1 The Brothers Karamazov
‘I was lieutenant in a line regiment, but still I was under
supervision, like a kind of convict. Yet I was awfully well
received in the little town. I spent money right and left. I
was thought to be rich; I thought so myself. But I must have
pleased them in other ways as well. Although they shook
their heads over me, they liked me. My colonel, who was an
old man, took a sudden dislike to me. He was always down
upon me, but I had powerful friends, and, moreover, all the
town was on my side, so he couldn’t do me much harm. I
was in fault myself for refusing to treat him with proper re-
spect. I was proud. This obstinate old fellow, who was really
a very good sort, kind-hearted and hospitable, had had two
wives, both dead. His first wife, who was of a humble family,
left a daughter as unpretentious as herself. She was a young
woman of four and twenty when I was there, and was living
with her father and an aunt, her mother’s sister. The aunt
was simple and illiterate; the niece was simple but lively. I
like to say nice things about people. I never knew a woman
of more charming character than Agafya — fancy, her name
was Agafya Ivanovna! And she wasn’t bad-looking either, in
the Russian style: tall, stout, with a full figure, and beauti-
ful eyes, though a rather coarse face. She had not married,
although she had had two suitors. She refused them, but
was as cheerful as ever. I was intimate with her, not in ‘that’
way, it was pure friendship. I have often been friendly with
women quite innocently. I used to talk to her with shocking
frankness, and she only laughed. Many woman like such
freedom, and she was a girl too, which made it very amus-
ing. Another thing, one could never think of her as a young