The Brothers Karamazovrhetorical that Grushenka put it down before she had read
half, unable to make head or tail of it. She could not attend
to letters then. The first letter was followed next day by an-
other in which Pan Mussyalovitch begged her for a loan of
two thousand roubles for a very short period. Grushenka
left that letter, too, unanswered. A whole series of letters
had followed — one every day — all as pompous and rhe-
torical, but the loan asked for, gradually diminishing,
dropped to a hundred roubles, than to twenty-five, to ten,
and finally Grushenka received a letter in which both the
Poles begged her for only one rouble and included a receipt
signed by both.
Then Grushenka suddenly felt sorry for them, and at dusk
she went round herself to their lodging. She found the two
Poles in great poverty, almost destitution, without food or
fuel, without cigarettes, in debt to their landlady. The two
hundred roubles they had carried off from Mitya at Mok-
roe had soon disappeared. But Grushenka was surprised at
their meeting her with arrogant dignity and self-assertion,
with the greatest punctilio and pompous speeches. Grush-
enka simply laughed, and gave her former admirer ten
roubles. Then, laughing, she told Mitya of it and he was not
in the least jealous. But ever since, the Poles had attached
themselves to Grushenka and bombarded her daily with re-
quests for money and she had always sent them small sums.
And now that day Mitya had taken it into his head to be
fearfully jealous.
‘Like a fool, I went round to him just for a minute, on the
way to see Mitya, for he is ill, too, my Pole,’ Grushenka be-