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‘Did that take place not here, but at the beginning of your
acquaintance?’ Fetyukovitch suggested cautiously, feeling
his way, instantly scenting something favourable. I must
mention in parenthesis that, though Fetyukovitch had been
brought from Petersburg partly at the instance of Katerina
Ivanovna herself, he knew nothing about the episode of the
four thousand roubles given her by Mitya, and of her ‘bow-
ing to the ground to him.’ She concealed this from him and
said nothing about it, and that was strange. It may be pretty
certainly assumed that she herself did not know till the very
last minute whether she would speak of that episode in the
court, and waited for the inspiration of the moment.
No, I can never forget those moments. She began telling
her story. She told everything, the whole episode that Mitya
had told Alyosha, and her bowing to the ground, and her
reason. She told about her father and her going to Mitya,
and did not in one word, in a single hint, suggest that Mitya
had himself, through her sister, proposed they should ‘send
him Katerina Ivanovna’ to fetch the money. She generous-
ly concealed that and was not ashamed to make it appear
as though she had of her own impulse run to the young
officer, relying on something... to beg him for the money.
It was something tremendous! I turned cold and trembled
as I listened. The court was hushed, trying to catch each
word. It was something unexampled. Even from such a self-
willed and contemptuously proud girl as she was, such an
extremely frank avowal, such sacrifice, such self-immola-
tion, seemed incredible. And for what, for whom? To save
the man who had deceived and insulted her and to help, in

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