Grushenka, though it was true that she had loved him genuinely and sincerely for one little hour, at the same time would torment him quite cruelly and mercilessly. The worst thing was that he could make out nothing of her intentions; it was impossible to coax them out of her either with tenderness or by force: she would not give in, and would only become angry and turn her back on him altogether—that he understood clearly at the time. He then suspected, quite correctly, that she herself was caught in some sort of struggle, in some sort of extraordinary indecision, trying to make up her mind and unable to make it up, and he therefore supposed with a sinking heart, and not groundlessly, that at moments she must simply hate him and his passion. Perhaps that was the case, but what precisely Grushenka was anguished about, he still did not understand. So far as he was concerned, the whole tormenting question formed itself into just two definitions: “Either him, Mitya, or Fyodor Pavlovich.” Here, incidentally, one firm fact must be noted: he was quite certain that Fyodor Pavlovich would be sure to offer Grushenka (if he had not offered her already) a lawful marriage, and did not believe for a moment that the old voluptuary hoped to get off for a mere three thousand. This Mitya deduced from his knowledge of Grushenka and her character. Which was why it could sometimes seem to him that all of Grushenka’s torment, and all her indecision, came simply from the fact that she did not know which of them to choose, and which of them would be the more profitable for her. Strangely enough, in those days he did not even think of thinking about the imminent return of “the officer”—that is, the fatal man in Grushenka’s life, whose arrival she awaited with such fear and agitation. True, in the past few days Grushenka had been quite silent with him on the subject. Nevertheless, he had been fully informed by her of the letter she had received a month earlier from her former seducer, and he had also been partly informed of the content of the letter. In a wicked moment, Grushenka had shown him the letter, but, to her surprise, he placed very little value on this letter. And it would be quite difficult to explain why: perhaps simply because he was so oppressed by all the ugliness and horror of his struggle with his own father for this woman that he could not even imagine anything more terrible or dangerous for himself, at least not at that time. He simply did not believe in this fiancé who had suddenly sprung from somewhere after a five-year disappearance, much less that he would soon arrive. And this first letter from “the officer,” which was shown to Mitenka, itself spoke quite uncertainly about the coming of this new rival: it was a very vague letter, very grandiloquent, and full of nothing but sentimentality. It should be noted that at the time Grushenka concealed from him the last lines of the letter, which spoke with more certainty about his return. Besides, Mitenka later recalled that at that moment he had detected, as it were, some involuntary and proud contempt for this missive from Siberia on the part of Grushenka herself. After that, Grushenka told Mitenka nothing about any of her subsequent dealings with this new rival. So it happened that little by little he even quite forgot about the officer. He thought only that whatever the outcome and whatever turn the affair might take, his impending final clash with Fyodor Pavlovich was too near and must be resolved before anything else. With a sinking soul he waited every moment for Grushenka’s decision and kept thinking that it would occur as if unexpectedly, by inspiration. Suddenly she would tell him: “Take me, I’m yours forever,” and it would all be over: he would snatch her up and take her to the end of the world at once. Oh, at once, take her far away, as far as possible, if not to the end of the world, then somewhere to the end of Russia, marry her there, and settle down with her incognito, so that no one would know anything about them, not here, not there, not anywhere. Then, oh, then a totally new life would begin at once! He dreamed of this other, this renewed and now “virtuous” life (“it must, it must be virtuous”) ceaselessly and feverishly. He thirsted for this resurrection and renewal. The vile bog he had gotten stuck in of his own will burdened him too much, and, like a great many men in such cases, he believed most of all in a change of place: if only it weren’t for these people, if only it weren’t for these circumstances, if only one could fly away from this cursed place—then everything would be reborn! That was what he believed in and what he longed for.
