And Lise kept laughing her thin hysterical giggle, looking slyly at Alyosha.
«But why married, Lise? What makes you talk of such a thing? It’s quite out of place and perhaps the boy was rabid.»
«Why, mamma! As though there were rabid boys!»
«Why not, Lise, as though I had said something stupid! Your boy might have been bitten by a mad dog and he would become mad and bite anyone near him. How well she has bandaged it, Alexey Fyodorovitch! I couldn’t have done it. Do you still feel the pain?»
«It’s nothing much now.»
«You don’t feel afraid of water?» asked Lise.
«Come, that’s enough, Lise, perhaps I really was rather too quick talking of the boy being rabid, and you pounced upon it at once. Katerina Ivanovna has only just heard that you are here, Alexey Fyodorovitch, she simply rushed at me, she’s dying to see you, dying!»
«Ach, mamma, go to them yourself. He can’t go just now, he is in too much pain.» «Not at all, I can go quite well,» said Alyosha.
«What! You are going away? Is that what you say?»
158 book page, Chapter 4 — At the Hohlakovs’
«Well, when I’ve seen them, I’ll come back here and we can talk as much as you like. But I should like to see Katerina Ivanovna at once, for I am very anxious to be back at the monastery as soon as I can.»
«Mamma, take him away quickly. Alexey Fyodorovitch, don’t trouble to come and see me afterwards, but go straight back to your monastery and a good riddance. I want to sleep, I didn’t sleep all night.»
«Ah, Lise, you are only making fun, but how I wish you would sleep!» cried Madame Hohlakov.
«I don’t know what I’ve done…. I’ll stay another three minutes, five if you like,» muttered Alyosha.
«Even five! Do take him away quickly, mamma, he is a monster.»
«Lise, you are crazy. Let us go, Alexey Fyodorovitch, she is too capricious to-day. I am afraid to cross her. Oh, the trouble one has with nervous girls! Perhaps she really will be able to sleep after seeing you. How quickly you have made her sleepy, and how fortunate it is!»
«Ah, mamma, how sweetly you talk! I must kiss you for it, mamma.»
«And I kiss you too, Lise. Listen, Alexey Fyodorovitch,» Madame Hohlakov began mysteriously and importantly, speaking in a rapid whisper. «I don’t want to suggest anything, I don’t want to lift the veil, you will see for yourself what’s going on. It’s appalling. It’s the most fantastic farce. She loves your brother, Ivan, and she is doing her utmost to persuade herself she loves your brother, Dmitri. It’s appalling! I’ll go in with you, and if they don’t turn me out, I’ll stay to the end.»
159 book page, Chapter 5 — A Laceration in the Drawing-Room
BUT in the drawing-room the conversation was already over. Katerina Ivanovna was greatly excited, though she looked resolute. At the moment Alyosha and Madame Hohlakov entered, Ivan Fyodorovitch stood up to take leave. His face was rather pale, and Alyosha looked at him anxiously. For this moment was to solve a doubt, a harassing enigma which had for some time haunted Alyosha. During the preceding month it had been several times suggested to him that his brother Ivan was in love with Katerina Ivanovna, and, what was more, that he meant «to carry her off from Dmitri. Until quite lately the idea seemed to Alyosha monstrous, though it worried him extremely. He loved both his brothers, and dreaded such rivalry between them. Meantime, Dmitri had said outright on the previous day that he was glad that Ivan was his rival, and that it was a great assistance to him, Dmitri. In what way did it assist him? To marry Grushenka? But that Alyosha considered the worst thing possible. Besides all this, Alyosha had till the evening before implicitly believed that Katerina Ivanovna had a steadfast and passionate love for Dmitri; but he had only believed it till the evening before. He had fancied, too, that she was incapable of loving a man like Ivan, and that she did love Dmitri, and loved him just as he was, in spite of all the strangeness of such a passion.
But during yesterday’s scene with Grushenka another idea had struck him. The word «lacerating,» which Madame Hohlakov had just uttered, almost made him start, because half waking up towards daybreak that night he had cried out «Laceration, laceration,» probably applying it to his dream. He had been dreaming all night of the previous day’s scene at Ka-terina Ivanovna’s. Now Alyosha was impressed by Madame Hohlakov’s blunt and persistent assertion that Katerina Ivanovna was in love with Ivan, and only deceived herself through some sort of pose, from «self-laceration,» and tortured herself by her pretended love for Dmitri from some fancied duty of gratitude. «Yes,» he thought, «perhaps the whole truth lies in those words.» But in that case what was Ivan’s position? Alyosha felt instinctively that a character like Katerina Ivanovna’s must dominate, and she could only dominate someone like Dmitri, and never a man like Ivan. For Dmitri might- at last submit to her domination «to his own happiness» (which was what Alyosha would have desired), but Ivan- no, Ivan could not submit to her, and such submission would not give him happiness. Alyosha could not help believing that of Ivan. And now all these doubts and reflections flitted through his mind as he entered the drawing-room. Another idea, too, forced itself upon him: «What if she loved neither of them- neither Ivan nor Dmitri?» It must be noted that Alyosha felt as it were ashamed of his own thoughts and blamed himself when they kept recurring to him during the last month. «What do I know about love and women and how can I decide such questions?» he thought reproachfully, after such doubts and surmises. And yet it was im-possible not to think about it. He felt instinctively that this rivalry was of immense importance in his brothers’ lives and that a great deal depended upon it. «One reptile will devour the other,» Ivan had pronounced the day before, speaking in anger of his father and Dmitri. So
160 book page, Chapter 5 — A Laceration in the Drawing-Room
Ivan looked upon Dmitri as a reptile, and perhaps long done so. Was it perhaps since he had known Katerina Ivanovna? That phrase had, of course, escaped Ivan unawares yesterday, but that only made it more important. If he felt like that, what chance was there of peace? Were there not, on the contrary, new grounds for hatred and hostility in their family? And with which of them was Alyosha to sympathise? And what was he to wish for each of them? He loved them both, but what could he desire for each in the midst of these conflicting in-terests? He might go quite astray in this maze, and Alyosha’s heart could not endure uncer-tainty, because his love was always of an active character. He was incapable of passive love. If he loved anyone, he set to work at once to help him. And to do so he must know what he was aiming at; he must know for certain what was best for each, and having ascertained this it was natural for him to help them both. But instead of a definite aim, he found nothing but uncertainty and perplexity on all sides. «It was lacerating,» as was said just now. But what could he understand even in this «laceration»? He did not understand the first word in this perplexing maze.
Seeing Alyosha, Katerina Ivanovna said quickly and joyfully to Ivan, who had already got up to go, «A minute! Stay another minute! I want to hear the opinion of this person here whom I trust absolutely. Don’t go away,» she added, addressing Madame Hohlakov. She made Alyosha sit down beside her, and Madame Hohlakov sat opposite, by Ivan.
«You are all my friends here, all I have in the world, dear friends,» she warmly, in a voice which quivered with genuine tears of suffering, and Alyosha’s heart warmed to her at once. «You, Alexey Fyodorovitch, were witness yesterday of that abominable scene, and saw what I did. You did not see it, Ivan Fyodorovitch, he did. What he thought of me yesterday I don’t know. I only know one thing, that if it were repeated to-day, this minute, I should express the same feelings again as yesterday- the same feelings, the same words, the same actions. You remember my actions, Alexey Fyodorovitch; you checked me in one of them»… (as she said that, she flushed and her eyes shone). «I must tell you that I can’t get over it. Listen, Alexey Fyodorovitch. I don’t even know whether I still love him. I feel pity for him, and that is a poor sign of love. If I loved him, if I still loved him, perhaps I shouldn’t be sorry for him now, but should hate him.»
Her voice quivered and tears glittered on her eyelashes. Alyosha shuddered inwardly. «That
