0 The Brothers Karamazov‘You won’t make me blush, dear young lady, kissing my
hand like this before Alexey Fyodorovitch.’
‘Do you think I meant to make you blush?’ said Katerina
Ivanovna, somewhat surprised. ‘Ah my dear, how little you
understand me!
‘Yes, and you too perhaps quite misunderstand me, dear
young lady. Maybe I’m not so good as I seem to you. I’ve a
bad heart; I will have my own way. I fascinated poor Dmitri
Fyodorovitch that day simply for fun.’
‘But now you’ll save him. You’ve given me your word.
You’ll explain it all to him. You’ll break to him that you have
long loved another man, who is now offering you his hand.’
‘Oh, no I didn’t give you my word to do that. It was you
kept talking about that. I didn’t give you my word.’
‘Then I didn’t quite understand you,’ said Katerina Iva-
novna slowly, turning a little pale. ‘You promised-.’
‘Oh no, angel lady, I’ve promised nothing,’ Grushenka
interrupted softly and evenly, still with the same gay and
simple expression. ‘You see at once, dear young lady, what
a wilful wretch I am compared with you. If I want to do a
thing I do it. I may have made you some promise just now.
But now again I’m thinking: I may take Mitya again. I liked
him very much once — liked him for almost a whole hour.
Now maybe I shall go and tell him to stay with me from this
day forward. You see, I’m so changeable.’
‘Just now you said — something quite different,’ Katerina
Ivanovna whispered faintly.
‘Ah, just now! But, you know, I’m such a soft-hearted,
silly creature. Only think what he’s gone through on my ac-