn't ask too much of human endurance, one must be merciful."Alyosha said this at the instinctive prompting of his heart.He felt obliged to speak and he turned to Rakitin.If Rakitin had not been there, he would have spoken to the air.But Rakitin looked at him ironically and Alyosha stopped short.
"You were so primed up with your elder's reading last night that now you have to let it off on me, Alexey, man of God!" said Rakitin, with a smile of hatred.
"Don't laugh, Rakitin, don't smile, don't talk of the dead- he was better than anyone in the world!" cried Alyosha, with tears in his voice."I didn't speak to you as a judge but as the lowest of the judged.What am I beside her? I came here seeking my ruin, and said to myself, 'What does it matter?' in my cowardliness, but she, after five years in torment, as soon as anyone says a word from the heart to her-it makes her forget everything, forgive everything, in her tears!
