The intention was serious: she took a white cambric handkerchief from her pocket and held it by one corner in her right hand, to wave while she danced. Mitya began bustling, the girls’ chorus fell silent, preparing to burst into a dancing song at the first signal. Maximov, learning that Grushenka herself was going to dance, squealed with delight and began hopping in front of her, singing:

Its legs are naught, its sides are taut, And its little tail’s all in a curl”^[266]

I..

But Grushenka chased him away with a wave of her handkerchief.

“Shoo! Mitya, why aren’t they coming? Let everyone come ... to watch. Call them, too ... the locked-up ones ... What did you lock them up for? Tell them I’m dancing, let them watch me, too . . .” Mitya swept drunkenly to the locked door and began knocking for the pans with his fist.

“Hey, you ... Podvysotskys! Come out, she’s going to dance, she’s calling you.”

“Lajdak!” one of the pans shouted in reply.

“And you are a podlajdak!^[267]A petty little Polish scoundrel, that’s what you are!”

“You should stop deriding Poland,” Kalganov, who had also drunk more than his fill, remarked sententiously.

“Quiet, boy! If I call him a scoundrel, it doesn’t mean I’m calling all of Poland a scoundrel. One lajdak doesn’t make a Poland. Keep quiet, pretty boy, eat your candy.”

“Ah, what people! As if they weren’t even human beings. Why won’t they make peace?” said Grushenka, and she stepped out to dance. The chorus broke into “Ah, hallway, my hallway!”^[268] Grushenka threw back her head, half opened her lips, smiled, waved the handkerchief, and suddenly, swaying badly, stopped perplexed in the middle of the room.

“I feel weak ... ,” she said in a sort of exhausted voice. “Forgive me, I feel weak, I can’t ... I’m sorry...”

She bowed to the chorus, and then began bowing on all sides.

“I’m sorry ... Forgive me ...”

“She’s had a drop, the lady, the pretty lady’s had a drop,” voices were heard saying.

“She’s drunk,” Maximov explained, giggling, to the girls.

“Mitya, help me ... take me, Mitya,” Grushenka said weakly. Mitya rushed to her, picked her up, and ran behind the curtain with his precious booty. “Well, now I really shall leave,” thought Kalganov, and going out of the blue room, he closed both halves of the door behind him. But the feast in the main room went thundering on, and thundered all the more. Mitya laid Grushenka on the bed and pressed his lips to hers in a kiss.

“Don’t touch me,” she murmured to him in a pleading voice, “don’t touch me, I’m not yours yet ... I said I was yours, but don’t touch me ... spare me ... We mustn’t do it with them here, in the next room. He is here. It’s vile here ...”

“I obey! I wouldn’t dream ... I revere...!” Mitya muttered. “Yes, it’s vile here, oh, unspeakably.” And without letting her out of his embrace, he knelt on the floor by the bed.

“I know, though you’re a beast, you’re still noble,” Grushenka spoke with difficulty. “We should do it honestly ... from now on it will be honest ... and we should be honest, and we should be good, not beasts but good ... Take me away, take me far away, do you hear ... ? I don’t want to be here, I want to be far, far away ...”

“Oh, yes, yes, we must!” Mitya pressed her in his arms. “I’ll take you, we’ll fly away ... Oh, I’d give my whole life now for one year, if only I knew about that blood!”

“What blood?” Grushenka repeated in bewilderment.

“Nothing!” Mitya growled. “Grusha, you want it to be honest, but I am a thief. I stole money from Katka ... What shame, what shame!”

“From Katka? You mean the young lady? No, you didn’t steal anything. Give it back to her, take it from me ... Why are you shouting? All that’s mine is yours now. What do we care about money? We’ll just throw it away on a spree ... It’s bound to be so with the likes of us. And you and I had better go work on the land. I want to scrape the earth with my hands. We must work, do you hear? Alyosha said so. I won’t be a mistress to you, I’ll be faithful, I’ll be your slave, I’ll work for you. We’ll both go to the young lady, we’ll bow to her and ask her forgiveness, and go away. And if she doesn’t forgive us, we’ll go away anyway. And you can give her back her money, and love me ... And not love her. Do not love her any more. If you love her, I’ll strangle her ... I’ll put out both her eyes with a needle ...”

“I love you, you alone, I’ll love you in Siberia...”

“Why in Siberia? But why not, I’ll go to Siberia if you like, it’s all the same ... we’ll work ... there’s snow in Siberia ... I like driving over snow ... and there should be a little sleigh bell ... Do you hear a bell ringing ... ? Where is that little bell ringing? People are driving ... now it’s stopped.”

She closed her eyes helplessly, and suddenly seemed to fall asleep for a moment. A bell had indeed been ringing somewhere far away, and suddenly stopped ringing. Mitya lowered his head onto her breast. He did not notice how the bell stopped ringing, nor did he notice how the singing suddenly stopped as well, and instead of songs and drunken racket, a dead silence fell suddenly, as it were, over the whole house. Grushenka opened her eyes.

“What, was I asleep? Yes ... the bell ... I fell asleep and had a dream that I was driving over the snow ... a bell was ringing, and I was dozing. It seemed I was driving with someone very dear to me—with you. Far, far away ... I was embracing you and kissing you, pressing close to you, as if I were cold, and the snow was glistening ... You know how snow glistens at night, and there’s a new moon, and you feel as if you’re not on earth ... I woke up, and my dear was beside me—how good...”

“Beside you,” Mitya murmured, kissing her dress, her breast, her hands. And suddenly a strange fancy struck him: he fancied that she was looking straight ahead, not at him, not into his eyes, but over his head, intently and with a strange fixity. Surprise, almost fear, suddenly showed on her face.

“Mitya, who is that looking at us from there?” she whispered suddenly. Mitya turned and saw that someone had indeed parted the curtains and was apparently trying to make them out. More than one person, it seemed. He jumped up and quickly went towards the intruder.

“Here, come out here, please,” someone’s voice said to him, not loudly, but firmly and insistently.

Mitya stepped from behind the curtain and stood still. The whole room was full of people, not those who had been there before, but quite new ones. A momentary shiver ran down his spine, and he drew back. He recognized all these people instantly. The tall, plump old man in a coat and a service cap with a cockade was the district police commissioner, Mikhail Makarich. And the trim, “consumptive” fop, “always in such well-polished boots,” was the deputy prosecutor. “He has a chronometer worth four hundred roubles, he showed it to me.” And the short young man in spectacles ... Mitya simply could not remember his last name, but he knew him, too, he had seen him: he was an attorney, a district attorney “from the Jurisprudence,”^[269] recently arrived. And that one—the deputy commissioner, Mavriky Mavrikich—he knew him, he was an acquaintance. And the ones with badges, what were they doing here? And the other two, peasants ... And Kalganov and Trifon Borisich there in the doorway . . .

“Gentlemen ... What is it, gentlemen?” Mitya started to say, but suddenly, as if beside himself, as if not of himself at all, he exclaimed loudly, at the top of his lungs:

“I un-der-stand!”

The young man in spectacles suddenly came forward and, stepping up to Mitya, began in a dignified manner, though a little hurriedly, as it were:

“We must have ... in short, would you kindly come over here, to the sofa ... It is of the utmost necessity that we have a word with you.”