They had been talking for a quarter of an hour. Katerina Ivanovna was pale and terribly fatigued, yet at the same time in a state of hysterical excitement. She had a presentiment of the reason why Alyosha had come to her.
“Don’t worry about his decision,” she said, with confident emphasis to Alyosha. “One way or another he is bound to come to it. He must escape. That unhappy man, that hero of honor and principle—not he, not Dmitri Fyodorovitch, but the man lying the other side of that door, who has sacrificed himself for his brother,” Katya added, with flashing eyes—“told me the whole plan of escape long ago. You know he has already entered into negotiations. … I’ve told you something already. … You see, it will probably come off at the third étape from here, when the party of prisoners is being taken to Siberia. Oh, it’s a long way off yet. Ivan Fyodorovitch has already visited the superintendent of the third étape . But we don’t know yet who will be in charge of the party, and it’s impossible to find that out so long beforehand. Tomorrow perhaps I will show you in detail the whole plan which Ivan Fyodorovitch left me on the eve of the trial in case of need. … That was when—do you remember?—you found us quarreling. He had just gone downstairs, but seeing you I made him come back; do you remember? Do you know what we were quarreling about then?”
“No, I don’t,” said Alyosha.
“Of course he did not tell you. It was about that plan of escape. He had told me the main idea three days before, and we began quarreling about it at once and quarreled for three days. We quarreled because, when he told me that if Dmitri Fyodorovitch were convicted he would escape abroad with that creature, I felt furious at once—I can’t tell you why, I don’t know myself why. … Oh, of course, I was furious then about that creature, and that she, too, should go abroad with Dmitri!” Katerina Ivanovna exclaimed suddenly, her lips quivering with anger. “As soon as