And again she burst into tears, but clung tight to Mitya's hand and did
not let it go.

"Mitya, darling, stay, don't go away. I want to say one word to you," she
whispered, and suddenly raised her face to him. "Listen, tell me who it is
I love? I love one man here. Who is that man? That's what you must tell
me."

A smile lighted up her face that was swollen with weeping, and her eyes
shone in the half darkness.

"A falcon flew in, and my heart sank. 'Fool! that's the man you love!'
That was what my heart whispered to me at once. You came in and all grew
bright. What's he afraid of? I wondered. For you were frightened; you
couldn't speak. It's not them he's afraid of--could you be frightened of
any one? It's me he's afraid of, I thought, only me. So Fenya told you,
you little stupid, how I called to Alyosha out of the window that I'd
loved Mityenka for one hour, and that I was going now to love ... another.
Mitya, Mitya, how could I be such a fool as to think I could love any one
after you? Do you forgive me, Mitya? Do you forgive me or not? Do you love
me? Do you love me?" She jumped up and held him with both hands on his
shoulders. Mitya, dumb with rapture, gazed into her eyes, at her face, at
her smile, and suddenly clasped her tightly in his arms and kissed her
passionately.

"You will forgive me for having tormented you? It was through spite I
tormented you all. It was for spite I drove the old man out of his
mind.... Do you remember how you drank at my house one day and broke the
wine-glass? I remembered that and I broke a glass to-day and drank 'to my
vile heart.' Mitya, my falcon, why don't you kiss me? He kissed me once,
and now he draws back and looks and listens. Why listen to me? Kiss me,
kiss me hard, that's right. If you love, well, then, love! I'll be your
slave now, your slave for the rest of my life. It's sweet to be a slave.
Kiss me! Beat me, ill-treat me, do what you will with me.... And I do
deserve to suffer. Stay, wait, afterwards, I won't have that...." she
suddenly thrust him away. "Go along, Mitya, I'll come and have some wine,
I want to be drunk, I'm going to get drunk and dance; I must, I must!" She
tore herself away from him and disappeared behind the curtain. Mitya
followed like a drunken man.

"Yes, come what may--whatever may happen now, for one minute I'd give the
whole world," he thought. Grushenka did, in fact, toss off a whole glass
of champagne at one gulp, and became at once ve