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fore, and he felt that she was now at that stage of unbearable
suffering when even the proudest heart painfully crushes
its pride and falls vanquished by grief. Oh, Alyosha knew
another terrible reason of her present misery, though she
had carefully concealed it from him during those days since
the trial; but it would have been, for some reason, too pain-
ful to him if she had been brought so low as to speak to
him now about that. She was suffering for her ‘treachery’ at
the trial, and Alyosha felt that her conscience was impel-
ling her to confess it to him, to him, Alyosha, with tears and
cries and hysterical writhings on the floor. But he dreaded
that moment and longed to spare her. It made the commis-
sion on which he had come even more difficult. He spoke of
Mitya again.
‘It’s all right, it’s all right, don’t be anxious about him! she
began again, sharply and stubbornly. ‘All that is only mo-
mentary, I know him, I know his heart only too well. You
may be sure he will consent to escape. It’s not as though it
would be immediately; he will have time to make up his
mind to it. Ivan Fyodorovitch will be well by that time and
will manage it all himself, so that I shall have nothing to
do with it. Don’t be anxious; he will consent to run away.
He has agreed already: do you suppose he would give up
that creature? And they won’t let her go to him, so he is
bound to escape. It’s you he’s most afraid of, he is afraid you
won’t approve of his escape on moral grounds. But you must
generously allow it, if your sanction is so necessary,’ Katya
added viciously. She paused and smiled.
‘He talks about some hymn,’ she went on again, ‘some

1 The Brothers Karamazov