The Brothers Karamazov

“And as for Mitya being crazy, that’s just what he is now, too,” Grushenka suddenly began with a particularly worried and mysterious sort of look. “You know, Alyoshenka, I’ve wanted to tell you about it for a long time: I visit him every day and simply wonder. Tell me what you think: do you know what he’s started talking about now? He talks and talks—and I can’t understand a thing, I think it must be something intelligent and I’m just stupid, I can’t understand it; but he’s suddenly started talking about a wee one—that is, about some baby. ‘Why is the wee one poor?’ he says. ‘For that wee one I’ll go to Siberia now, I’m not a murderer, but I must go to Siberia! ‘ What does he mean, what wee one? I didn’t understand a thing. I just started crying as he was speaking, because he spoke so well, and he was crying himself, and I started crying, and suddenly he kissed me and made the sign of the cross over me. What is it, Alyosha, tell me, what is this ‘wee one’?”

“It’s Rakitin, for some reason he’s taken to visiting him,” Alyosha smiled, “although ... that is not from Rakitin. I didn’t go to see him yesterday; today I shall.”

“No, it’s not Rakitka, it’s his brother Ivan Fyodorovich upsetting him, he keeps going to see him, that’s what ... ,” Grushenka said, and suddenly stopped short. Alyosha stared at her as if stunned.

“Keeps going? Has he really gone to see him? Mitya himself told me Ivan had not come once.”

“Well ... well, there I’ve done it. Blurted it out!”Grushenka exclaimed in embarrassment, turning crimson all over. “Wait, Alyosha, don’t say anything. Since I’ve blurted it out, so be it, I’ll tell you the whole truth: he went to see him twice, the first time as soon as he arrived—he came galloping here at once from Moscow, I hadn’t had time to get sick yet—and the second time a week ago. He told Mitya not to tell you about it, by any means, and not to tell anyone, because he had come in secret.”

Alyosha sat deep in thought, pondering something. The news obviously struck him.

“Brother Ivan does not speak about Mitya’s case with me,” he said slowly, “and generally over these two months he has spoken very little with me, and when I went to see him, he was always displeased that I had come, so I haven’t been to see him for three weeks now. Hmm ... If he went a week ago, then ... some sort of change has indeed come over Mitya this week ...”

“A change, a change!” Grushenka quickly joined in. “They have a secret, they have a secret! Mitya told me himself there was a secret, and, you know, it’s such a secret that Mitya can’t even calm down. He was cheerful before, and he’s cheerful now, too, only, you know, when he starts shaking his head like that, and pacing the room, and pulling the hair on his temple with his right finger, then I know something is troubling his soul ... I know it...! He used to be cheerful; well, but he was cheerful today, too!”

“Didn’t you say he was worried?”

“But he’s worried and still cheerful. He keeps getting worried for just a moment, and then he’s cheerful, and then suddenly he’s worried again. And you know, Alyosha, I keep marveling at him: there’s such a fright ahead of him, and he sometimes laughs at such trifles, as if he were a child himself.”

“And it’s true that he asked you not to tell me about Ivan? He actually said: don’t tell him?”

“He actually said: don’t tell him. It’s you he’s most afraid of—Mitya, I mean. Because there’s a secret here, he himself said there’s a secret... Alyosha, darling, go and try to worm their secret out of him, and come and tell me,” Grushenka started up and implored him suddenly, “resolve it for me, poor woman, so that I know my cursed lot! That’s why I sent for you.”

“So you think it’s something to do with you? But then he wouldn’t have mentioned the secret in front of you.”

“I don’t know. Maybe he wants to tell me but doesn’t dare. He’s warning me. There’s a secret, he says, but what secret he doesn’t say.”

“What do you think yourself?”

“What can I think? It’s the end of me, that’s what I think. The three of them have prepared an end for me, because Katka is in on it. It’s all Katka, it all comes from her. ‘She’s this and she’s that’ means that I’m not. He’s saying it beforehand, he’s warning me beforehand. He’s planning to leave me, that’s the whole secret! The three of them thought it up—Mitka, Katka, and Ivan Fyodorovich. Alyosha, I’ve been wanting to ask you for a long time: a week ago he suddenly revealed to me that Ivan is in love with Katka, because he goes to see her often. Was he telling me the truth or not? Tell me honestly, stab me in the heart!”

“I won’t lie to you. Ivan is not in love with Katerina Ivanovna, that is what I think.”