00 The Brothers Karamazov
make me hysterical too. But she is so ill, Alexey Fyodoro-
vitch, she has been so ill all night, feverish and moaning! I
could hardly wait for the morning and for Herzenstube to
come. He says that he can make nothing of it, that we must
wait. Herzenstube always comes and says that he can make
nothing of it. As soon as you approached the house, she
screamed, fell into hysterics, and insisted on being wheeled
back into this room here.’
‘Mamma, I didn’t know he had come. It wasn’t on his ac-
count I wanted to be wheeled into this room.’
‘That’s not true, Lise, Yulia ran to tell you that Alexey Fy-
odorovitch was coming. She was on the lookout for you.’
‘My darling mamma, it’s not at all clever of you. But if
you want to make up for it and say something very clever,
dear mamma, you’d better tell our honoured visitor, Alexey
Fyodorovitch, that he has shown his want of wit by ven-
turing to us after what happened yesterday and although
everyone is laughing at him.’
‘Lise, you go too far. I declare I shall have to be severe.
Who laughs at him? I am so glad he has come, I need him,
I can’t do without him. Oh, Alexey Fyodorovitch, I am ex-
ceedingly unhappy!’
‘But what’s the matter with you, mamma, darling?’
‘Ah, your caprices, Lise, your fidgetiness, your illness, that
awful night of fever, that awful everlasting Herzenstube, ev-
erlasting, everlasting, that’s the worst of it! Everything, in
fact, everything.... Even that miracle, too! Oh, how it has
upset me, how it has shattered me, that miracle, dear Alexey
Fyodorovitch! And that tragedy in the drawing-room, it’s