and couldn't possibly have received any.' That was all the answer he
got. So now our lieutenant-colonel is confined to the house, with a towel
round his head, while they're all three busy putting ice on it. All at
once an orderly arrives on the scene with the book and the order to 'hand
over the battalion money immediately, within two hours.' He signed the
book (I saw the signature in the book afterwards), stood up, saying he
would put on his uniform, ran to his bedroom, loaded his double-barreled
gun with a service bullet, took the boot off his right foot, fixed the gun
against his chest, and began feeling for the trigger with his foot. But
Agafya, remembering what I had told her, had her suspicions. She stole up
and peeped into the room just in time. She rushed in, flung herself upon
him from behind, threw her arms round him, and the gun went off, hit the
ceiling, but hurt no one. The others ran in, took away the gun, and held
him by the arms. I heard all about this afterwards. I was at home, it was
getting dusk, and I was just preparing to go out. I had dressed, brushed
my hair, scented my handkerchief, and taken up my cap, when suddenly the
door opened, and facing me in the room stood Katerina Ivanovna.

"It's strange how things happen sometimes. No one had seen her in the
street, so that no one knew of it in the town. I lodged with two decrepit
old ladies, who looked after me. They were most obliging old things, ready
to do anything for me, and at my request were as silent afterwards as two
cast-iron posts. Of course I grasped the position at once. She walked in
and looked straight at me, her dark eyes determined, even defiant, but on
her lips and round her mouth I saw uncertainty.

" 'My sister told me,' she began, 'that you would give me 4,500 roubles if
I came to you for it--myself. I have come ... give me the money!'

"She couldn't keep it up. She was breathless, frightened, her voice failed
her, and the corners of her mouth and the lines round it quivered.
Alyosha, are you listening, or are you asleep?"

"Mitya, I know you will tell the whole truth," said Alyosha in agitation.

"I am telling it. If I tell the whole truth just as it happened I shan't
spare myself. My first idea was a--Karamazov one. Once I was bitten by a
centipede, brother, and laid up a fortnight with fever from it. Well, I
felt a centipede biting at my heart then--a noxious insect, you understand?
I looked her up and down. You've seen her?