1 The Brothers Karamazovcan have kept your purity. You’re a Karamazov too, you
know! In your family sensuality is carried to a disease. But
now, these three sensualists are watching one another, with
their knives in their belts. The three of them are knocking
their heads together, and you may be the fourth.’
‘You are mistaken about that woman. Dmitri despises
her,’ said Alyosha, with a sort of shudder.
‘Grushenka? No, brother, he doesn’t despise her. Since
he has openly abandoned his betrothed for her, he doesn’t
despise her. There’s something here, my dear boy, that you
don’t understand yet. A man will fall in love with some beau-
ty, with a woman’s body, or even with a part of a woman’s
body (a sensualist can understand that), and he’ll abandon
his own children for her, sell his father and mother, and his
country, Russia, too. If he’s honest, he’ll steal; if he’s hu-
mane, he’ll murder; if he’s faithful, he’ll deceive. Pushkin,
the poet of women’s feet, sung of their feet in his verse. Oth-
ers don’t sing their praises, but they can’t look at their feet
without a thrill — and it’s not only their feet. Contempt’s
no help here, brother, even if he did despise Grushenka. He
does, but he can’t tear himself away.’
‘I understand that,’ Alyosha jerked out suddenly.
‘Really? Well, I dare say you do understand, since you
blurt it out at the first word,’ said Rakitin, malignantly.
‘That escaped you unawares, and the confession’s the more
precious. So it’s a familiar subject; you’ve thought about
it already, about sensuality, I mean! Oh, you virgin soul!
You’re a quiet one, Alyosha, you’re a saint, I know, but the
devil only knows what you’ve thought about, and what you