Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com 1Alyosha came to see his sick brother twice a day. But this
time he had specially urgent business, and he foresaw how
difficult it would be to approach the subject, yet he was in
great haste. He had another engagement that could not be
put off for that same morning, and there was need of haste.
They had been talking for a quarter of an hour. Kateri-
na Ivanovna was pale and terribly fatigued, yet at the same
time in a state of hysterical excitement. She had a presenti-
ment of the reason why Alyosha had come to her.
‘Don’t worry about his decision,’ she said, with confident
emphasis to Alyosha. ‘One way or another he is bound to
come to it. He must escape. That unhappy man, that hero of
honour and principle- not he, not Dmitri Fyodorovitch, but
the man lying the other side of that door, who has sacrificed
himself for his brother,’ Katya added, with flashing eyes —
‘told me the whole plan of escape long ago. You know he has
already entered into negotiations.... I’ve told you something
already.... You see, it will probably come off at the third
etape from here, when the party of prisoners is being taken
to Siberia. Oh, it’s a long way off yet. Ivan Fyodorovitch has
already visited the superintendent of the third etape. But we
don’t know yet who will be in charge of the party, and it’s
impossible to find that out so long beforehand. To-morrow,
perhaps, I will show you in detail the whole plan which Ivan
Fyodorovitch left me on the eve of the trial in case of need....
That was when — do you remember? — you found us quar-
relling. He had just gone downstairs, but seeing you I made
him come back; do you remember? Do you know what we
were quarrelling about then?’