been talking foolishly. I've no words left.
I use them at random, but it will be as I have said. I shall drown in the
back-alley, and she will marry Ivan."

"Stop, Dmitri," Alyosha interrupted again with great anxiety. "There's one
thing you haven't made clear yet: you are still betrothed all the same,
aren't you? How can you break off the engagement if she, your betrothed,
doesn't want to?"

"Yes, formally and solemnly betrothed. It was all done on my arrival in
Moscow, with great ceremony, with ikons, all in fine style. The general's
wife blessed us, and--would you believe it?--congratulated Katya. 'You've
made a good choice,' she said, 'I see right through him.' And--would you
believe it?--she didn't like Ivan, and hardly greeted him. I had a lot of
talk with Katya in Moscow. I told her about myself--sincerely, honorably.
She listened to everything.

There was sweet confusion,
There were tender words.

Though there were proud words, too. She wrung out of me a mighty promise
to reform. I gave my promise, and here--"

"What?"

"Why, I called to you and brought you out here to-day, this very
day--remember it--to send you--this very day again--to Katerina Ivanovna,
and--"

"What?"

"To tell her that I shall never come to see her again. Say, 'He sends you
his compliments.' "

"But is that possible?"

"That's just the reason I'm sending you, in my place, because it's
impossible. And, how could I tell her myself?"

"And where are you going?"

"To the back-alley."

"To Grushenka, then!" Alyosha exclaimed mournfully, clasping his hands.
"Can Rakitin really have told the truth? I thought that you had just
visited her, and that was all."

"Can a betrothed man pay such visits? Is such a thing possible and with
such a betrothed, and before the eyes of all the world? Confound it, I
have some honor! As soon as I began visiting Grushenka, I ceased to be
betrothed, and to be an honest man. I understand that. Why do you look at
me? You see, I went in the first place to beat her. I had heard, and I
know for a fact now, that that captain, father's agent, had given
Grushenka an I.O.U. of mine for her to sue me for payment, so as to put an
end to me. They wanted to scare me. I went to beat her. I had had a
glimpse of her before. She doesn't strike one at first sight. I knew about
her old merchant, who's lying ill now, paralyzed; but he's leaving her a
decent little sum. I knew, too, that she was fond of mon