"O God! restore to life the man I knocked down at the fence! Let this fearful cup pass from me! Lord, thou hast wrought miracles for such sinners as me! But what, what if the old man's alive? Oh, then the shame of the other disgrace I would wipe away.I would restore the stolen money.I'd give it back; I'd get it somehow....No trace of that shame will remain except in my heart for ever! But no, no; oh, impossible cowardly dreams! Oh, damnation!"Yet there was a ray of light and hope in his darkness.He jumped up and ran back to the room- to her, to her, his queen for ever! Was not one moment of her love worth all the rest of life, even in the agonies of disgrace? This wild question clutched at his heart."To her, to her alone, to see her, to hear her, to think of nothing, to forget everything, if only for that night, for an hour, for a moment!"Just as he turned from the balcony into the passage, he came upon the landlord, Trifon Borissovitch.He thought he looked gloomy and worried, and fancied he had come to find him.
"What is it, Trifon Borissovitch? Are you looking for me?""No, sir," The landlord seemed disconcerted."Why should I be looking for you? Where have you been?""Why do you look so glum? You're not angry, are you? Wait a bit, you shall soon get to bed....What's the time?""It'll be three o'clock.Past three, it must be.""We'll leave off soon.We'll leave off."
"Don't mention it; it doesn't matter.Keep it up as long as you like...""What's the matter with him?" Mitya wondered for an instant, and he ran back to the room where the girls were dancing.But she was not there.She was not in the blue room either; there was no one but Kalgonov asleep on the sofa.Mitya peeped behind the curtain- she was there.She was sitting in the corner, on a trunk.Bent forward, with her head and arms on the bed close by, she was crying bitterly, doing her utmost to stifle her sobs that she might not be heard.
Seeing Mitya, she beckoned him to her, and when he ran to her, she grasped his hand tightly.
"Mitya, Mitya, I loved him, you know.How I have loved him these five years, all that time! Did I love him or only my own anger? No, him, him! It's a lie that it was my anger I loved and not him.
Mitya, I was only seventeen then; he was so kind to me, so merry; he used to sing to me....Or so it seemed to a silly girl like me....And now, O Lord, it's not the same man.Even his face is not the same;he's different altogether.I shouldn't have known him.I drove here with Timofey, and all the way I was thinking how I should meet him, what I should say to him, how we should look at one another.My soul was faint, and all of a sudden it was just as though he had emptied a pail of dirty water over me.He talked to me like a schoolmaster, all so grave and learned; he met me so solemnly that I was struck dumb.I couldn't get a word in.At first I thought he was ashamed to talk before his great big Pole.I sat staring at him and wondering why I couldn't say a word to him now.It must have been his wife that ruined him; you know he threw me up to get married.She must have changed him like that.Mitya, how shameful it is! Oh, Mitya, I'm ashamed, I'm ashamed for all my life.Curse it, curse it, curse those five years!"And again she burst into tears, but clung tight to Mitya's hand and did not let it go.
"Mitya, darling, stay, don't go away.I want to say one word to you," she whispered, and suddenly raised her face to him."Listen, tell me who it is I love? I love one man here.Who is that man? That's what you must tell me."A smile lighted up her face that was swollen with weeping, and her eyes shone in the half darkness.
"A falcon flew in, and my heart sank."Fool! that's the man you love!' That was what my heart whispered to me at once.You came in and all grew bright.What's he afraid of? I wondered.For you were frightened; you couldn't speak.It's not them he's afraid of- could you be frightened of anyone? It's me he's afraid of, I thought, only me.So Fenya told you, you little stupid, how I called to Alyosha out of the window that I'd loved Mityenka for one hour, and that I was going now to love...another.Mitya, Mitya, how could I be such a fool as to think I could love anyone after you? Do you forgive me, Mitya?
Do you forgive me or not? Do you love me? Do you love me?" She jumped up and held him with both hands on his shoulders.Mitya, dumb with rapture, gazed into her eyes, at her face, at her smile, and suddenly clasped her tightly his arms and kissed her passionately.
"You will forgive me for having tormented you? It was through spite I tormented you all.It was for spite I drove the old man out of his mind....Do you remember how you drank at my house one day and broke the wine-glass? I remembered that and I broke a glass to-day and drank 'to my vile heart.' Mitya, my falcon, why don't you kiss me?
He kissed me once, and now he draws back and looks and listens.Why listen to me? Kiss me, kiss me hard, that's right.if you love, well, then, love! I'll be your slave now, your slave for the rest of my life.It's sweet to be a slave.Kiss me! Beat me, ill-treat me, do what you will with me....And I do deserve to suffer.Stay, wait, afterwards, I won't have that..." she suddenly thrust him away."Go along, Mitya, I'll come and have some wine, I want to be drunk, I'm going to get drunk and dance; I must, I must!" She tore herself away from him and disappeared behind the curtain.Mitya followed like a drunken man.
"Yes, come what may- whatever may happen now, for one minute I'd give the whole world," he thought.Grushenka did, in fact, toss off a whole glass of champagne at one gulp, and became at once very tipsy.
She sat down in the same chair as before, with a blissful smile on her face.Her cheeks were glowing, her lips were burning, her flashing eyes were moist; there was passionate appeal in her eyes.Even Kalgonov felt a stir at the heart and went up to her.
