I made him promise to believe me and I told him a lie. I told him that I was going to spend the evening with my old man, Kuzma Kuzmitch, and should be there till late counting up his money. I always spend one whole evening a week with him making up his accounts. We lock ourselves in and he counts on the reckoning beads while I sit and put things down in the book. I am the only person he trusts. Mitya believes that I am there, but I came back and have been sitting locked in here, expecting some news. How was it Fenya let you in? Fenya, Fenya, run out to the gate, open it and look about whether the captain is to be seen! Perhaps he is hiding and spying, I am dreadfully frightened.”
“There’s no one there, Agrafena Alexandrovna, I’ve just looked out, I keep running to peep through the crack, I am in fear and trembling myself.”
“Are the shutters fastened, Fenya? And we must draw the curtains—that’s better!” She drew the heavy curtains herself. “He’d rush in at once if he saw a light. I am afraid of your brother Mitya today, Alyosha.”
Grushenka spoke aloud, and, though she was alarmed, she seemed very happy about something.
“Why are you so afraid of Mitya today?” inquired Rakitin. “I should have thought you were not timid with him, you’d twist him round your little finger.”
“I tell you, I am expecting news, priceless news, so I don’t want Mitya at all. And he didn’t believe, I feel he didn’t, that I should stay at Kuzma Kuzmitch’s. He must be in his ambush now, behind Fyodor Pavlovitch’s, in the garden, watching for me. And if he’s there, he won’t come here, so much the better! But I really have been to Kuzma