Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com 100 ‘Has he sent me any message? Come up, Alyosha, and
you, Ivan Fyodorovitch, you must come back, you must. Do
you hear?’
There was such a peremptory note in Katya’s voice that
Ivan, after a moment’s hesitation, made up his mind to go
back with Alyosha.
‘She was listening,’ he murmured angrily to himself, but
Alyosha heard it.
‘Excuse my keeping my greatcoat on,’ said Ivan, going
into the drawing-room. ‘I won’t sit down. I won’t stay more
than a minute.’
‘Sit down, Alexey Fyodorovitch,’ said Katerina Ivanov-
na, though she remained standing. She had changed very
little during this time, but there was an ominous gleam in
her dark eyes. Alyosha remembered afterwards that she had
struck him as particularly handsome at that moment.
‘What did he ask you to tell me?’
‘Only one thing,’ said Alyosha, looking her straight in the
face, ‘that you would spare yourself and say nothing at the
trial of what’ (he was a little confused) ‘...passed between
you... at the time of your first acquaintance... in that town.’
‘Ah! that I bowed down to the ground for that money!’
She broke into a bitter laugh. ‘Why, is he afraid for me or for
himself? He asks me to spare — whom? Him or myself? Tell
me, Alexey Fyodorovitch!’
Alyosha watched her intently, trying to understand her.
‘Both yourself and him,’ he answered softly.
‘I am glad to hear it,’ she snapped out maliciously, and
she suddenly blushed.