wanted to ask you, my dear Alexey Fyodorovitch, to go to him, to find some excuse to go to them—I mean to that captain—oh, goodness, how badly I explain it!—and delicately, carefully, as only you know how to” (Alyosha blushed), “manage to give him this assistance, these two hundred roubles. He will be sure to take it. … I mean, persuade him to take it. … Or, rather, what do I mean? You see it’s not by way of compensation to prevent him from taking proceedings (for I believe he meant to), but simply a token of sympathy, of a desire to assist him from me, Dmitri Fyodorovitch’s betrothed, not from himself. … But you know. … I would go myself, but you’ll know how to do it ever so much better. He lives in Lake Street, in the house of a woman called Kalmikov. … For God’s sake, Alexey Fyodorovitch, do it for me, and now … now I am rather … tired. Goodbye!”
She turned and disappeared behind the portière so quickly that Alyosha had not time to utter a word, though he wanted to speak. He longed to beg her pardon, to blame himself, to say something, for his heart was full and he could not bear to go out of the room without it. But Madame Hohlakov took him by the hand and drew him along with her. In the hall she stopped him again as before.