Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com 1count! What if when I go home I feel sorry for him? What
then?’
‘I never expected-.’
‘Ah, young lady, how good and generous you are com-
pared with me! Now perhaps you won’t care for a silly
creature like me, now you know my character. Give me your
sweet little hand, angelic lady,’ she said tenderly, and with a
sort of reverence took Katerina Ivanovna’s hand.
‘Here, dear young lady, I’ll take your hand and kiss it as
you did mine. You kissed mine three times, but I ought to
kiss yours three hundred times to be even with you. Well,
but let that pass. And then it shall be as God wills. Perhaps
I shall be your slave entirely and want to do your bidding
like a slave. Let it be as God wills, without any agreements
and promises. What a sweet hand — what a sweet hand you
have! You sweet young lady, you incredible beauty!’
She slowly raised the hands to her lips, with the strange
object indeed of ‘being even’ with her in kisses.
Katerina Ivanovna did not take her hand away. She lis-
tened with timid hope to the last words, though Grushenka’s
promise to do her bidding like a slave was very strangely ex-
pressed. She looked intently into her eyes; she still saw in
those eyes the same simple-hearted, confiding expression,
the same bright gaiety.
‘She’s perhaps too naive,’ thought Katerina Ivanovna,
with a gleam of hope.
Grushenka meanwhile seemed enthusiastic over the
‘sweet hand.’ She raised it deliberately to her lips. But she
held it for two or three minutes near her lips, as though re-