“Do you think I meant to make you blush?” said Katerina Ivanovna, somewhat surprised. “Ah, my dear, how little you understand me!”
“Yes, and you too perhaps quite misunderstand me, dear young lady. Maybe I’m not so good as I seem to you. I’ve a bad heart; I will have my own way. I fascinated poor Dmitri Fyodorovitch that day simply for fun.”
“But now you’ll save him. You’ve given me your word. You’ll explain it all to him. You’ll break to him that you have long loved another man, who is now offering you his hand.”
“Oh, no! I didn’t give you my word to do that. It was you kept talking about that. I didn’t give you my word.”
“Then I didn’t quite understand you,” said Katerina Ivanovna slowly, turning a little pale. “You promised—”
“Oh, no, angel lady, I’ve promised nothing,” Grushenka interrupted softly and evenly, still with the same gay and simple expression. “You see at once, dear young lady, what a willful wretch I am compared with you. If I want to do a thing I do it. I may have made you some promise just now. But now again I’m thinking: I may take to Mitya again. I liked him very much once—liked him for almost a whole hour. Now maybe I shall go and tell him to stay with me from this day forward. You see, I’m so changeable.”
“Just now you said—something quite different,” Katerina Ivanovna whispered faintly.
“Ah, just now! But, you know. I’m such a softhearted, silly creature. Only think what he’s gone through on my account! What if when I go home I feel sorry for him? What then?”
“I never expected—”