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playful paragraph finished, of course, with an outburst of
generous indignation at the wickedness of parricide and at
the lately abolished institution of serfdom. Reading it with
curiosity, Alyosha folded up the paper and handed it back
to Madame Hohlakov.
‘Well, that must be me,’ she hurried on again. ‘Of course
I am meant. Scarcely more than an hour before, I suggest-
ed gold mines to him, and here they talk of ‘middle-aged
charms’ as though that were my motive! He writes that out
of spite! God Almighty forgive him for the middle-aged
charms, as I forgive him! You know it’s -Do you know who
it is? It’s your friend Rakitin.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Alyosha, ‘though I’ve heard nothing about
it.’
‘It’s he, it’s he! No ‘perhaps’ about it. You know I turned
him out of the house.... You know all that story, don’t you?’
‘I know that you asked him not to visit you for the future,
but why it was, I haven’t heard... from you, at least.’
‘Ah, then you’ve heard it from him! He abuses me, I sup-
pose, abuses me dreadfully?’
‘Yes, he does; but then he abuses everyone. But why you’ve
given him up I, haven’t heard from him either. I meet him
very seldom now, indeed. We are not friends.’
‘Well, then, I’ll tell you all about it. There’s no help for it,
I’ll confess, for there is one point in which I was perhaps
to blame. Only a little, little point, so little that perhaps it
doesn’t count. You see, my dear boy’ — Madame Hohlakov
suddenly looked arch and a charming, though enigmatic,
smile played about her lips — ‘you see, I suspect... You must