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it would be less offensive for you. But I am going far away, and shall never come back. It is for ever. I dont want to sit beside a laceration. But I dont know how to speak now. Ive said everything. Good- bye Katerina Ivanovna; you cant be angry with me, for I am a hundred times more severely punished than you, if only by the fact that I shall never see you again. Good-bye! I dont want your hand. You have tortured me too deliberately for me to be able to forgive you at this moment. I shall forgive you later, but now I dont want your hand. Den Dank, Dame, begehr ich nicht, he added, with a forced smile, showing, however, that he could read Schiller, and read him till he knew him by heartwhich Alyosha would never have believed. He went out of the room without saying good-bye even to his hostess, Madame Hohlakov. Alyosha clasped his hands. Ivan! he cried desperately after him. Come back, Ivan! No, nothing will induce him to come back now! he cried again, regretfully realising it; but its my fault, my fault. I began it! Ivan spoke angrily, wrongly. Unjustly and angrily. He must come back here, come back, Alyosha kept exclaiming frantically. Katerina Ivanovna went suddenly into the next room. You have done no harm. You behaved beautifully, like an angel, Madame Hohlakov whispered rapidly and ecstatically to Alyosha. I will do my utmost to prevent Ivan Fyodorovitch from going. Her face beamed with delight, to the great distress of Alyosha, but Katerina Ivanovna suddenly returned. She had two hundred-rouble notes in her hand. I have a great favour to ask of you, Alexey Fyodorovitch, she began, addressing Alyosha with an apparently calm and even voice, as though nothing had happened. A weekyes, I think it was a week agoDmitri Fyodorovitch was guilty of a hasty and unjust actiona very ugly action. There is a low tavern here and in it he met that discharged officer, that captain, whom your father used to employ in some business. Dmitri Fyodorovitch somehow lost his temper with this captain, seized him by the beard and dragged him out into the street and for some distance along it, in that insulting fashion. And I am told that his son, a boy, quite a child, who is at the school here, saw it and ran beside them crying and begging for his father, appealing to every one to defend him, while every one laughed. You must forgive me, Alexey Fyodorovitch, I cannot think without indignation of that disgraceful action of his one of those actions of which only Dmitri Fyodorovitch would be capable in his anger and in his passions! I cant describe it even. I cant find my words. Ive made inquiries about his victim, and find he is quite a poor man. His name is Snegiryov. He did something wrong in the army and was discharged. I cant tell you what. And now he has sunk into terrible destitution, with his familyan unhappy family of sick children, and, I believe, an insane wife. He has been living here a long time; he used to work as a, copying clerk, but now he is getting nothing. I thought if you that is I thought I dont know. I am so confused. You see, I wanted to ask you, my dear Alexey Fyodorovitch, to go to him, to find some excuse to go to themI mean to that captainoh, goodness, how badly I explain it!and delicately, carefully, as only you know how to (Alyosha blushed), manage to give him this assistance, these two hundred roubles. He will be sure to take it. I mean, persuade him to take it. Or, rather, what do I mean? You see its not by way of compensation to prevent him from taking proceedings (for I believe he meant to), but simply a token of sympathy, of a desire to assist him from me, Dmitri Fyodorovitchs betrothed, not from himself. But you know. I would go myself, but youll know how to do it ever so much better. He lives in Lake Street, in the house of a woman called Kalmikov. For Gods sake, Alexey Fyodorovitch do it for me, and now now I am rather tired. Goodbye! She turned so quickly and disappeared behind the portière that Alyosha had not time to utter a word, though he wanted to speak. He longed to beg her pardon, to blame himself, to say something, for his heart was full and he could not bear to go out of the room without it. But Madame Hohlakov took him by the hand and drew him along with her. In the hall she stopped him again as before. She is proud, she is struggling with herself; but kind, charming, generous, she exclaimed, in a half- whisper. Oh, how I love her, especially sometimes, and how glad I am again of everything! Dear Alexey |
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