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ten on some sort of bill!’ she cried breathlessly. ‘He hated
me at that time, because he had behaved contemptibly and
was running after that creature ... and because he owed me
that three thousand.... Oh! he was humiliated by that three
thousand on account of his own meanness! This is how it
happened about that three thousand. I beg you, I beseech
you, to hear me. Three weeks before he murdered his fa-
ther, he came to me one morning. I knew he was in want
of money, and what he wanted it for. Yes, yes — to win that
creature and carry her off. I knew then that he had been
false to me and meant to abandon me, and it was I, I, who
gave him that money, who offered it to him on the pretext of
his sending it to my sister in Moscow. And as I gave it him,
I looked him in the face and said that he could send it when
he liked, ‘in a month’s time would do.’ How, how could he
have failed to understand that I was practically telling him
to his face, ‘You want money to be false to me with your
creature, so here’s the money for you. I give it to you myself.
Take it, if you have so little honour as to take it!’ I wanted to
prove what he was, and what happened? He took it, he took
it, and squandered it with that creature in one night.... But
he knew, he knew that I knew all about it. I assure you he
understood, too, that I gave him that money to test him, to
see whether he was so lost to all sense of honour as to take
it from me. I looked into his eyes and he looked into mine,
and he understood it all and he took it — he carried off my
money!
‘That’s true, Katya,’ Mitya roared suddenly, ‘I looked into
your eyes and I knew that you were dishonouring me, and