ordinarily lively, strolling about the room, laughing and praising
the music and the songs, admiring every one and everything. Maximov,
blissfully drunk, never left his side. Grushenka, too, was beginning to
get drunk. Pointing to Kalganov, she said to Mitya:

"What a dear, charming boy he is!"

And Mitya, delighted, ran to kiss Kalganov and Maximov. Oh, great were his
hopes! She had said nothing yet, and seemed, indeed, purposely to refrain
from speaking. But she looked at him from time to time with caressing and
passionate eyes. At last she suddenly gripped his hand and drew him
vigorously to her. She was sitting at the moment in the low chair by the
door.

"How was it you came just now, eh? Have you walked in!... I was
frightened. So you wanted to give me up to him, did you? Did you really
want to?"

"I didn't want to spoil your happiness!" Mitya faltered blissfully. But
she did not need his answer.

"Well, go and enjoy yourself ..." she sent him away once more. "Don't cry,
I'll call you back again."

He would run away, and she listened to the singing and looked at the
dancing, though her eyes followed him wherever he went. But in another
quarter of an hour she would call him once more and again he would run
back to her.

"Come, sit beside me, tell me, how did you hear about me, and my coming
here yesterday? From whom did you first hear it?"

And Mitya began telling her all about it, disconnectedly, incoherently,
feverishly. He spoke strangely, often frowning, and stopping abruptly.

"What are you frowning at?" she asked.

"Nothing.... I left a man ill there. I'd give ten years of my life for him
to get well, to know he was all right!"

"Well, never mind him, if he's ill. So you meant to shoot yourself
to-morrow! What a silly boy! What for? I like such reckless fellows as
you," she lisped, with a rather halting tongue. "So you would go any
length for me, eh? Did you really mean to shoot yourself to-morrow, you
stupid? No, wait a little. To-morrow I may have something to say to
you.... I won't say it to-day, but to-morrow. You'd like it to be to-day?
No, I don't want to to-day. Come, go along now, go and amuse yourself."

Once, however, she called him, as it were, puzzled and uneasy.

"Why are you sad? I see you're sad.... Yes, I see it," she added, looking
intently into his eyes. "Though you keep kissing the peasants and
shouting, I see something. No, be merry. I'm merry; you be merry, too....
I love