The Brothers Karamazov
was extremely touched by his story. Alyosha described Ilusha with warm
feeling. When he finished describing how the luckless man trampled on
the money, Lise could not help clasping her hands and crying out:
“So you didn’t give him the money! So you let him run away! Oh, dear,
you ought to have run after him!”
“No, Lise; it’s better I didn’t run after him,” said Alyosha, getting
up from his chair and walking thoughtfully across the room.
“How so? How is it better? Now they are without food and their case is
hopeless?”
“Not hopeless, for the two hundred roubles will still come to them.
He’ll take the money to-morrow. To-morrow he will be sure to take it,”
said Alyosha, pacing up and down, pondering. “You see, Lise,” he went
on, stopping suddenly before her, “I made one blunder, but that, even
that, is all for the best.”
“What blunder, and why is it for the best?”
“I’ll tell you. He is a man of weak and timorous character; he has
suffered so much and is very good-natured. I keep wondering why he took
offense so suddenly, for I assure you, up to the last minute, he did
not know that he was going to trample on the notes. And I think now
that there was a great deal to offend him ... and it could not have
been otherwise in his position.... To begin with, he was sore at having
been so glad of the money in my presence and not having concealed it
from me. If he had been pleased, but not so much; if he had not shown
it; if he had begun affecting scruples and difficulties, as other
people do when they take money, he might still endure to take it. But
he was too genuinely delighted, and that was mortifying. Ah, Lise, he
is a good and truthful man—that’s the worst of the whole business. All
the while he talked, his voice was so weak, so broken, he talked so
fast, so fast, he kept laughing such a laugh, or perhaps he was
crying—yes, I am sure he was crying, he was so delighted—and he talked
about his daughters—and about the situation he could get in another
town.... And when he had poured out his heart, he felt ashamed at
having shown me his inmost soul like that. So he began to hate me at
once. He is one of those awfully sensitive poor people. What had made
him feel most ashamed was that he had given in too soon and accepted me
as a friend, you see. At first he almost flew at me and tried to
intimidate me, but as soon as he saw the money he had begun embracing
me; he kept touching me with his hands. This must have been how he came
to feel it all so humiliating, and then I made that blunder, a very
important one. I suddenly said to him that if he had not money enough
to move to another town, we would give it to him, and, indeed, I myself
would give him as much as he wanted out of my own money. That struck
him all at once. Why, he thought, did I put myself forward to help him?
You know, Lise, it’s awfully hard for a man who has been injured, when
other people look at him as though they were his benefactors.... I’ve
heard that; Father Zossima told me so. I don’t know how to put it, but
I have often seen it myself. And I feel like that myself, too. And the
worst of it was that though he did not know, up to the very last
minute, that he would trample on the notes, he had a kind of
presentiment of it, I am sure of that. That’s just what made him so
ecstatic, that he had that presentiment.... And though it’s so
dreadful, it’s all for the best. In fact, I believe nothing better
could have happened.”
“Why, why could nothing better have happened?” cried Lise, looking with
great surprise at Alyosha.
“Because if he had taken the money, in an hour after getting home, he
would be crying with mortification, that’s just what would have
happened. And most likely he would have come to me early to-morrow, and
perhaps have flung the notes at me and trampled upon them as he did
just now. But now he has gone home awfully proud and triumphant, though
he knows he has ‘ruined himself.’ So now nothing could be easier than
to make him accept the two hundred roubles by to-morrow, for he has
already vindicated his honor, tossed away the money, and trampled it
under foot.... He couldn’t know when he did it that I should bring it
to him again to-morrow, and yet he is in terrible need of that money.
Though he is proud of himself now, yet even to-day he’ll be thinking
what a help he has lost. He will think of it more than ever at night,
will dream of it, and by to-morrow morning he may be ready to run to me
to ask forgiveness. It’s just then that I’ll appear. ‘Here, you are a
proud man,’ I shall say: ‘you have shown it; but now take the money and
forgive us!’ And then he will take it!”
Alyosha was carried away with joy as he uttered his last words, “And
then he will take it!” Lise clapped her hands.
“Ah, that’s true! I understand that perfectly now. Ah, Alyosha, how do
you know all this? So young and yet he knows what’s in the heart.... I
should never have worked it out.”
“The great thing now is to persuade him that he is on an equal footing
with us, in spite of his taking money from us,” Alyosha went on in his
excitement, “and not only on an equal, but even on a higher footing.”
“‘On a higher footing’ is charming, Alexey Fyodorovitch; but go on, go
on!”
“You mean there isn’t such an expression as ‘on a higher footing’; but
that doesn’t matter because—”
“Oh, no, of course it doesn’t matter. Forgive me, Alyosha, dear.... You
know, I scarcely respected you till now—that is I respected you but on
an equal footing; but now I shall begin to respect you on a higher
footing. Don’t be angry, dear, at my joking,” she put in at once, with
strong feeling. “I am absurd and small, but you, you! Listen, Alexey
Fyodorovitch. Isn’t there in all our analysis—I mean your analysis ...
no, better call it ours—aren’t we showing contempt for him, for that
poor man—in analyzing his soul like this, as it were, from above, eh?
In deciding so certainly that he will take the money?”
“No, Lise, it’s not contempt,” Alyosha answered, as though he had
prepared himself for the question. “I was thinking of that on the way
here. How can it be contempt when we are all like him, when we are all
just the same as he is? For you know we are just the same, no better.
If we are better, we should have been just the same in his place.... I
don’t know about you, Lise, but I consider that I have a sordid soul in
many ways, and his soul is not sordid; on the contrary, full of fine
feeling.... No, Lise, I have no contempt for him. Do you know, Lise, my
elder told me once to care for most people exactly as one would for
children, and for some of them as one would for the sick in hospitals.”
“Ah, Alexey Fyodorovitch, dear, let us care for people as we would for
the sick!”
“Let us, Lise; I am ready. Though I am not altogether ready in myself.
I am sometimes very impatient and at other times I don’t see things.
It’s different with you.”
“Ah, I don’t believe it! Alexey Fyodorovitch, how happy I am!”
“I am so glad you say so, Lise.”
“Alexey Fyodorovitch, you are wonderfully good, but you are sometimes
sort of formal.... And yet you are not a bit formal really. Go to the
door, open it gently, and see whether mamma is listening,” said Lise,
in a nervous, hurried whisper.
Alyosha went, opened the door, and reported that no one was listening.
“Come here, Alexey Fyodorovitch,” Lise went on, flushing redder and
redder. “Give me your hand—that’s right. I have to make a great
confession, I didn’t write to you yesterday in joke, but in earnest,”
and she hid her eyes with her hand. It was evident that she was greatly
ashamed of the confession.
Suddenly she snatched his hand and impulsively kissed it three times.
“Ah, Lise, what a good thing!” cried Alyosha joyfully. “You know, I was
perfectly sure you were in earnest.”
“Sure? Upon my word!” She put aside his hand, but did not leave go of
it, blushing hotly, and laughing a little happy laugh. “I kiss his hand
and he says, ‘What a good thing!’”
But her reproach was undeserved. Alyosha, too, was greatly overcome.
“I should like to please you always, Lise, but I don’t know how to do
it,” he muttered, blushing too.
“Alyosha, dear, you are cold and rude. Do you see? He has chosen me as
his wife and is quite settled about it. He is sure I was in earnest.
What a thing to say! Why, that’s impertinence—that’s what it is.”
“Why, was it wrong of me to feel sure?” Alyosha asked, laughing
suddenly.
“Ah, Alyosha, on the contrary, it was delightfully right,” cried Lise,
looking tenderly and happily at him.
Alyosha stood still, holding her hand in his. Suddenly he stooped down
and kissed her on her lips.
“Oh, what are you doing?” cried Lise. Alyosha was terribly abashed.
“Oh, forgive me if I shouldn’t.... Perhaps I’m awfully stupid.... You
said I was cold, so I kissed you.... But I see it was stupid.”
Lise laughed, and hid her face in her hands. “And in that dress!” she
ejaculated in the midst of her mirth. But she suddenly ceased laughing
and became serious, almost stern.
“Alyosha, we must put off kissing. We are not ready for that yet, and
we shall have a long time to wait,” she ended suddenly. “Tell me rather
why you who are so clever, so intellectual, so observant, choose a
little idiot, an invalid like me? Ah, Alyosha, I am awfully happy, for
I don’t deserve you a bit.”
“You do, Lise. I shall be leaving the monastery altogether in a few
days. If I go into the world, I must marry. I know that. _He_ told me
to marry, too. Whom could I marry better than you—and who would have me
except you? I have been thinking it over. In the first place, you’ve
known me from a child and you’ve a great many qualities I haven’t. You
are more light-hearted than I am; above all, you are more innocent
than I am. I have been brought into contact with many, many things
already.... Ah, you don’t know, but I, too, am a Karamazov. What does
it matter if you do laugh and make jokes, and at me, too? Go on
laughing. I am so glad you do. You laugh like a little child, but you
think like a martyr.”
“Like a martyr? How?”
“Yes, Lise, your question just now: whether we weren’t showing contempt
for that poor man by dissecting his soul—that was the question of a
sufferer.... You see, I don’t know how to express it, but any one who
thinks of such questions is capable of suffering. Sitting in your
invalid chair you must have thought over many things already.”
“Alyosha, give me your hand. Why are you taking it away?” murmured Lise
in a failing voice, weak with happiness. “Listen, Alyosha. What will
you wear when you come out of the monastery? What sort of suit? Don’t
laugh, don’t be angry, it’s very, very important to me.”
“I haven’t thought about the suit, Lise; but I’ll wear whatever you
like.”
“I should like you to have a dark blue velvet coat, a white piqué
waistcoat, and a soft gray felt hat.... Tell me, did you believe that I
didn’t care for you when I said I didn’t mean what I wrote?”
“No, I didn’t believe it.”
“Oh, you insupportable person, you are incorrigible.”
“You see, I knew that you—seemed to care for me, but I pretended to
believe that you didn’t care for me to make it—easier for you.”
“That makes it worse! Worse and better than all! Alyosha, I am awfully
fond of you. Just before you came this morning, I tried my fortune. I
decided I would ask you for my letter, and if you brought it out calmly
and gave it to me (as might have been expected from you) it would mean
that you did not love me at all, that you felt nothing, and were simply
a stupid boy, good for nothing, and that I am ruined. But you left the
letter at home and that cheered me. You left it behind on purpose, so
as not to give it back, because you knew I would ask for it? That was
it, wasn’t it?”