, that I bribed Rakitin to bring you.
And why did I want to do such a thing? You knew nothing about it, Alyosha,
you turned away from me; if you passed me, you dropped your eyes. And I've
looked at you a hundred times before to-day; I began asking every one
about you. Your face haunted my heart. 'He despises me,' I thought; 'he
won't even look at me.' And I felt it so much at last that I wondered at
myself for being so frightened of a boy. I'll get him in my clutches and
laugh at him. I was full of spite and anger. Would you believe it, nobody
here dares talk or think of coming to Agrafena Alexandrovna with any evil
purpose. Old Kuzma is the only man I have anything to do with here; I was
bound and sold to him; Satan brought us together, but there has been no
one else. But looking at you, I thought, I'll get him in my clutches and
laugh at him. You see what a spiteful cur I am, and you called me your
sister! And now that man who wronged me has come; I sit here waiting for a
message from him. And do you know what that man has been to me? Five years
ago, when Kuzma brought me here, I used to shut myself up, that no one
might have sight or sound of me. I was a silly slip of a girl; I used to
sit here sobbing; I used to lie awake all night, thinking: 'Where is he
now, the man who wronged me? He is laughing at me with another woman, most
likely. If only I could see him, if I could meet him again, I'd pay him
out, I'd pay him out!' At night I used to lie sobbing into my pillow in
the dark, and I used to brood over it; I used to tear my heart on purpose
and gloat over my anger. 'I'll pay him out, I'll pay him out!' That's what
I used to cry out in the dark. And when I suddenly thought that I should
really do nothing to him, and that he was laughing at me then, or perhaps
had utterly forgotten me, I would fling myself on the floor, melt into
helpless tears, and lie there shaking till dawn. In the morning I would
get up more spiteful than a dog, ready to tear the whole world to pieces.
And then what do you think? I began saving money, I became hard-hearted,
grew stout--grew wiser, would you say? No, no one in the whole world sees
it, no one knows it, but when night comes on, I sometimes lie as I did
five years ago, when I was a silly girl, clenching my teeth and crying all
night, thinking, 'I'll pay him out, I'll pay him out!' Do you hear? Well
then, now you understand me. A month ago a letter came to me--he was
coming, he was a wi