1 The Brothers Karamazovcause it’s impossible. And, how could I tell her myself?’
‘And where are you going?’
‘To the back-alley.’
‘To Grushenka, then!’ Alyosha exclaimed mournfully,
clasping his hands. ‘Can Rakitin really have told the truth?
I thought that you had just visited her, and that was all.’
‘Can a betrothed man pay such visits? Is such a thing
possible and with such a betrothed, and before the eyes of
all the world? Confound it, I have some honour! As soon as
I began visiting Grushenka, I ceased to be betrothed, and to
be an honest man. I understand that. Why do you look at
me? You see, I went in the first place to beat her. I had heard,
and I know for a fact now, that that captain, father’s agent,
had given Grushenka an I.O.U. of mine for her to sue me for
payment, so as to put an end to me. They wanted to scare
me. I went to beat her. I had had a glimpse of her before. She
doesn’t strike one at first sight. I knew about her old mer-
chant, who’s lying ill now, paralysed; but he’s leaving her a
decent little sum. I knew, too, that she was fond of money,
that she hoarded it, and lent it at a wicked rate of interest,
that she’s a merciless cheat and swindler. I went to beat her,
and I stayed. The storm broke — it struck me down like
the plague. I’m plague-stricken still, and I know that every-
thing is over, that there will never be anything more for me.
The cycle of the ages is accomplished. That’s my position.
And though I’m a beggar, as fate would have it, I had three
thousand just then in my pocket. I drove with Grushenka
to Mokroe, a place twenty-five versts from here. I got Gyp-
sies there and champagne and made all the peasants there