Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com Don’t dare come near me again, never, never! Run at once,
challenge him to a duel!’... I took her to the monastery then
to bring her to her senses. The holy Fathers prayed her back
to reason. But I swear, by God, Alyosha, I never insulted the
poor crazy girl! Only once, perhaps, in the first year; then
she was very fond of praying. She used to keep the feasts of
Our Lady particularly and used to turn me out of her room
then. I’ll knock that mysticism out of her, thought I! ‘Here,’
said I, ‘you see your holy image. Here it is. Here I take it
down. You believe it’s miraculous, but here, I’ll spit on it
directly and nothing will happen to me for it!’... When she
saw it, good Lord! I thought she would kill me. But she only
jumped up, wrung her hands, then suddenly hid her face in
them, began trembling all over and fell on the floor... fell all
of a heap. Alyosha, Alyosha, what’s the matter?’
The old man jumped up in alarm. From the time he had
begun speaking about his mother, a change had gradual-
ly come over Alyosha’s face. He flushed crimson, his eyes
glowed, his lips quivered. The old sot had gone spluttering
on, noticing nothing, till the moment when something very
strange happened to Alyosha. Precisely what he was de-
scribing in the crazy woman was suddenly repeated with
Alyosha. He jumped up from his seat exactly as his mother
was said to have done, wrung his hands, hid his face in them,
and fell back in his chair, shaking all over in an hysterical
paroxysm of sudden violent, silent weeping. His extraordi-
nary resemblance to his mother particularly impressed the
old man.
‘Ivan, Ivan! Water, quickly! It’s like her, exactly as she