Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com 11enjoyment. I’ve been talking foolishly. I’ve no words left. I
used them at random, but it will be as I have said. I shall
drown in the back-alley, and she will marry Ivan.’
‘Stop, Dmitri,’ Alyosha interrupted again with great anx-
iety. ‘There’s one thing you haven’t made clear yet: you are
still betrothed all the same, aren’t you? How can you break
off the engagement if she, your betrothed, doesn’t want to?’
‘Yes, formally and solemnly betrothed. It was all done on
my arrival in Moscow, with great ceremony, with ikons, all
in fine style. The general’s wife blessed us, and — would
you believe it?- congratulated Katya. You’ve made a good
choice,’ she said, ‘I see right through him.’ And — would
you believe it? — she didn’t like Ivan, and hardly greeted
him. I had a lot of talk with Katya in Moscow. I told her
about myself — sincerely, honourably. She listened to ev-
erything.
There was sweet confusion,
There were tender words.
Though there were proud words, too. She wrung out of
me a mighty promise to reform. I gave my promise, and
here — ‘
‘What?’
‘Why, I called to you and brought you out here to-day,
this very day — remember it — to send you — this very day
again — to Katerina Ivanovna, and — ‘
‘To tell her that I shall never come to see her again. Say,
‘He sends you his compliments.’’
‘But is that possible?’
‘That’s just the reason I’m sending you, in my place, be-