and I kept wondering whether he would come again. I wondered even yesterday, then suddenly last night came this Gossip . I read it and gasped. Who could have written it? He must have written it. He went home, sat down, wrote it on the spot, sent it, and they put it in. It was a fortnight ago, you see. But, Alyosha, it’s awful how I keep talking and don’t say what I want to say. Ah! the words come of themselves!”
“It’s very important for me to be in time to see my brother today,” Alyosha faltered.
“To be sure, to be sure! You bring it all back to me. Listen, what is an aberration?”
“What aberration?” asked Alyosha, wondering.
“In the legal sense. An aberration in which everything is pardonable. Whatever you do, you will be acquitted at once.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ll tell you. This Katya … Ah! she is a charming, charming creature, only I never can make out who it is she is in love with. She was with me some time ago and I couldn’t get anything out of her. Especially as she won’t talk to me except on the surface now. She is always talking about my health and nothing else, and she takes up such a tone with me, too. I simply said to myself, ‘Well, so be it. I don’t care’ … Oh, yes. I was talking of aberration. This doctor has come. You know a doctor has come? Of course, you know it—the one who discovers madmen. You wrote for him. No, it wasn’t you, but Katya. It’s all Katya’s doing. Well, you see, a man may be sitting perfectly sane and suddenly have an aberration. He may be conscious and know what he is doing and yet be in a state of aberration. And there’s no doubt that Dmitri Fyodorovitch was suffering from aberration. They found out about aberration as soon as the law courts were reformed. It’s all the good effect of the reformed law courts.