1 The Brothers Karamazov
you are not glad of that but sorry to be — losing a friend.
But that was acting, too- you were playing a part as in a
theatre!’
‘In a theatre? What? What do you mean?’ exclaimed Kat-
erina Ivanovna, profoundly astonished, flushing crimson,
and frowning.
‘Though you assure him you are sorry to lose a friend in
him, you persist in telling him to his face that it’s fortunate
he is going,’ said Alyosha breathlessly. He was standing at
the table and did not sit down.
‘What are you talking about? I don’t understand.’
‘I don’t understand myself.... I seemed to see in a flash...
I know I am not saying it properly, but I’ll say it all the
same,’ Alyosha went on in the same shaking and broken
voice. ‘What I see is that perhaps you don’t love Dmitri at
all... and never have, from the beginning.... And Dmitri, too,
has never loved you... and only esteems you.... I really don’t
know how I dare to say all this, but somebody must tell the
truth... for nobody here will tell the truth.’
‘What truth?’ cried Katerina Ivanovna,and there was an
hysterical ring in her voice.
‘I’ll tell you,’ Alyosha went on with desperate haste, as
though he were jumping from the top of a house. ‘Call Dmi-
tri; I will fetch him and let him come here and take your
hand and take Ivan’s and join your hands. For you’re tortur-
ing Ivan, simply because you love him — and torturing him,
because you love Dmitri through ‘self-laceration’-with an
unreal love — because you’ve persuaded yourself.’
Alyosha broke off and was silent.