“That’s what I loved you for, that you are generous at heart!” broke from Katya. “My forgiveness is no good to you, nor yours to me; whether you forgive me or not, you will always be a sore place in my heart, and I in yours—so it must be. …”
She stopped to take breath. “What have I come for?” she began again with nervous haste: “to embrace your feet, to press your hands like this, till it hurts—you remember how in Moscow I used to squeeze them—to tell you again that you are my god, my joy, to tell you that I love you madly,” she moaned in anguish, and suddenly pressed his hand greedily to her lips.
Tears streamed from her eyes. Alyosha stood speechless and confounded; he had never expected what he was seeing.
“Love is over, Mitya!” Katya began again, “but the past is painfully dear to me. Know that you will always be so. But now let what might have been come true for one minute,” she faltered, with a drawn smile, looking into his face joyfully again. “You love another woman, and I love another man, and yet I shall love you forever, and you will love me; do you know that? Do you hear? Love me, love me all your life!” she cried, with a quiver almost of menace in her voice.
“I shall love you, and … do you know, Katya,” Mitya began, drawing a deep breath at each word, “do you know, five days ago, that same evening, I loved you. … When you fell down and were carried out … All my life! So it will be, so it will always be—”
So they murmured to one another frantic words, almost meaningless, perhaps not even true, but at that moment it was all true, and they both believed what they said implicitly.
“Katya,” cried Mitya suddenly, “do you believe I murdered him? I know you don’t believe it now, but then … when you gave evidence. … Surely, surely you did not believe it!”