that’s only for the moment. And what does this moment stand for? Nothing but yesterday’s insult.” Madame Hohlakov obviously had not intended to interfere, but she could not refrain from this very just comment.
“Quite so, quite so,” cried Ivan, with peculiar eagerness, obviously annoyed at being interrupted, “in anyone else this moment would be only due to yesterday’s impression and would be only a moment. But with Katerina Ivanovna’s character, that moment will last all her life. What for anyone else would be only a promise is for her an everlasting burdensome, grim perhaps, but unflagging duty. And she will be sustained by the feeling of this duty being fulfilled. Your life, Katerina Ivanovna, will henceforth be spent in painful brooding over your own feelings, your own heroism, and your own suffering; but in the end that suffering will be softened and will pass into sweet contemplation of the