But I knew for a fact, and had known for a long time, that for the last four years the money had never been in his hands except when the Commander made his visits of inspection.He used to lend it to a trustworthy person, a merchant of our town called Trifonov, an old widower, with a big beard and gold-rimmed spectacles.He used to go to the fair, do a profitable business with the money, and return the whole sum to the colonel, bringing with it a present from the fair, as well as interest on the loan.But this time (I heard all about it quite by chance from Trifonov's son and heir, a drivelling youth and one of the most vicious in the world)- this time, I say, Trifonov brought nothing back from the fair.The lieutenant-colonel flew to him.'I've never received any money from you, and couldn't possibly have received any.' That was all the answer he got.So now our lieutenant-colonel is confined to the house, with a towel round his head, while they're all three busy putting ice on it.All at once an orderly arrives on the scene with the book and the order to 'hand over the battalion money immediately, within two hours.' He signed the book (I saw the signature in the book afterwards), stood up, saying he would put on his uniform, ran to his bedroom, loaded his double-barrelled gun with a service bullet, took the boot off his right foot, fixed the gun against his chest, and began feeling for the trigger with his foot.But Agafya, remembering what I had told her, had her suspicions.She stole up and peeped into the room just in time.She rushed in, flung herself upon him from behind, threw her arms round him, and the gun went off, hit the ceiling, but hurt no one.The others ran in, took away the gun, and held him by the arms.Iheard all about this afterwards.I was at home, it was getting dusk, and I was just preparing to go out.I had dressed, brushed my hair, scented my handkerchief, and taken up my cap, when suddenly the door opened, and facing me in the room stood Katerina Ivanovna.
"It's strange how things happen sometimes.No one had seen her in the street, so that no one knew of it in the town.I lodged with two decrepit old ladies, who looked after me.They were most obliging old things, ready to do anything for me, and at my request were as silent afterwards as two cast-iron posts.Of course Igrasped the position at once.She walked in and looked straight at me, her dark eyes determined, even defiant, but on her lips and round mouth I saw uncertainty.
"'My sister told me,' she began, 'that you would give me 4500roubles if I came to you for it- myself.I have come...give me the money!'
"She couldn't keep it up.She was breathless, frightened, her voice failed her, and the corners of her mouth and the lines round it quivered.Alyosha, are you listening, or are you asleep?""Mitya, I know you will tell the whole truth, said Alyosha in agitation.
"I am telling it.If I tell the whole truth just as it happened I shan't spare myself.My first idea was a- Karamazov one.Once Iwas bitten by a centipede, brother, and laid up a fortnight with fever from it.Well, I felt a centipede biting at my heart then- a noxious insect, you understand? I looked her up and down.You've seen her?
She's a beauty.But she was beautiful in another way then.At that moment she was beautiful because she was noble, and I was a scoundrel;she in all the grandeur of her generosity and sacrifice for her father, and I- a bug! And, scoundrel as I was, she was altogether at my mercy, body and soul.She was hemmed in.I tell you frankly, that thought, that venomous thought, so possessed my heart that it almost swooned with suspense.It seemed as if there could be no resisting it;as though I should act like a bug, like a venomous spider, without a spark of pity.I could scarcely breathe.Understand, I should have gone next day to ask for her hand, so that it might end honourably, so to speak, and that nobody would or could know.For though I'm a man of base desires, I'm honest.And at that very second some voice seemed to whisper in my ear, 'But when you come to-morrow to make your proposal, that girl won't even see you; she'll order her coachman to kick you out of the yard."Publish it through all the town," she would say, "I'm not afraid of you." 'I looked at the young lady, my voice had not deceived me.That is how it would be, not a doubt of it.I could see from her face now that I should be turned out of the house.My spite was roused.I longed to play her the nastiest swinish cad's trick:
to look at her with a sneer, and on the spot where she stood before me to stun her with a tone of voice that only a shopman could use.
"'Four thousand! What do you mean? I was joking.You've been counting your chickens too easily, madam.Two hundred, if you like, with all my heart.But four thousand is not a sum to throw away on such frivolity.You've put yourself out to no purpose.'
"I should have lost the game, of course.She'd have run away.
But it would have been an infernal revenge.It would have been worth it all.I'd have howled with regret all the rest of my life, only to have played that trick.Would you believe it, it has never happened to me with any other woman, not one, to look at her at such a moment with hatred.But, on my oath, I looked at her for three seconds, or five perhaps, with fearful hatred- that hate which is only a hair's-breadth from love, from the maddest love!
