master, and you know, that’s all that’s needed for happiness. Stay … listen, Alyosha, I always used to surprise your mother, but in a different way. I paid no attention to her at all, but all at once, when the minute came, I’d be all devotion to her, crawl on my knees, kiss her feet, and I always, always—I remember it as though it were to-day—reduced her to that tinkling, quiet, nervous queer little laugh. It was peculiar to her. I knew her attacks always used to begin like that, the next day she would begin shrieking hysterically, and that this little laugh was not a sign of delight, but it made a very good counterfeit. That’s the great thing, to know how to take every one. Once Belyavsky—he was a handsome fellow, and rich—used to like to come here and hang about her—suddenly gave me a slap in the face in her presence. And she—such a mild sheep—why, I thought she would have knocked me down for that blow. How she set on me! ‘You’re beaten, beaten now,’ she said. ‘You’ve taken a blow from him. You have been trying to sell me to him,’ she said.… ‘And how dared he strike you in my presence! Don’t dare come near me again, never, never! Run at once, challenge him to a duel!’ … I took her to the monastery then to bring her to her senses. The holy Fathers prayed her back to reason. But I swear, by God, Alyosha, I never insulted the poor crazy girl! Only once, perhaps, in the first year; then she was very fond of praying. She used to keep the feasts of Our Lady particularly and used to turn me out of her room then. I’ll knock that mysticism out of her, thought I!‘Here,’ said I, ‘you see your holy image. Here it is. Here I take it down. You believe it’s miraculous, but here, I’ll spit on it directly and nothing will happen to me for it!’ … When she saw it, good Lord! I thought she would kill me. But she only jumped up, wrung her hands, then suddenly hid her face in them, began trembling all over and fell on the floor … fell all of a heap. Alyosha, Alyosha, what’s the matter?”

The old man jumped up in alarm. From the time he had begun speaking about his mother, a change had gradually come over Alyosha’s face. He flushed crimson, his eyes glowed, his lips quivered. The old sot had gone spluttering on, noticing nothing, till the moment when something very strange happened to Alyosha. Precisely what he was describing in the crazy woman was suddenly repeated with Alyosha. He jumped up from his seat exactly as his mother was said to have done, wrung his hands, hid his face in them, and fell back in his chair, shaking all over in an hysterical paroxysm of sudden violent, silent weeping. His extraordinary resemblance to his mother particularly impressed the old man.

“Ivan, Ivan! Water, quickly! It’s like her, exactly as she used to be then, his mother. Spurt some water on him from your mouth, that’s what I used to do to her. He’s upset about his mother, his mother,” he muttered to Ivan.

“But she was my mother, too, I believe, his mother. Was she not?” said Ivan, with uncontrolled anger and contempt. The old man shrank before his flashing eyes. But something very strange had happened, though only for a second; it seemed really to have escaped the old man’s mind that Alyosha’s mother actually was the mother of Ivan too.

“Your mother?” he muttered, not understanding, “What do you mean? What mother are you talking about? Was she? … Why, damn it! of course she was yours too! Damn it! My mind has never been so darkened before. Excuse me, why, I was thinking Ivan … He, he, he!” He stopped. A broad, drunken, half senseless grin overspread his face.

At that moment a fearful noise and clamour was heard in the hall, there were violent shouts, the door was flung open, and Dmitri burst into the room. The old man rushed to Ivan in terror.

“He’ll kill me! He’ll kill me! Don’t let him get at me!” he screamed, clinging to the skirt of Ivan’s coat.