1 The Brothers Karamazov
heart!’ broke from Katya. ‘My forgiveness is no good to you,
nor yours to me; whether you forgive me or not, you will al-
ways be a sore place in my heart, and I in yours — so it must
be....’ She stopped to take breath. ‘What have I come for?’
she began again with nervous haste: ‘to embrace your feet,
to press your hands like this, till it hurts- you remember
how in Moscow I used to squeeze them — to tell you again
that you are my god, my joy, to tell you that I love you mad-
ly,’ she moaned in anguish, and suddenly pressed his hand
greedily to her lips. Tears streamed from her eyes. Alyosha
stood speechless and confounded; he had never expected
what he was seeing.
‘Love is over, Mitya!’ Katya began again, ‘But the past is
painfully dear to me. Know that you will always be so. But
now let what might have been come true for one minute,’
she faltered, with a drawn smile, looking into his face joy-
fully again. ‘You love another woman, and I love another
man, and yet I shall love you for ever, and you will love me;
do you know that? Do you hear? Love me, love me all your
life!’ she cried, with a quiver almost of menace in her voice.
‘I shall love you, and... do you know, Katya,’ Mitya began,
drawing a deep breath at each word, ‘do you know, five days
ago, that same evening, I loved you.... When you fell down
and were carried out... All my life! So it will be, so it will
always be-.’
So they murmured to one another frantic words, almost
meaningless, perhaps not even true, but at that moment it
was all true, and they both believed what they said implic-
itly.