10 The Brothers Karamazov
an evening party not long after. She scarcely looked at me,
and compressed her lips scornfully. ‘Wait a bit. I’ll have my
revenge,’ thought I. I behaved like an awful fool on many oc-
casions at that time, and I was conscious of it myself. What
made it worse was that I felt that ‘Katenka’ was not an inno-
cent boarding-school miss, but a person of character, proud
and really high-principled; above all, she had education and
intellect, and I had neither. You think I meant to make her
an offer? No, I simply wanted to revenge myself, because I
was such a hero and she didn’t seem to feel it.
‘Meanwhile, I spent my time in drink and riot, till the
lieutenant-colonel put me under arrest for three days. Just
at that time father sent me six thousand roubles in re-
turn for my sending him a deed giving up all claims upon
him — settling our accounts, so to speak, and saying that I
wouldn’t expect anything more. I didn’t understand a word
of it at the time. Until I came here, Alyosha, till the last few
days, indeed, perhaps even now, I haven’t been able to make
head or tail of my money affairs with father. But never mind
that, we’ll talk of it later.
‘Just as I received the money, I got a letter from a friend
telling me something that interested me immensely. The
authorities, I learnt, were dissatisfied with our lieuten-
ant-colonel. He was suspected of irregularities; in fact, his
enemies were preparing a surprise for him. And then the
commander of the division arrived, and kicked up the devil
of a shindy. Shortly afterwards he was ordered to retire. I
won’t tell you how it all happened. He had enemies certainly.
Suddenly there was a marked coolness in the town towards