The Brothers Karamazov
fused you and shall not be your wife. You are not fit to be a
husband. If I were to marry you and give you a note to take
to the man I loved after you, you’d take it and be sure to give
it to him and bring an answer back, too. If you were forty,
you would still go on taking my love-letters for me.’
She suddenly laughed.
‘There is something spiteful and yet open-hearted about
you,’ Alyosha smiled to her.
‘The open-heartedness consists in my not being ashamed
of myself with you. What’s more, I don’t want to feel
ashamed with you, just with you. Alyosha, why is it I don’t
respect you? I am very fond of you, but I don’t respect you.
If I respected you, I shouldn’t talk to you without shame,
should I?’
‘No.’
‘But do you believe that I am not ashamed with you?’
‘No, I don’t believe it.’
Lise laughed nervously again; she spoke rapidly.
‘I sent your brother, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, some sweets
in prison. Alyosha, you know, you are quite pretty! I shall
love you awfully for having so quickly allowed me not to
love you.’
‘Why did you send for me to-day, Lise?’
‘I wanted to tell you of a longing I have. I should like
some one to torture me, marry me and then torture me, de-
ceive me and go away. I don’t want to be happy.’
‘You are in love with disorder?’
‘Yes, I want disorder. I keep wanting to set fire to the
house. I keep imagining how I’ll creep up and set fire to the