Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com 0ger, isn’t he a child, a child himself? Is he fit to be married
after that? For only fancy, he wants to be married, mamma.
Just think of him married, wouldn’t it be funny, wouldn’t it
be awful?’
And Lise kept laughing her thin hysterical giggle, look-
ing slyly at Alyosha.
‘But why married, Lise? What makes you talk of such a
thing? It’s quite out of place and perhaps the boy was rabid.’
‘Why, mamma! As though there were rabid boys!’
‘Why not, Lise, as though I had said something stupid!
Your boy might have been bitten by a mad dog and he would
become mad and bite anyone near him. How well she has
bandaged it, Alexey Fyodorovitch! I couldn’t have done it.
Do you still feel the pain?’
‘It’s nothing much now.’
‘You don’t feel afraid of water?’ asked Lise.
‘Come, that’s enough, Lise, perhaps I really was rather
too quick talking of the boy being rabid, and you pounced
upon it at once. Katerina Ivanovna has only just heard that
you are here, Alexey Fyodorovitch, she simply rushed at me,
she’s dying to see you, dying!’
‘Ach, mamma, go to them yourself. He can’t go just now,
he is in too much pain.’
‘Not at all, I can go quite well,’ said Alyosha.
‘What! You are going away? Is that what you say?’
‘Well, when I’ve seen them, I’ll come back here and we
can talk as much as you like. But I should like to see Kat-
erina Ivanovna at once, for I am very anxious to be back at
the monastery as soon as I can.’