第92章

"How so? How is it better? Now they are without food and their case is hopeless.""Not hopeless, for the two hundred roubles will still come to them.He'll take the money to-morrow.To-morrow he will be sure to take it," said Alyosha, pacing up and down, pondering."You see, Lise," he went on, stopping suddenly before her, "I made one blunder, but that, even that, is all for the best.""What blunder, and why is it for the best?""I'll tell you.He is a man of weak and timorous character; he has suffered so much and is very good-natured.I keep wondering why he took offence so suddenly, for I assure you, up to the last minute, he did not know that he was going to trample on the notes.And I think now that there was a great deal to offend him...and it could not have been otherwise in his position....To begin with, he was sore at having been so glad of the money in my presence and not having concealed it from me.If he had been pleased, but not so much; if he had not shown it; if he had begun affecting scruples and difficulties, as other people do when they take money, he might still endure- to take it.But he was too genuinely delighted, and that was mortifying.Ah, Lise, he is a good and truthful man- that's the worst of 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.Isuddenly 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, 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 honour, tossed away the money, and trampled it under foot....He couldn't know when he did it that Ishould bring it to him again to-morrow, and yet he is in terrible need of that money.Though he is proud of himself now, yet even to-day he'll be thinking what a help he has lost.He will think of it more than ever at night, will dream of it, and by to-morrow morning he may be ready to run to me to ask forgiveness.It's just then that I'll appear.'Here, you are a proud man,' I shall say: 'you have shown it; but now take the money and forgive us!' And then he will take it!

Alyosha was carried away with joy as he uttered his last words, "And then he will take it!" Lise clapped her hands.

"Ah, that's true! I understand that perfectly now.Ah, Alyosha, how do you know all this? So young and yet he knows what's in the heart....I should never have worked it out.""The great thing now is to persuade him that he is on an equal footing with us, in spite of his taking money from us," Alyosha went on in his excitement, "and not only on an equal, but even on a higher footing.""'On a higher footing' is charming, Alexey Fyodorovitch; but go on, go on!""You mean there isn't such an expression as 'on a higher footing';but that doesn't matter because- "