I sat still and listened, not knowing how I could quickly secure a tete-a-tete interview with Katerina Fyodorovna. The diplomat was answering some questions of the countess’s about the present political position, about the reforms that were being instituted, and whether they were to be dreaded or not. He said a great deal at great length, calmly, like one having authority. He developed his idea subtly and cleverly, but the idea was a repulsive one. He kept insisting that the whole spirit of reform and improvement would only too soon bring forth certain results, that seeing those results “they would come to their senses,” and that not only in society (that is, of course, in a certain part of it) would this spirit of reform pass away, but they would learn their mistake from experience, and then with redoubled energy would return to the old traditions; that the experience, though distressing, would be of great benefit, because it would teach them to maintain that salutary tradition, would give fresh grounds for doing so, and that consequently it was to be hoped that the extreme limit of recklessness would be reached as soon as possible. “They cannot get on without us,” he concluded that no society has ever stood its ground without us. We shall lose nothing. On the contrary we stand to win. We shall rise to the surface, and our motto at the moment should be ‘pire ca va, mieux ca est!’ Prince Valkovsky smiled to him with revolting sympathy. The orator was completely satisfied with himself. I was so stupid as to want to protest; my heart was boiling. But what checked me was the malignant expression of the prince; he stole a glance in my direction, and it seemed to me that he was just expecting some strange and youthful outburst from me. Perhaps he even wanted this in order to enjoy my compromising myself. Meanwhile I felt convinced that the diplomat would not notice my protest, nor perhaps me either. It was revolting for me to sit with them; but Alyosha rescued me.
He came up to me quietly, touched me on the shoulder, and asked to have a few words with me. I guessed he came with a message from Katya. And so it was. A minute later I was sitting beside her. At first she kept watching me intently as though saying to herself: “So that’s what you’re like,” and for the first minute neither of us could find words to begin our conversation. I felt sure though that when once she began she would be ready to go on without stopping till next morning. The “five or six hours talk” of which Alyosha had spoken came back to my mind. Alyosha sat by us, waiting impatiently for us to begin.
“Why don’t you say something?” he began, looking at us with a smile. “They come together and sit silent.”
“Ach, Alyosha, how can you . . . we’ll begin directly,” answered Katya. “We have so much to talk over together, Ivan Petrovitch, that I don’t know where to begin. We’ve been late in getting to know one another; we ought to have met long ago, though I’ve known you for ages. And I was very anxious to see you! I was even thinking of writing you a letter . . .”
“What about?” I asked, smiling involuntarily.
“Ever so many things,” she answered earnestly. “Why, if only to know whether it’s true what Alyosha says, that Natalya Nikolaevna is not hurt at his leaving her alone at such a time. Can anyone behave as he does? Why are you here now, tell me that, please?”
“Why, good heavens, I’m just going! I just said that I should only be here for a minute, simply to look at you two and see how you talk to one another, and then I’ll be off to Natasha.”
“Well, here we are together, we’re sitting here, do you see? He’s always like that,” she added, flushing a little and pointing her finger at him. “‘One minute,’ he always says, ‘just one minute’ and, mind, he’ll stay on till midnight and then it’s too late to go there. ‘She won’t be angry,’ he says, ‘she’s kind.’ That’s how he looks at it. Is that right? Is that generous?”
“Well, I’ll go if you like,” Alyosha responded plaintively, “but I do want dreadfully to stay with you two . . . .”
“What do you want with us? On the contrary we must talk of lots of things alone. Listen, don’t be cross. It’s necessary — take that in thoroughly.”
“If it’s necessary I’ll be off at once — what is there to be cross at? I’ll just look in for a minute on Levinka, and then go on to her at once. I say, Ivan Petrovitch,” he added, taking up his hat to go, “do you know that my father wants to refuse to take the money he won by his lawsuit with Ichmenyev?
“I know. He told me.”
“How generous he is in doing that. Katya won’t believe that he’s acting generously. Talk to her about that. Good-bye, Katya, and please don’t doubt that I love Natasha. And why do you both always tie me down like this, scold me, and look after me — as though you had to watch over me? She knows how I love her, and is sure of me, and I’m sure that she’s sure of me. I love her, apart from anything, apart from any obligations. I don’t know how I love her, I simply love her. And so there’s no need to question me as though I were to blame. You can ask Ivan Petrovitch, he’s here now and he will confirm what I say, that Natasha’s jealous, and though she loves me so much there’s a great deal of egoism in her love, for she will never sacrifice anything for me.”
“What’s that?” I asked in amazement, hardly able to believe my ears.
“What are you saying, Alyosha?” Katya almost screamed, clasping her hands.
“Why, what is there so surprising in that? Ivan Petrovitch knows it. She’s always insisting that I should stay with her. Not that she insists, exactly, but one can see that’s what she wants.”
“Aren’t you ashamed? Aren’t you ashamed?” said Katya, turning crimson with anger.
“What is there to be ashamed of? What a person you are, really, Katya! I love her more than she thinks, and if she really loves me as I love her, she certainly would sacrifice her pleasure to me. It’s true she lets me go herself, but I see from her face that she hates doing it, so that it comes to the same thing as if she didn’t let me.”
“Oh, there’s something behind that,” cried Katya, turning to me again with flashing, angry eyes. “Own up, Alyosha, own up at once, it’s your father who has put all that into your head. He’s been talking to you today, hasn’t he? And please don’t try and deceive me: I shall find out directly! Is it so or not?”
“Yes, he has been talking,” Alyosha answered in confusion, “what of it? He talked in such a kind and friendly way today, and kept praising her to me. I was quite surprised, in fact, that he should praise her like that after she had insulted him so.”
“And you, you believed it?” said I. “You, for whom she has given up everything she could give up! And even now, this very day, all her anxiety was on your account, that you might not be bored, that you might not be deprived of the possibility of seeing Katerina Fyodorovna. She said that to me today herself. And you believe those false insinuations at once. Aren’t you ashamed?”
“Ungrateful boy! But that’s just it. He’s never ashamed of anything,” said Katya, dismissing him with a wave of her hand, as though he were lost beyond all hope.
“But really, how you talk!” Alyosha continued in a plaintive voice. “And you’re always like that, Katya! You’re always suspecting me of something bad . . . . . I don’t count, Ivan Petrovitch! You think I don’t love Natasha. I didn’t mean that when I said she was an egoist. I only meant that she loves me too much, so that it’s all out of proportion, and I suffer for it, and she too. And my father never does influence me, though he’s tried to. I don’t let him. He didn’t say she was an egoist in any bad sense; I understood him. He said exactly what I said just now: that she loves me so much, too much, so intensely, that it amounts to simple egoism and that that makes me suffer and her too, and that I shall suffer even more hereafter. He told the truth, and spoke from love of me, and it doesn’t at all follow that he meant anything offensive to Natasha; on the contrary, he saw the strength of her love, her immense, almost incredible love . . .”
But Katya interrupted him and would not let him finish. She began hotly upbraiding him, and maintaining that the prince had only praised Natasha to deceive him by a show of kindness, all in
