be afraid. I won’t hamper you in any way. I will be your chattel. I will be the carpet under your feet. I want to love you forever. I want to save you from
Alyosha, I am not worthy to repeat those lines in my vulgar words and in my vulgar tone, my everlastingly vulgar tone, that I can never cure myself of.
That letter stabs me even now. Do you think I don’t mind—that I don’t mind still?
I wrote her an answer at once, as it was impossible for me to go to Moscow. I wrote to her with tears.
One thing I shall be ashamed of forever. I referred to her being rich and having a dowry while I was only a stuck-up beggar! I mentioned money! I ought to have borne it in silence, but it slipped from my pen.
Then I wrote at once to Ivan, and told him all I could about it in a letter of six pages, and sent him to her. Why do you look like that? Why are you staring at me? Yes, Ivan fell in love with her; he’s in love with her still. I know that. I did a stupid thing, in the world’s opinion; but perhaps that one stupid thing may be the saving of us all now. Oo! Don’t you see what a lot she thinks of Ivan, how she respects him? When she compares us, do you suppose she can love a man like me, especially after all that has happened here?”
“But I am convinced that she does love a man like you, and not a man like him.”
“She loves her own virtue , not me.” The words broke involuntarily, and almost malignantly, from Dmitri. He