here—”
“What?”
“Why, I called to you and brought you out here today, this very day—remember it—to send you—this very day again—to Katerina Ivanovna, and—”
“What?”
“To tell her that I shall never come to see her again. Say, ‘He sends you his compliments.’ ”
“But is that possible?”
“That’s just the reason I’m sending you, in my place, because it’s impossible. And, how could I tell her myself?”
“And where are you going?”
“To the back-alley.”
“To Grushenka, then!” Alyosha exclaimed mournfully, clasping his hands. “Can Rakitin really have told the truth? I thought that you had just visited her, and that was all.”
“Can a betrothed man pay such visits? Is such a thing possible and with such a betrothed, and before the eyes of all the world? Confound it, I have some honor! As soon as I began visiting Grushenka, I ceased to