minute,” she cried in a resonant voice. “You don’t know what that finery is for, Rakitin! Perhaps I shall see him and say: ‘Have you ever seen me look like this before?’ He left me a thin, consumptive crybaby of seventeen. I’ll sit by him, fascinate him and work him up. ‘Do you see what I am like now?’ I’ll say to him; ‘well, and that’s enough for you, my dear sir, there’s many a slip twixt the cup and the lip!’ That may be what the finery is for, Rakitin.” Grushenka finished with a malicious laugh. “I’m violent and resentful, Alyosha, I’ll tear off my finery, I’ll destroy my beauty, I’ll scorch my face, slash it with a knife, and turn beggar. If I choose, I won’t go anywhere now to see anyone. If I choose, I’ll send Kuzma back all he has ever given me, tomorrow, and all his money and I’ll go out charing for the rest of my life. You think I wouldn’t do it, Rakitin, that I would not dare to do it? I would, I would, I could do it directly, only don’t exasperate me … and I’ll send him about his business, I’ll snap my fingers in his face, he shall never see me again!”
She uttered the last words in an hysterical scream, but broke down again, hid her face in her hands, buried it in the pillow and shook with sobs.
Rakitin got up.
“It’s time we were off,” he said, “it’s late, we shall be shut out of the monastery.”
Grushenka leapt up from her place.
“Surely you don’t want to go, Alyosha!” she cried, in mournful surprise. “What are you doing to me? You’ve stirred up my feeling, tortured me, and now you’ll leave me to face this night alone!”
“He can hardly spend the night with you! Though if he wants to, let him! I’ll go alone,” Rakitin scoffed jeeringly.
“Hush, evil tongue!” Grushenka cried angrily at him; “you never said such words to me as he has come to say.”