The man who has wronged her has come back, he sends for her and she forgives him everything, and hastens joyfully to meet him and she won't take a knife with her.She won't! No, I am not like that.Idon't know whether you are, Misha, but I am not like that.It's a lesson to me....She is more loving than we....Have you heard her speak before of what she has just told us? No, you haven't; if you had, you'd have understood her long ago...and the person insulted the day before yesterday must forgive her, too! She will, when she knows...and she shall know....This soul is not yet at peace with itself, one must be tender with...there may be a treasure in that soul...."Alyosha stopped, because he caught his breath.In spite of his ill-humour Rakitin looked at him with astonishment.He had never expected such a tirade from the gentle Alyosha.
"She's found someone to plead her cause! Why, are you in love with her? Agrafena Alexandrovna, our monk's really in love with you, you've made a conquest!" he cried, with a coarse laugh.
Grushenka lifted her head from the pillow and looked at Alyosha with a tender smile shining on her tear-stained face.
"Let him alone, Alyosha, my cherub; you see what he is, he is not a person for you to speak to.Mihail Osipovitch," she turned to Rakitin, "I meant to beg your pardon for being rude to you, but now I don't want to.Alyosha, come to me, sit down here." She beckoned to him with a happy smile."That's right, sit here.Tell me," she took him by the hand and peeped into his face, smiling, "tell me, do I love that man or not? The man who wronged me, do I love him or not?
Before you came, I lay here in the dark, asking my heart whether Iloved him.Decide for me, Alyosha, the time has come, it shall be as you say.Am I to forgive him or not?""But you have forgiven him already," said Alyosha, smiling.
"Yes, I really have forgiven him," Grushenka murmured thoughtfully."What an abject heart! To my abject heart!" She snatched up a glass from the table, emptied it at a gulp, lifted it in the air and flung it on the floor.The glass broke with a crash.Alittle cruel line came into her smile.
"Perhaps I haven't forgiven him, though," she said, with a sort of menace in her voice, and she dropped her eyes to the ground as though she were talking to herself."Perhaps my heart is only getting ready to forgive.I shall struggle with my heart.You see, Alyosha, I've grown to love my tears in these five years....Perhaps Ionly love my resentment, not him..."
"Well, I shouldn't care to be in his shoes," hissed Rakitin.
"Well, you won't be, Rakitin, you'll never be in his shoes.You shall black my shoes, Rakitin, that's the place you are fit for.
You'll never get a woman like me...and he won't either, perhaps...""Won't he? Then why are you dressed up like that?" said Rakitin, with a venomous sneer.
"Don't taunt me with dressing up, Rakitin, you don't know all that is in my heart! If I choose to tear off my finery, I'll tear it off at once, this minute," she cried in a resonant voice."You don't know what that finery is for, Rakitin! Perhaps I shall see him and say:
'Have you ever seen me look like this before?' He left me a thin, consumptive cry-baby of seventeen.I'll sit by him, fascinate him and work him up.'Do you see what I am like now?' I'll say to him;'well, and that's enough for you, my dear sir, there's many a slip twixt the cup and the lip! That may be what the finery is for, Rakitin." Grushenka finished with a malicious laugh."I'm violent and resentful, Alyosha, I'll tear off my finery, I'll destroy my beauty, I'll scorch my face, slash it with a knife, and turn beggar.
If I choose, I won't go anywhere now to see anyone.If I choose, I'll send Kuzma back all he has ever given me, to-morrow, and all his money and I'll go out charing for the rest of my life.You think Iwouldn't do it, Rakitin, that I would not dare to do it? I would, Iwould, I could do it directly, only don't exasperate me...and I'll send him about his business, I'll snap my fingers in his face, he shall never see me again!"She uttered the last words in an hysterical scream, but broke down again, hid her face in her hands, buried it in the pillow and shook with sobs.
Rakitin got up.
"It's time we were off," he said, "it's late, we shall be shut out of the monastery."Grushenka leapt up from her place.
"Surely you don't want to go, Alyosha!" she cried, in mournful surprise."What are you doing to me? You've stirred up my feeling, tortured me, and now you'll leave me to face this night alone!""He can hardly spend the night with you! Though if he wants to, let him! I'll go alone," Rakitin scoffed jeeringly.
"Hush, evil tongue!" Grushenka cried angrily at him; "you never said such words to me as he has come to say.""What has he said to you so special?" asked Rakitin irritably.
"I can't say, I don't know.I don't know what he said to me, it went straight to my heart; he has wrung my heart....He is the first, the only one who has pitied me, that's what it is.Why did you not come before, you angel?" She fell on her knees before him as though in a sudden frenzy."I've been waiting all my life for someone like you, I knew that someone like you would come and forgive me.I believed that, nasty as I am, someone would really love me, not only with a shameful love!""What have I done to you?" answered Alyosha, bending over her with a tender smile, and gently taking her by the hands; "I only gave you an onion, nothing but a tiny little onion, that was all!"He was moved to tears himself as he said it.At that moment there was a sudden noise in the passage, someone came into the hall.
Grushenka jumped up, seeming greatly alarmed.Fenya ran noisily into the room, crying out:
