“I have a great favor to ask of you, Alexei Fyodorovich,” she began, addressing Alyosha directly, in a seemingly calm and level voice, quite as though nothing had just happened. “A week ago—yes, a week, I think— Dmitri Fyodorovich committed a rash and unjust act, a very ugly act. There is a bad place here, a tavern. In it he met that retired officer, that captain, whom your father employed in some business of his. Dmitri Fyodorovich got very angry with this captain for some reason, seized him by the beard in front of everyone, led him outside in that humiliating position, and led him a long way down the street, and they say that the boy, the captain’s son, who goes to the local school, just a child, saw it and went running along beside them, crying loudly and begging for his father, and rushing up to everyone asking them to defend him, but everyone laughed. Forgive me, Alexei Fyodorovich, I cannot recall without indignation this shameful act of his ... one of those acts that Dmitri Fyodorovich alone could bring himself to do, in his wrath ... and in his passions! I cannot even speak of it, I am unable to ... my words get confused. I made inquiries about this offended man, and found out that he is very poor. His last name is Snegiryov. He did something wrong in the army and was expelled, I can’t talk about that, and now he and his family, a wretched family of sick children and a wife—who, it seems, is insane— have fallen into abject poverty. He has been living in town for a long time, he was doing something, worked somewhere as a scrivener, and now suddenly he’s not being paid. I looked at you ... that is, I thought—I don’t know, I’m somehow confused—you see, I wanted to ask you, Alexei Fyodorovich, my kindest Alexei Fyodorovich, to go to him, to find an excuse, to visit them, this captain, I mean—oh, God! I’m so confused—and delicately, carefully—precisely as only you could manage” (Alyosha suddenly blushed)—”manage to give him this assistance, here, two hundred roubles. He will surely accept ... I mean, persuade him to accept ... Or, no, what do I mean? You see, it’s not a payment to him for conciliation, so that he will not complain (because it seems he wanted to lodge a complaint), but simply compassion, a wish to help, from me, from me, Dmitri Fyodorovich’s fiancée, not from him ... Well, you’ll find away ... I would go myself, but you will know much better how to do it. He lives on Lake Street, in the house of a woman named Kalmykov ... For God’s sake, Alexei Fyodorovich, do this for me, and now ... now I’m a little tired. Good-bye...”
She suddenly turned and disappeared again behind the portière, so quickly that Alyosha did not have time to say a word—and he wanted to. He wanted to ask forgiveness, to blame himself, to say at least something, because his heart was full, and he decidedly did not want to go from the room without that. But Madame Khokhlakov seized his hand and herself led him out. In the front hall she stopped him again as before.
“She’s proud, fighting against herself, but kind, lovely, magnanimous!” exclaimed Madame Khokhlakov in a half-whisper. “Oh, how I love her, especially sometimes, and how glad I am now once more again about everything, everything! Dear Alexei Fyodorovich, you did not know this, but you must know that all of us, all of us—I, and her two aunts—well, all of us, even Lise, for as much as a whole month now, have been wishing and praying for one thing only: that she would break with your beloved Dmitri Fyodorovich, who does not even want to know her and does not love her in the least, and marry Ivan Fyodorovich, an educated and excellent young man, who loves her more than anything in the world. We’ve joined in a whole conspiracy here, and that is perhaps the only reason I haven’t gone away ...”
“But she was crying, she’s been insulted again!” Alyosha exclaimed.
“Don’t believe in women’s tears, Alexei Fyodorovich—I’m always against the women in such cases, and for the men.”
“Mama, you are spoiling and ruining him,” Lise’s thin little voice came from behind the door.
“No, I was the cause of it all, I am terribly to blame!” the inconsolable Alyosha repeated in a burst of agonizing shame for his escapade, and even covered his face with his hands in shame. “On the contrary, you acted like an angel, an angel, I will gladly say it a thousand times over.”
“Mama, how did he act like an angel?” once more Lise’s voice was heard.
“I suddenly fancied for some reason, looking at all that,” Alyosha continued as if he hadn’t heard Liza, “that she loves Ivan, and so I said that foolishness ... and now what will happen?”
“To whom, to whom?” Lise exclaimed. “Mama, you really will be the death of me. I’m asking you and you don’t even answer.”
At that moment the maid ran in.
“Katerina Ivanovna is sick ... She’s crying ... hysterics, thrashing.”
“What is it?” cried Lise, her voice alarmed now. “Mama, it’s I who am going to have hysterics, not her!”
