“To Moscow, tomorrow!” suddenly Katerina Ivanovna’s whole face became distorted. “But ... but, my God, how fortunate!” she cried in a voice instantly quite changed and having instantly chased away her tears so that no trace of them was left. Precisely in an instant an astonishing change took place in her, which greatly amazed Alyosha: instead of the poor, insulted girl who had just been crying in a sort of strain of emotion, there suddenly appeared a woman in complete possession of herself and even greatly pleased, as if she were suddenly rejoicing at something.
“Oh, not fortunate that I must abandon you, of course not that,” she suddenly corrected herself, as it were, with a charming worldly smile, “a friend like you could not think that; on the contrary, I am only too unhappy to be losing you” (she suddenly dashed impulsively to Ivan Fyodorovich and, grasping both his hands, pressed them with ardent feeling), “but what is fortunate is that you yourself, personally, will now be able to tell auntie and Agasha, in Moscow, of my whole situation, my whole present horror, with complete frankness to Agasha, but sparing dear auntie, as you will know how to do. You cannot imagine how unhappy I was yesterday and this morning, wondering how I could ever write them this terrible letter ... because there was no way in the world to say it in a letter ... But now it will be easy for me to write, because you are going to be there in person and will explain it all. Oh, how glad I am! But I am only glad for that, again believe me. You yourself, of course, are irreplaceable for me ... I’ll run at once and write the letter,” she suddenly concluded, and even turned to leave the room.
“And what of Alyosha? What of Alexei Fyodorovich’s opinion, which it was so necessary for you to hear?” Madame Khokhlakov cried. There was a caustic and angry note in her words.
“I haven’t forgotten that,” Katerina Ivanovna suddenly halted, “and why are you so hostile to me in such a moment, Katerina Osipovna?” she said with bitter, burning reproach. “What I said before, I will say again: his opinion is necessary to me; moreover, I need his decision! It shall be as he says—that is how much, on the contrary, I thirst for your words, Alexei Fyodorovich ... But what’s wrong?”
“I never thought, I could not have imagined it!” Alyosha suddenly exclaimed ruefully.
“What? What?”
“He is going to Moscow, and you cry that you’re glad—you cried it on purpose! And then you immediately started explaining that you are not glad about that, but, on the contrary, are sorry to be ... losing a friend, but this, too, you acted on purpose ... acted as if you were in a comedy, in a theater .. .!”
“In a theater? Why? What do you mean?” Katerina Ivanovna exclaimed, deeply astonished, frowning, and blushing all over.
“But no matter how much you assure him that you will miss him as a friend, you still insist right in his face that you are happy he’s going away ... ,” Alyosha spoke somehow quite breathlessly now. He was standing at the table and would not sit down.
“What are you saying? I don’t understand ...”
“I don’t know myself ... I suddenly had a sort of illumination. I know I’m not putting it well, but I’ll still say everything,” Alyosha continued in the same trembling and faltering voice. “My illumination is that you perhaps do not love my brother Dmitri at all ... from the very beginning ... And Dmitri perhaps does not love you at all either ... from the very beginning ... but only honors you ... I really don’t know how I dare to say all this now, but someone has to speak the truth ... because no one here wants to speak the truth ...”
“What truth?” cried Katerina Ivanovna, and something hysterical rang in her voice.
“This truth,” Alyosha stammered, as if throwing himself off the roof. “Call Dmitri now—I’ll go and find him—and let him come here and take you by the hand, and then take my brother Ivan by the hand, and let him unite your hands. For you are tormenting Ivan only because you love him ... and you are tormenting him because you love Dmitri from strain ... not in truth ... because you’ve convinced yourself of it ...”
Alyosha suddenly broke off and fell silent.
“You ... you ... you’re a little holy fool, that’s what you are!” Katerina Ivanovna suddenly snapped, her face pale now and her lips twisted in anger. Ivan Fyodorovich suddenly laughed and got up from his seat. His hat was in his hand.
