She suddenly laughed.

“There is something wicked and guileless about you at the same time,” Alyosha smiled at her.

“What’s guileless is that I’m not ashamed with you. Moreover, not only am I not ashamed, but I do not want to be ashamed, precisely before you, precisely with you. Alyosha, why don’t I respect you? I love you very much, but I don’t respect you. If I respected you, I wouldn’t talk like this without being ashamed, would I?”

“That’s true.”

“And do you believe that I’m not ashamed with you?”

“No, I don’t.”

Liza again laughed nervously; she was talking rapidly, quickly.

“I sent some candy to your brother, Dmitri Fyodorovich, in prison. Alyosha, you know, you are so nice! I will love you terribly for allowing me not to love you so soon.”

“Why did you send for me today, Lise?”

“I wanted to tell you a wish of mine. I want someone to torment me, to marry me and then torment me, deceive me, leave me and go away. I don’t want to be happy!”

“You’ve come to love disorder?”

“Ah, I want disorder. I keep wanting to set fire to the house. I imagine how I’ll sneak up and set fire to it on the sly, it must be on the sly. They’ll try to put it out, but it will go on burning. And I’ll know and say nothing. Ah, what foolishness! And so boring!”

She waved her hand in disgust.

“It’s your rich life,” Alyosha said softly.

“Why, is it better to be poor?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Your deceased monk filled you with all that. It’s not true. Let me be rich and everyone else poor, I’ll eat candy and drink cream, and I won’t give any to any of them. Ah, don’t speak, don’t say anything,” she waved her hand, though Alyosha had not even opened his mouth, “you’ve told me all that before, I know it all by heart. Boring. If I’m ever poor, I’ll kill somebody—and maybe I’ll kill somebody even if I’m rich—why just sit there? But, you know, what I want is to reap, to reap the rye. I’ll marry you, and you’ll become a peasant, a real peasant, we’ll keep a colt, would you like that? Do you know Kalganov?”

“Yes.”

“He walks about and dreams. He says: why live in reality, it’s better to dream. One can dream up the gayest things, but to live is boring. And yet he’s going to marry soon, he’s even made me a declaration of love. Do you know how to spin a top?”

“Yes.”

“Well, he’s like a top: spin him and set him down and then whip, whip, whip: I’ll marry him and keep him spinning all his life. Are you ashamed to sit with me?”

“No.”

“You’re terribly angry that I don’t talk about holy things. I don’t want to be holy. What will they do in that world for the greatest sin? You must know exactly.”

“God will judge,” Alyosha was studying her intently.

“That’s just how I want it to be. I’ll come, and they will judge me, and suddenly I’ll laugh them all in the face. I want terribly to set fire to the house, Alyosha, to our house—you still don’t believe me?”

“Why shouldn’t I? There are even children, about twelve years old, who want very much to set fire to something, and they do set fire to things. It’s a sort of illness.”

“That’s wrong, wrong; maybe there are children, but that’s not what I’m talking about.”

“You take evil for good, it’s a momentary crisis, perhaps it comes from your former illness.”

“So, after all, you do despise me! I just don’t want to do good, I want to do evil, and illness has nothing to do with it.”

“Why do evil?”

“So that there will be nothing left anywhere. Ah, how good it would be if there were nothing left! You know, Alyosha, I sometimes think about doing an awful lot of evil, all sorts of nasty things, and I’d be doing them on the sly for a long time, and suddenly everyone would find out. They would all surround me and point their fingers at me, and I would look at them all. That would be very pleasant. Why would it be so pleasant, Alyosha?”

“Who knows? The need to smash something good, or, as you said, to set fire to something. That also happens.”

“But I’m not just saying it, I’ll do it, too.”

“I believe you.”

“Ah, how I love you for saying you believe me. And you’re not lying at all, not at all. But maybe you think I’m saying all this on purpose, just to tease you?”

“No, I don’t think that. . . though maybe there’s a little of that need, too.”

“There is a little. I can never lie to you,” she said, her eyes flashing with some sort of fire.

Alyosha was struck most of all by her seriousness: not a shadow of laughter or playfulness was left on her face, though before gaiety and playfulness had not abandoned her even in her most “serious” moments.

“There are moments when people love crime,” Alyosha said pensively.

“Yes, yes! You’ve spoken my own thought, they love it, they all love it, and love it always, not just at ‘moments.’ You know, it’s as if at some point they all agreed to lie about it, and have been lying about it ever since. They all say they hate what’s bad, but secretly they all love it.”

“And are you still reading bad books?”

“Yes. Mama reads them and hides them under her pillow, and I steal them.”

“Aren’t you ashamed to be ruining yourself?”

“I want to ruin myself. There’s a boy here, and he lay down under the rails while a train rode over him. Lucky boy! Listen, your brother is on trial now for killing his father, and they all love it that he killed his father.”

“They love it that he killed his father?”

“They love it, they all love it! Everyone says it’s terrible, but secretly they all love it terribly. I’m the first to love it.”

“There’s some truth in what you say about everyone,” Alyosha said softly.

“Ah, what thoughts you have!” Liza shrieked with delight, “and you a monk! You wouldn’t believe how I respect you, Alyosha, for never lying. Ah, I’ll tell you a funny dream of mine: sometimes I have a dream about devils, it seems to be night, I’m in my room with a candle, and suddenly there are devils everywhere, in all the corners, and under the tables, and they open the door, and outside the door there’s a crowd of them, and they want to come in and grab me. And they’re coming close, they’re about to grab me. But I suddenly cross myself and they all draw back, afraid, only they don’t quite go away, they stand by the door and in the corners, waiting. And suddenly I have a terrible desire to start abusing God out loud, and so I start abusing him, and they suddenly rush at me again in a crowd, they’re so glad, and they’re grabbing me again, and I suddenly cross myself again—and they all draw back. It’s such terrible fun; it takes my breath away.”

“I’ve sometimes had the same dream,” Alyosha said suddenly.

“Really?” Liza cried out in surprise. “Listen, Alyosha, don’t laugh, this is terribly important: is it possible for two different people to have one and the same dream?”

“It must be.”

“Alyosha, I’m telling you, this is terribly important,” Liza went on in some sort of extreme amazement. “It’s not the dream that’s important, but that you could have the same dream I had. You never lie, so don’t lie now either: is it true? You’re not joking?”

“It’s true.”

Liza was terribly struck by something and sat silently for half a minute.

“Alyosha, do come to see me, come to see me more often,” she spoke suddenly in a pleading voice.

“I’ll always come to see you, all my life,” Alyosha answered firmly.

“I tell this to you alone,” Liza began again. “Only to myself, and also to you. You alone in the whole world. And rather to you than to myself. And I’m not at all ashamed with you. Alyosha, why am I not at all ashamed with you, not at all? Alyosha, is it true that Jews steal children on Passover and kill them?”

“I don’t know.”

“I have a book here, I read in it about some trial somewhere, and that a Jew first cut off all the fingers of a four-year-old boy, and then crucified him on the wall, nailed him with nails and crucified him, and then said at his trial that the boy died quickly, in four hours. Quickly! He said the boy was moaning, that he kept moaning, and he stood and admired it. That’s good!”