Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com 11 in which he had fifteen hundred roubles!’
‘Just so, Mitya cried from his place. ‘That’s right, Alyosha,
it was the little bag I struck with my fist.’
Fetyukovitch flew to him in hot haste entreating him to
keep quiet, and at the same instant pounced on Alyosha.
Alyosha, carried away himself by his recollection, warmly
expressed his theory that this disgrace was probably just
that fifteen hundred roubles on him, which he might have
returned to Katerina Ivanovna as half of what he owed her,
but which he had yet determined not to repay her and to use
for another purpose — namely, to enable him to elope with
Grushenka, if she consented.
‘It is so, it must be so,’ exclaimed Alyosha, in sudden ex-
citement. ‘My brother cried several times that half of the
disgrace, half of it (he said half several times) he could free
himself from at once, but that he was so unhappy in his
weakness of will that he wouldn’t do it... that he knew be-
forehand he was incapable of doing it!’
‘And you clearly, confidently remember that he struck
himself just on this part of the breast?’ Fetyukovitch asked
eagerly.
‘Clearly and confidently, for I thought at the time, ‘Why
does he strike himself up there when the heart is lower
down?’ and the thought seemed stupid to me at the time... I
remember its seeming stupid... it flashed through my mind.
That’s what brought it back to me just now. How could I
have forgotten it till now? It was that little bag he meant
when he said he had the means but wouldn’t give back that
fifteen hundred. And when he was arrested at Mokroe he