the whole business. All the while he talked, his
voice was so weak, so broken, he talked so fast, so fast, he kept laughing
such a laugh, or perhaps he was crying--yes, I am sure he was crying, he
was so delighted--and he talked about his daughters--and about the situation
he could get in another town.... And when he had poured out his heart, he
felt ashamed at having shown me his inmost soul like that. So he began to
hate me at once. He is one of those awfully sensitive poor people. What
had made him feel most ashamed was that he had given in too soon and
accepted me as a friend, you see. At first he almost flew at me and tried
to intimidate me, but as soon as he saw the money he had begun embracing
me; he kept touching me with his hands. This must have been how he came to
feel it all so humiliating, and then I made that blunder, a very important
one. I suddenly said to him that if he had not money enough to move to
another town, we would give it to him, and, indeed, I myself would give
him as much as he wanted out of my own money. That struck him all at once.
Why, he thought, did I put myself forward to help him? You know, Lise,
it's awfully hard for a man who has been injured, when other people look
at him as though they were his benefactors.... I've heard that; Father
Zossima told me so. I don't know how to put it, but I have often seen it
myself. And I feel like that myself, too. And the worst of it was that
though he did not know, up to the very last minute, that he would trample
on the notes, he had a kind of presentiment of it, I am sure of that.
That's just what made him so ecstatic, that he had that presentiment....
And though it's so dreadful, it's all for the best. In fact, I believe
nothing better could have happened."

"Why, why could nothing better have happened?" cried Lise, looking with
great surprise at Alyosha.

"Because if he had taken the money, in an hour after getting home, he
would be crying with mortification, that's just what would have happened.
And most likely he would have come to me early to-morrow, and perhaps have
flung the notes at me and trampled upon them as he did just now. But now
he has gone home awfully proud and triumphant, though he knows he has
'ruined himself.' So now nothing could be easier than to make him accept
the two hundred roubles by to-morrow, for he has already vindicated his
honor, tossed away the money, and trampled it under foot.... He couldn't
know when he did it