“H’m, yes. What shall I tell you? I don’t remember much indeed. She was such a sickly girl,” he went on, growing dreamy and looking down again. “Quite an invalid. She was fond of giving alms to the poor, and was always dreaming of a nunnery, and once she burst into tears when she began talking to me about it. Yes, yes, I remember. I remember very well. She was an ugly little thing. I really don’t know what drew me to her then—I think it was because she was always ill. If she had been lame or hunchback, I believe I should have liked her better still,” he smiled dreamily. “Yes, it was a sort of spring delirium.”
“No, it was not only spring delirium,” said Dounia, with warm feeling.
He fixed a strained intent look on his sister, but did not hear or did not understand her words. Then, completely lost in thought, he got up, went up to his mother, kissed her, went back to his place and sat down.
“You love her even now?” said Pulcheria Alexandrovna, touched.
“Her? Now? Oh, yes. … You ask about her? No … that’s all now, as it were, in another world … and so long ago. And indeed everything happening here seems somehow far away.” He looked attentively at them. “You, now … I seem to be looking at you from a thousand miles away … but, goodness knows why we are talking of that! And what’s the use of asking about it?” he added with annoyance, and biting his nails, fell into dreamy silence again.
“What a wretched lodging you have, Rodya! It’s like a tomb,” said Pulcheria Alexandrovna, suddenly breaking the oppressive silence. “I am sure it’s quite half through your lodging you have become so melancholy.”
“My lodging,” he answered, listlessly. “Yes, the lodging had a great deal to do with it. … I thought that, too. … If only you knew, though, what a strange thing you said just now, mother,” he said, laughing strangely.
A little more, and their companionship, this mother and this sister, with him after three years’ absence, this intimate tone of conversation, in face of the utter impossibility of really speaking about anything, would have been beyond his power of endurance. But there was one urgent matter which must be settled one way or the other that day—so he had decided when he woke. Now he was glad to remember it, as a means of escape.
“Listen, Dounia,” he began, gravely and drily, “of course I beg your pardon for yesterday, but I consider it my duty to tell you again that I do not withdraw from my chief point. It is me or Luzhin. If I am a scoundrel, you must not be. One is enough. If you marry Luzhin, I cease at once to look on you as a sister.”
“Rodya, Rodya! It is the same as yesterday again,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna cried, mournfully. “And why do you call yourself a scoundrel? I can’t bear it. You said the same yesterday.”
“Brother,” Dounia answered firmly and with the same dryness. “In all this there is a mistake on your part. I thought it over at night, and found out the mistake. It is all because you seem to fancy I am sacrificing myself to someone and for someone. That is not the case at all. I am simply marrying for my own sake, because things are hard for me. Though, of course, I shall be glad if I succeed in being useful to my family. But that is not the chief motive for my decision. …”
“She is lying,” he thought to himself, biting his nails vindictively. “Proud creature! She won’t admit she wants to do it out of charity! Too haughty! Oh, base characters! They even love as though they hate. … Oh, how I … hate them all!”
“In fact,” continued Dounia, “I am marrying Pyotr Petrovitch because of two evils I choose the less. I intend to do honestly all he expects of me, so I am not deceiving him. … Why did you smile just now?” She, too, flushed, and there was a gleam of anger in her eyes.
“All?” he asked, with a malignant grin.
“Within certain limits. Both the manner and form of Pyotr Petrovitch’s courtship showed me at once what he wanted. He may, of course, think too well of himself, but I hope he esteems me, too. … Why are you laughing again?”
“And why are you blushing again? You are lying, sister. You are intentionally lying, simply from feminine obstinacy, simply to hold your own against me. … You cannot respect Luzhin. I have seen him and talked with him. So you are selling yourself for money, and so in any case you are acting basely, and I am glad at least that you can blush for it.”
“It is not true. I am not lying,” cried Dounia, losing her composure. “I would not marry him if I were not convinced that he esteems me and thinks highly of me. I would not marry him if I were not firmly convinced that I can respect him. Fortunately, I can have convincing proof of it this very day … and such a marriage is not a vileness, as you say! And even if you were right, if I really had determined on a vile action, is it not merciless on your part to speak to me like that? Why do you demand of me a heroism that perhaps you have not either? It is despotism; it is tyranny. If I ruin anyone, it is only myself. … I am not committing a murder. Why do you look at me like that? Why are you so pale? Rodya, darling, what’s the matter?”
“Good heavens! You have made him faint,” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna.
