0 The Brothers Karamazov

Chapter 3

An Onion

G

RUSHENKA lived in the busiest part of the town, near
the cathedral square, in a small wooden lodge in the
courtyard belonging to the house of the widow Morozov.
The house was a large stone building of two stories, old and
very ugly. The widow led a secluded life with her two un-
married nieces, who were also elderly women. She had no
need to let her lodge, but everyone knew that she had taken
in Grushenka as a lodger, four years before, solely to please
her kinsman, the merchant Samsonov, who was known to
the girl’s protector. It was said that the jealous old man’s
object in placing his ‘favourite’ with the widow Morozov
was that the old woman should keep a sharp eye on her new
lodger’s conduct. But this sharp eye soon proved to be un-
necessary, and in the end the widow Morozov seldom met
Grushenka and did not worry her by looking after her in
any way. It is true that four years had passed since the old
man had brought the slim, delicate, shy, timid, dreamy, and
sad girl of eighteen from the chief town of the province, and
much had happened since then. Little was known of the
girl’s history in the town and that little was vague. Noth-