“Good?”

“Good. Sometimes I imagine that it was I who crucified him. He hangs there moaning, and I sit down facing him, eating pineapple compote. I like pineapple compote very much. Do you?”

Alyosha was silent and looked at her. Her pale yellow face suddenly became distorted, her eyes lit up.

“You know, after I read about that Jew, I shook with tears the whole night. I kept imagining how the child cried and moaned (four-year-old boys already understand), and I couldn’t get the thought of the compote out of my mind. In the morning I sent a letter to a certain man, telling him that he must come and see me. He came and I suddenly told him about the boy, and the compote, I told him everything, everything, and said it was ‘good.’ He suddenly laughed and said it was indeed good. Then he got up and left. He stayed only five minutes. Did he despise me, did he? Speak, speak, Alyosha, did he despise me or not?” she sat up straight on the couch, flashing her eyes.

“Tell me,” Alyosha said with agitation, “did you yourself send for him, for this man?”

“Yes, I did.”

“You sent him a letter?”

“Yes.” “To ask him just about that, about the child?”

“No, not about that at all, not at all. But as soon as he came, I immediately asked him about that. He answered, laughed, got up and left.”

“The man treated you honorably,” Alyosha said softly. “And despised me? Laughed at me?”

“No, because he may believe in the pineapple compote himself. He’s also very sick now, Lise.”

“Yes, he does believe in it!” Liza flashed her eyes.

“He doesn’t despise anyone,” Alyosha went on, “he simply doesn’t believe anyone. And since he doesn’t believe them, he also, of course, despises them.” “That means me, too? Me?”

“You, too.”

“That’s good,” Liza somehow rasped. “When he walked out laughing, I felt it was good to be despised. The boy with his fingers cut off is good, and to be despised is good...”

And she laughed in Alyosha’s face, somehow wickedly and feverishly.

“You know, Alyosha, you know, I’d like to. . . Alyosha, save me!” she suddenly jumped up from the couch, rushed to him, and held him tightly in her arms. “Save me,” she almost groaned. “Would I tell anyone in the world what I told you? But I told you the truth, the truth, the truth! I’ll kill myself, because everything is so loathsome to me! I don’t want to live, because everything is so loathsome to me. Everything is so loathsome, so loathsome! Alyosha, why, why don’t you love me at all!” she finished in a frenzy.

“No, I do love you!” Alyosha answered ardently.

“And will you weep for me? Will you?”

“I will.”

“Not because I didn’t want to be your wife, but just weep for me, just so?”

“I will.”

“Thank you! I need only your tears. And as for all the rest, let them punish me and trample me with their feet, all, all of them, without any exception! Because I don’t love anyone. Do you hear, not a-ny-one! On the contrary, I hate them! Go, Alyosha, it’s time you went to your brother!” she suddenly tore herself away from him.

“But how can I leave you like this?” Alyosha said, almost afraid.

“Go to your brother, they’ll shut the prison, go, here’s your hat! Kiss Mitya for me, go, go!”

And she pushed Alyosha out the door almost by force. He looked at her with rueful perplexity, when suddenly he felt a letter in his right hand, a small letter, tightly folded and sealed. He looked and at once read the address: “To Ivan Fyodorovich Karamazov.” He glanced quickly at Liza. Her face became almost menacing,

“Give it to him, be sure to give it to him!” she ordered frenziedly, shaking all over, “today, at once! Otherwise I will poison myself! That’s why I sent for you!”

And she quickly slammed the door. The lock clicked. Alyosha put the letter in his pocket and went straight to the stairs without stopping to see Madame Khokhlakov, having even forgotten about her. And Liza, as soon as Alyosha was gone, unlocked the door at once, opened it a little, put her finger into the chink, and, slamming the door, crushed it with all her might. Ten seconds later, having released her hand, she went quietly and slowly to her chair, sat straight up in it, and began looking intently at her blackened finger and the blood oozing from under the nail. Her lips trembled, and she whispered very quickly to herself:

“Mean, mean, mean, mean!”

Chapter 4: A Hymn and a Secret

It was already quite late (and how long is a November day?) when Alyosha rang at the prison gate. It was even beginning to get dark. But Alyosha knew he would be allowed to see Mitya without hindrance. Such things are the same in our town as everywhere else. At first, of course, after the conclusion of the whole preliminary investigation, access to Mitya on the part of his relations and certain other persons was hedged by certain necessary formalities, but after a while, though these formalities were not exactly relaxed, certain exceptions somehow established themselves, at least for some of Mitya’s visitors. So much so that sometimes their meetings with the prisoner in the specially designated room even took place almost one-to-one. However, there were very few such visitors: only Grushenka, Alyosha, and Rakitin. But Grushenka was very much in favor with the police commissioner, Mikhail Makarovich. His shouting at her in Mokroye weighed on the old man’s heart. Afterwards, having learned the essentials, he completely changed his thinking about her. And, strangely, though he was firmly convinced of Mitya’s crime, since the moment of his imprisonment he had come to look on him more and more leniently: “He was probably a man of good soul, and then came to grief like a Swede at Poltava,^[290]from drinking and disorder!” His initial horror gave place in his heart to some sort of pity. As for Alyosha, the commissioner loved him very much and had already known him for a long time, and Rakitin, who later took to visiting the prisoner very often, was one of the closest acquaintances of “the commissioner’s misses,” as he called them, and was daily to be found hanging about their house. And he gave lessons in the home of the prison warden, a good-natured old man, though a seasoned veteran. Alyosha, again, was also a special and old acquaintance of the warden’s, who loved to talk with him generally about “wisdom.”^[291] Ivan Fyodorovich, for example, was not really respected by the warden, but was actually even feared, above all for his opinions, though the warden himself was a great philosopher, “having gotten there by his own reason,” of course. But he felt some sort of irresistible sympathy for Alyosha. During the past year the old man had set himself to reading the Apocryphal Gospels,^[292] and reported his impressions every other moment to his young friend. Earlier he had even gone to visit him in the monastery and had spent long hours talking with him and with the hieromonks. In short, even if Alyosha was late coming to the prison, he had only to go to the warden and the matter was always settled. Besides, everyone in the prison, down to the last guard, was used to Alyosha. And the sentries, of course, would not interfere as long as the authorities had given their permission. Mitya, when he was summoned, would always come down from his little cell to the place designated for visits. Just as he entered the room, Alyosha ran into Rakitin, who was taking leave of Mitya. Both were talking loudly. Mitya, seeing him out, was laughing heartily at something, and Rakitin seemed to be grumbling. Rakitin, especially of late, did not like meeting Alyosha, hardly spoke to him, and even greeted him with difficulty. Now, seeing Alyosha come in, he frowned more than usual and looked the other way, as if totally absorbed in buttoning his big, warm coat with its fur collar. Then he immediately began looking for his umbrella.