The Brothers Karamazov

“Never mind, never mind, don’t worry about him!” Katya began again, sharply and stubbornly. “It’s all momentary with him, I know him, I know his heart only too well. Rest assured, he’ll agree to escape. And, above all, it’s not right now; he still has time to make up his mind. Ivan Fyodorovich will be well by then, and will handle it all himself, so there will be nothing left for me to do. Don’t worry, he’ll agree to escape. He has already agreed: how can he part with that creature of his? Since they won’t let her go to penal servitude, how can he not escape? He’s afraid of you most of all, afraid you won’t approve of his escape on moral grounds, but you must magnanimously allow him to do it, since your sanction here is so necessary,” Katya added with venom. She paused briefly and grinned.

“He keeps talking there,” she started again, “about some sort of hymns, about the cross he has to bear, about some sort of duty, I remember Ivan Fyodorovich told me a lot about it then, and if you knew how he spoke!” Katya suddenly exclaimed with irrepressible feeling. “If you knew how he loved the wretched man at that moment, as he was telling about him, and how he hated him, perhaps, at the same moment! And I, oh, I listened to his story and his tears with a scornful smile! Oh, the creature! Me, I’m the creature! I gave birth to this brain fever for him! And that man, that convict, is not prepared to suffer,” Katya concluded with irritation, “how can such a man suffer? Such men never suffer!”

Some feeling of hatred and contemptuous loathing sounded in these words. And yet she had betrayed him. “Oh, well, perhaps it’s because she feels so guilty towards him that she hates him at moments,” Alyosha thought to himself. He hoped it was only “at moments.” He caught the challenge in Katya’s last words, but did not take it up.

“That is why I sent for you today, so that you would promise to convince him yourself. Or do you, too, consider it not honest to escape, not valiant, or whatever you call it ... not Christian, or what?” Katya added with even more challenge.

“No, not at all. I’ll tell him everything ... ,” Alyosha muttered. “He asks you to come and see him today,” he blurted out suddenly, looking steadily in her eyes. She shuddered all over and drew back from him a little on the sofa.

“Me ... is it possible?” she murmured, turning pale.

“It is and must be!” Alyosha began insistently, becoming animated. “He needs you very much, precisely now. I wouldn’t mention the subject and torment you beforehand if it weren’t necessary. He’s ill, he seems mad, he keeps asking for you. He doesn’t ask you to come and make peace, but just to show yourself in the doorway. A lot has happened to him since that day. He understands how incalculably guilty he is before you. He doesn’t want your forgiveness: ‘I cannot be forgiven,’ he says it himself—but only that you show yourself in the doorway ...”

“You suddenly ... ,” Katya stammered, “all these days I had a feeling you would come with that ... I just knew he would ask for me...! It’s impossible!”

“It may be impossible, but do it. Remember, for the first time he’s been struck by how he insulted you, for the first time in his life, he never grasped it so fully before! He says: if she refuses to come, then I ‘will be unhappy for the rest of my life.’ Do you hear? A man sentenced to twenty years of penal servitude still intends to be happy—isn’t that pitiful? Think: you will be visiting a man who has been guiltlessly ruined,” burst from Alyosha with a challenge, “his hands are clean, there is no blood on them! For the sake of his countless future sufferings, visit him now! Go, see him off into the darkness ... stand in the doorway, that’s all ... You really must, must do it!” Alyosha concluded, emphasizing the word “must” with incredible force.

“I must, but ... I can’t,” Katya nearly groaned, “he will look at me ... I can’t.”

“Your eyes must meet. How will you live all your life if you don’t bring yourself to do it now?”

“Better to suffer all my life.”

“You must go, you must go,” Alyosha again emphasized implacably.

“But why today, why now ... ? I cannot leave a sick man...”

“You can for a moment, it will just be a moment. If you don’t go, he will come down with brain fever by tonight. I wouldn’t lie to you—have pity!”

“Have pity on me,” Katya bitterly reproached him, and she started to cry.

“So you will go!” Alyosha said firmly, seeing her tears. “I’ll go and tell him you’re coming now.”

“No, no, don’t tell him!” Katya cried out in fear. “I will go, but don’t tell him beforehand, because I’ll go there but I may not go in ... I don’t know yet...”

Her voice broke off. She had difficulty breathing. Alyosha rose to leave.

“And what if I meet someone?” she suddenly said softly, turning pale again.

“That’s why it needs to be now, so that you won’t meet anyone. I assure you, no one will be there. We’ll be waiting for you,” he concluded insistently, and walked out of the room.