“You’re not going to leave, Alyosha!” she exclaimed in sorrowful amazement. “But what are you doing to me? You stirred me all up, tormented me, and now for another night I’ll be left alone again!”
“What do you want him to do, spend the night here? He can if he wants to! I can go by myself!” Rakitin joked caustically.
“Keep still, you wicked soul,” Grushenka shouted furiously at him, “you never said anything like what he came and told me.”
“Just what did he tell you?” Rakitin grumbled irritably.
“I don’t know, I don’t know what he told me, my heart heard it, he wrung my heart ... He’s the first to pity me, and the only one, that’s what! Why didn’t you come before, you cherub,” she suddenly fell on her knees to him, as if beside herself. “All my life I’ve been waiting for such a one as you, I knew someone like that would come and forgive me. I believed that someone would love me, a dirty woman, not only for my shame...!”
“What did I do for you?” Alyosha answered with a tender smile, and he bent down to her and gently took her hands. “I just gave you an onion, one little onion, that’s all, that’s all...!”
Having said that, he himself started weeping. At the same moment there was a sudden noise at the doorway, someone came into the front hall; Grushenka jumped up, looking terribly frightened. Fenya rushed noisily into the room, shouting:
“My lady, my dear, my lady, a messenger has ridden up,” she exclaimed joyfully and breathlessly. “A carriage has come for you from Mokroye, Timofei the coachman with a troika, they’re changing horses right now ... The letter, the letter, my lady, here’s the letter!”
She was holding the letter in her hand, waving it in the air all the while she was shouting. Grushenka snatched the letter from her and brought it near the candle. It was just a note, a few lines, and she read it in a moment.
“He’s calling me!” she cried, quite pale, her face twisted in a painful smile. “He’s whistling! Crawl, little dog!”
Only for one moment did she hesitate; suddenly the blood rushed to her head and brought fire to her cheeks.
“I’m going!” she suddenly exclaimed. “Oh, my five years! Farewell, everyone! Farewell, Alyosha, my fate is decided ... Go, go, all of you, go away, I don’t want to see you...! Grushenka is flying to a new life ... Rakitka, don’t you think ill of me either. Maybe I’m going to my death! Ah, I feel drunk!”
She left them suddenly and ran to her bedroom. “Well, she can’t be bothered with us now!” Rakitin growled. “Let’s go, or there may be more of this female screaming, I’m sick of these tearful screams ...”
Alyosha mechanically allowed himself to be led out. The carriage stood in the yard, the horses were being unharnessed, people were bustling about with lanterns. A fresh troika was being led in through the open gate. But just as Alyosha and Rakitin were stepping off the porch, the window of Grushenka’s bedroom suddenly opened, and she called after Alyosha in a ringing voice:
“Alyoshechka, bow to your brother Mitenka for me, and tell him not to think ill of me, his wicked woman. And tell him, too, that I said: Grushenka has fallen to a scoundrel, and not to you, a noble man! ‘ And add this, too, that Grushenka loved him for one hour, just for one hour she loved him—and from now on he should remember that hour all his life; tell him, that is what Grushenka bids you forever.”
She finished in a voice full of weeping. The window slammed shut.
“Hm, hm!” Rakitin grunted, laughing. “She does in your brother Mitenka and then tells him to remember all his life. What a carnivore!”
Alyosha made no reply, as if he had not heard; he walked briskly beside Rakitin, apparently in a great hurry; he walked mechanically, his mind apparently elsewhere. Rakitin was suddenly stung, as if someone had touched him on an open wound. He had been expecting something quite different when he brought Grushenka and Alyosha together; what had happened was something other than what he had wanted so much.
“He’s a Pole, this officer of hers,” he spoke again, restraining himself, “and he’s not even an officer now, he served as a customs clerk in Siberia, somewhere on the Chinese border, just some runty little Polack. They say he lost his job. Now he’s heard that Grushenka has some money, so he’s come back—that’s the whole miracle.”
Again it was as if Alyosha did not hear. Rakitin could not help himself:
“So you converted a sinful woman?” he laughed spitefully to Alyosha. “Turned a harlot onto the path of truth? Drove out the seven devils, eh?[232] So here’s where today’s expected miracles took place!”
“Stop it, Rakitin,” Alyosha replied with suffering in his soul.
“And now you ‘despise’ me for those twenty-five roubles? You think I sold a true friend. But you’re not Christ, and I’m not Judas “
“Ah, Rakitin, I assure you I’d forgotten all about that,” Alyosha exclaimed, “you’ve reminded me of it yourself...”
But now Rakitin finally got mad.
