Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com 11 young person — a strange and fatal coincidence, for they
both lost their hearts to her simultaneously, though both
had known her before. And she inspired in both of them
the most violent, characteristically Karamazov passion. We
have her own confession: ‘I was laughing at both of them.’
Yes, the sudden desire to make a jest of them came over her,
and she conquered both of them at once. The old man, who
worshipped money, at once set aside three thousand roubles
as a reward for one visit from her, but soon after that, he
would have been happy to lay his property and his name
at her feet, if only she would become his lawful wife. We
have good evidence of this. As for the prisoner, the tragedy
of his fate is evident; it is before us. But such was the young
person’s ‘game.’ The enchantress gave the unhappy young
man no hope until the last moment, when he knelt before
her, stretching out hands that were already stained with the
blood of his father and rival. It was in that position that he
was arrested. ‘Send me to Siberia with him, I have brought
him to this, I am most to blame,’ the woman herself cried,
in genuine remorse at the moment of his arrest.
‘The talented young man, to whom I have referred already,
Mr. Rakitin, characterised this heroine in brief and impres-
sive terms: ‘She was disillusioned early in life, deceived and
ruined by a betrothed, who seduced and abandoned her.
She was left in poverty, cursed by her respectable family
and taken under the protection of a wealthy old man, whom
she still, however, considers as her benefactor. There was
perhaps much that was good in her young heart, but it was
embittered too early. She became prudent and saved money.