Grushenka was standing in the middle of the room; she spoke with heat and there were hysterical notes in her voice.
'Hush, Rakitin, you know nothing about us! And don't dare to speak to me like that again. How dare you be so familiar! Sit in that corner and be quiet, as though you were my footman! And now, Alyosha, I'll tell you the whole truth, that you may see what a wretch I am! I am not talking to Rakitin, but to you. I wanted to ruin you, Alyosha, that's the holy truth; I quite meant to. I wanted to so much, that I bribed Rakitin to bring you. And why did I want to do such a thing? You knew nothing about it, Alyosha, you turned away from me; if you passed me, you dropped your eyes. And I've looked at you a hundred times before to-day; I began asking everyone about you. Your face haunted my heart. 'He despises me,’ I thought; ‘he won't even look at me.’ And I felt it so much at last that I wondered at myself for being so frightened of a boy. I'll get him in my clutches and laugh at him. I was full of spite and anger. Would you believe it, nobody here dares talk or think of coming to Agrafena Alexandrovna with any evil purpose. Old Kuzma is the only man I have anything to do with here; I was bound and sold to him; Satan brought us together, but there has been no one else. But looking at you, I thought, I'll get him in my clutches and laugh at him. You see what a spiteful cur I am, and you called me your sister! And now that man who wronged me has come; I sit here waiting for a message from him. And do you know what that man has been to me? Five years ago, when Kuzma brought me here, I used to shut myself up, that no one might have sight or sound of me. I was a silly slip of a girl; I used to sit here sobbing; I used to lie awake all night, thinking: ‘Where is he now, the man who wronged me? He is laughing at me with another woman, most likely. If only I could see him, if I could meet him again, I'd pay him out, I'd pay him out!’ At night I used to lie sobbing into my pillow in the dark, and I used to brood over it; I used to tear my heart on purpose and gloat over my anger. ‘I'll pay him out, I'll pay him out! That's what I used to cry out in the dark. And when I suddenly thought that I should really do nothing to him, and that he was laughing at me then, or perhaps had utterly forgotten me, I would fling myself on the floor, melt into helpless tears, and lie there shaking till dawn. In the morning I would get up more spiteful than a dog, ready to tear the whole world to pieces. And then what do you think? I began saving money, I became hardhearted, grew stout--grew wiser, would you say? No, no one in the whole world sees it, no one knows it, but when night comes on, I sometimes lie as I did five years ago, when I was a silly girl, clenching my teeth and crying all night, thinking, ‘I'll pay him out, I'll pay him out!’ Do you hear? Well then, now you understand me. A month ago a letter came to me--he was coming, he was a widower, he wanted to see me. It took my breath away; then I suddenly thought: ‘If he comes and whistles to call me, I shall creep back to him like a beaten dog.’ I couldn't believe myself. Am I so abject? Shall I run to him or not? And I've been in such a rage with myself all this month that I am worse than I was five years ago. Do you see now, Alyosha, what a violent, vindictive creature I am? I have shown you the whole truth! I played with Mitya to keep me from running to that other. Hush, Rakitin, it's not for you to judge me, I am not speaking to you. Before you came in, I was lying here waiting, brooding, deciding my whole future life, and you can never know what was in my heart. Yes, Alyosha, tell your young lady not to be angry with me for what happened the day before yesterday.... Nobody in the whole world knows what I am going through now, and no one ever can know.... For perhaps I shall take a knife with me to-day, I can't make up my mind...'
And at this 'tragic' phrase Grushenka broke down, hid her face in her hands, flung herself on the sofa pillows, and sobbed like a little child.
Alyosha got up and went to Rakitin.
'Misha,' he said, 'don't be angry. She wounded you, but don't be angry. You heard what she said just now? You mustn't ask too much of human endurance, one must be merciful.'
Alyosha said this at the instinctive prompting of his heart. He felt obliged to speak and he turned to Rakitin. If Rakitin had not been there, he would have spoken to the air. But Rakitin looked at him ironically and Alyosha stopped short.
'You were so primed up with your elder's reading last night that now you have to let it off on me, Alexey, man of God!' said Rakitin, with a smile of hatred.
'Don't laugh, Rakitin, don't smile, don't talk of the dead--he was better than anyone in the world!' cried Alyosha, with tears in his voice. 'I didn't speak to you as a judge but as the lowest of the judged. What am I beside her? I came here seeking my ruin, and said to myself, ‘What does it matter?’ in my cowardliness, but she, after five years in torment, as soon as anyone says a word from the heart to her- it makes her forget everything, forgive everything, in her tears! The man who has wronged her has come back, he sends for her and she forgives him everything, and hastens joyfully to meet him and she won't take a knife with her. She won't! No, I am not like that. I don't know whether you are, Misha, but I am not like that. It's a lesson to me.... She is more loving than we.... Have you heard her speak before of what she has just told us? No, you haven't; if you had, you'd have understood her long ago... and the person insulted the day before yesterday must forgive her, too! She will, when she knows... and she shall know.... This soul is not yet at peace with itself, one must be tender with... there may be a treasure in that soul....'
Alyosha stopped, because he caught his breath. In spite of his ill-humour Rakitin looked at him with astonishment. He had never expected such a tirade from the gentle Alyosha.
'She's found someone to plead her cause! Why, are you in love with her? Agrafena Alexandrovna, our monk's really in love with you, you've made a conquest!' he cried, with a coarse laugh.
Grushenka lifted her head from the pillow and looked at Alyosha with a tender smile shining on her tear- stained face.
'Let him alone, Alyosha, my cherub; you see what he is, he is not a person for you to speak to. Mihail Osipovitch,' she turned to Rakitin, 'I meant to beg your pardon for being rude to you, but now I don't want to. Alyosha, come to me, sit down here.' She beckoned to him with a happy smile. 'That's right, sit here. Tell me,' she took him by the hand and peeped into his face, smiling, 'tell me, do I love that man or not? The man who wronged me, do I love him or not? Before you came, I lay here in the dark, asking my heart whether I loved him. Decide for me, Alyosha, the time has come, it shall be as you say. Am I to forgive him or not?'
'But you have forgiven him already,' said Alyosha, smiling.
'Yes, I really have forgiven him,' Grushenka murmured thoughtfully. 'What an abject heart! To my abject heart!' She snatched up a glass from the table, emptied it at a gulp, lifted it in the air and flung it on the floor. The glass broke with a crash. A little cruel line came into her smile.
'Perhaps I haven't forgiven him, though,' she said, with a sort of menace in her voice, and she dropped her eyes to the ground as though she were talking to herself. 'Perhaps my heart is only getting ready to forgive. I shall struggle with my heart. You see, Alyosha, I've grown to love my tears in these five years.... Perhaps I only love my resentment, not him...'
'Well, I shouldn't care to be in his shoes,' hissed Rakitin.
'Well, you won't be, Rakitin, you'll never be in his shoes. You shall black my shoes, Rakitin, that's the place you are fit for. You'll never get a woman like me... and he won't either, perhaps...'
'Won't he? Then why are you dressed up like that?' said Rakitin, with a venomous sneer.
'Don't taunt me with dressing up, Rakitin, you don't know all that is in my heart! If I choose to tear off my finery, I'll tear it off at once, this minute,' she cried in a resonant voice. 'You don't know what that finery is for, Rakitin! Perhaps I shall see him and say: ‘Have you ever seen me look like this before?’ He left me a thin, consumptive cry-baby of seventeen. I'll sit by him, fascinate him and work him up. 'Do you see what I am like now?’ I'll say to him; ‘well, and that's enough for you, my dear sir, there's many a slip twixt the cup and the lip! That may be what the finery is for, Rakitin.' Grushenka finished with a malicious laugh. 'I'm violent and resentful, Alyosha, I'll tear off my finery, I'll destroy my beauty, I'll scorch my face, slash it with a knife, and turn beggar. If I choose, I won't go anywhere now to see anyone. If I choose, I'll send Kuzma back all he has ever given me, to-morrow, and all his money and I'll go out charing for the rest of my life. You think I wouldn't do it, Rakitin, that I would not dare to do it? I would, I would, I could do it directly, only don't exasperate me... and I'll send him about his business, I'll snap my fingers in his face, he shall never see me again!'
She uttered the last words in an hysterical scream, but broke down again, hid her face in her hands, buried it in the pillow and shook with sobs.
Rakitin got up.
'It's time we were off,' he said, 'it's late, we shall be shut out of the monastery.'
Grushenka leapt up from her place.
'Surely you don't want to go, Alyosha!' she cried, in mournful surprise. 'What are you doing to me? You've stirred up my feeling, tortured me, and now you'll leave me to face this night alone!'
