“This much I can tell you firmly, Grushenka,” Alyosha said, rising, “first, that he loves you, loves you more than anyone in the world, and only you, believe me when I say it. I know. I really know. The second thing I will tell you is that I am not going to try and worm the secret out of him, but if he tells me himself today, I’ll tell him straight out that I have promised to tell you. Then I’ll come to you this very day and tell you. Only ... it seems to me ... Katerina Ivanovna has nothing to do with it, and the secret is about something else. That is certainly so. It doesn’t look at all as if it has to do with Katerina Ivanovna, so it seems to me. Good-bye for now!”

Alyosha pressed her hand. Grushenka was still crying. He saw that she had very little faith in his consolations, but it was good enough even so that she had vented her grief, that she had spoken herself out. He was sorry to leave her in such a state, but he was in a rush. He still had much to do ahead of him.

Chapter 2: An Ailing Little Foot

The first thing he had to do was at Madame Khokhlakov’s house, and he hurried there to get it over with as quickly as possible and not be late for Mitya. Madame Khokhlakov had been a bit unwell for the past three weeks: her foot had become swollen for some reason, and though she did not stay in bed, she spent the day reclining on the couch in her boudoir, dressed in an attractive, but decent, deshabille. Alyosha once noted to himself with an innocent smile that, despite her illness, Madame Khokhlakov had become almost dressy— all sorts of lace caps, bows, little bed-jackets appeared—and he imagined he knew why, though he tried to chase such idle thoughts from his mind. Among other guests, Madame Khokhlakov had been visited over the past two months by the young man Perkhotin. Alyosha had not come to call for four days, and, on entering the house, hastened to go straight to Liza, as it was with her that he had to do, since Liza had sent her maid to him the day before with an urgent request that he come to her at once “about a very important circumstance,” which, for certain reasons, aroused Alyosha’s interest. But while the maid was gone to announce him to Liza, Madame Khokhlakov learned of his arrival from someone and sent at once asking him to come to her “for just a moment. “ Alyosha decided it would be better to satisfy the mother’s request first, or she would keep sending to Liza every minute while he was with her. Madame Khokhlakov was lying on her couch, dressed somehow especially festively and obviously in a state of extreme nervous excitement. She greeted Alyosha with cries of rapture.

“Ages, ages, it’s such ages since I’ve seen you! A whole week, for pity’s sake, ah, but no, you were here just four days ago, on Wednesday. You’ve come to see Lise, I’m sure you wanted to go straight to her, tiptoeing so that I wouldn’t hear. Dear, dear Alexei Fyodorovich, if you knew how I worry about her! But of that later. Of that later—though it’s the most important thing. Dear Alexei Fyodorovich, I trust you with my Liza completely. After the elder Zosima’s death—God rest his soul!” (she crossed herself) “—after him I’ve regarded you as a monk, though you do look lovely in your new suit. Where did you find such a tailor here? But no, no, that’s not the main thing—of that later. Forgive me if I sometimes call you Alyosha, I’m an old woman, all is allowed me,” she smiled coyly, “but of that later, too. The main thing is not to forget the main thing. Please remind me if I get confused; you should say: ‘And what about the main thing?’ Ah, how do I know what the main thing is now! Ever since Lise took back her promise—a child’s promise, Alexei Fyodorovich— to marry you, you’ve understood of course that it was all just the playful, childish fantasy of a sick girl, who had sat for so long in a chair—thank God she’s walking now. That new doctor Katya invited from Moscow for that unfortunate brother of yours, who tomorrow ... But why speak of tomorrow! I die just at the thought of tomorrow! Mainly of curiosity ... In short, that doctor was here yesterday and saw Lise ... I paid him fifty roubles for the visit. But that’s not it, again that’s not it ... You see, now I’m completely confused. I rush. Why do I rush? I don’t know. It’s terrible how I’ve stopped knowing these days. Everything’s got mixed up for me into some kind of lump. I’m afraid you’ll be so bored you’ll just go running out my door and leave not a trace behind. Oh, my God! Why are we sitting here and—coffee, first of all—Yulia, Glafira, coffee!”

Alyosha hastened to thank her and announced that he had just had coffee.

“With whom?”

“With Agrafena Alexandrovna.”

“With ... with that woman! Ah, it’s she who has ruined everybody, but in fact I don’t know, they say she’s become a saint, though it’s a bit late. She’d better have done it before, when it was needed, but what’s the use of it now? Hush, hush, Alexei Fyodorovich, because there’s so much I want to say that I’m afraid I won’t say anything. This terrible trial ... I must go, I am preparing myself, I’ll be carried in in a chair, and anyway I’ll be able to sit, there will be people with me, and, you know, I’m one of the witnesses. How am I going to speak, how am I going to speak? I don’t know what I shall say. I shall have to take an oath, that’s so, isn’t it?”

“That is so, but I don’t think you will be able to go.”

“I can sit; ah, you’re confusing me! This trial, this wild act, and then everyone goes to Siberia, others get married, and it all happens so quickly, so quickly, and everything is changing, and in the end there’s nothing, everyone is old and has one foot in the grave. Well, let it be, I’m tired. This Katya—cette clarmante personne, she’s shattered all my hopes: now she’ll follow your one brother to Siberia, and your other brother will follow her and live in the next town, and they’ll all torment one another. It drives me crazy, and above all, the publicity: they’ve written about it a million times in all the Petersburg and Moscow newspapers. Ah, yes, imagine, they also wrote about me, that I was your brother’s ‘dear friend,’ I don’t want to say a naughty word, but imagine, just imagine!”

“It can’t be! Where and how did they write it?”

“I’ll show you right now. I received it yesterday and read it yesterday. Here, in the newspaper Rumors, from Petersburg. These Rumors just started coming out this year, I’m terribly fond of rumors, so I subscribed, and now I’ve been paid back for it, this is the sort of rumors they turned out to be. Here, this passage, read it.”

And she handed Alyosha a page from a newspaper that had been under her pillow.

She was not really upset, but somehow all in pieces, and it was perhaps possible that everything had indeed become mixed into a lump in her head. The newspaper item was a typical one and, of course, must have had a rather ticklish effect on her, but, fortunately, at that moment she was perhaps unable to concentrate on any one point, and could therefore even forget about the newspaper in a moment and jump on to something quite different. Alyosha had known for some time that the rumor of a terrible trial had spread everywhere throughout Russia, and, God, what wild reports and articles he had read in the course of those two months, along with other, accurate items, about his brother, about the Karamazovs in general, and even about himself. In one newspaper it was even stated that he had become a monk from fear, following his brother’s crime, and gone into seclusion; this was denied in another, where it was written that, on the contrary, he and his elder Zosima had robbed the monastery cash box and “skipped from the monastery.” Today’s item in the newspaper Rumors was entitled “From Skotoprigonyevsk”^[287] (alas, that is the name of our town; I have been concealing it all this time) “Concerning the Trial of Karamazov.” It was brief, and there was no direct mention of Madame Khokhlakov, and generally all the names were concealed. It was simply reported that the criminal whose forthcoming trial was causing so much noise was a retired army officer, of an insolent sort, an idler and serf-owner, who devoted all his time to amorous affairs, and had a particular influence with certain “bored and solitary ladies.” And that one such lady, “a bored widow,” rather girlish, though she already had a grown-up daughter, took such a fancy to him that only two hours before the crime she had offered him three thousand roubles if he would run away with her at once to the gold mines. But the villain still preferred better to kill his father and rob him precisely of three thousand, counting on doing it with impunity, rather than drag himself off to Siberia with the forty-year-old charms of his bored lady. This playful communication ended, quite properly, with noble indignation at the immorality of parricide and the former serfdom. Having read it with curiosity, Alyosha folded the page and handed it back to Madame Khokhlakov.