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be married. I shall love you. Though I haven’t had time to
think about it, I believe I couldn’t find a better wife than
you, and Father Zossima tells me I must marry.’
‘But I am a cripple, wheeled about in a chair,’ laughed
Lise, flushing crimson.
‘I’ll wheel you about myself, but I’m sure you’ll get well
by then.’
‘But you are mad,’ said Lise, nervously, ‘to make all this
nonsense out of a joke! Here’s mamma, very a propos, per-
haps. Mamma, how slow you always are, how can you be so
long! And here’s Yulia with the ice!
‘Oh, Lise, don’t scream, above all things don’t scream.
That scream drives me... How can I help it when you put the
lint in another place? I’ve been hunting and hunting — I do
believe you did it on purpose.’
‘But I couldn’t tell that he would come with a bad finger,
or else perhaps I might have done it on purpose. My darling
mamma, you begin to say really witty things.’
‘Never mind my being witty, but I must say you show nice
feeling for Alexey Fyodorovitch’s sufferings! Oh, my dear
Alexey Fyodorovitch, what’s killing me is no one thing in
particular, not Herzenstube, but everything together, that’s
what is too much for me.’
‘That’s enough, mamma, enough about Herzenstube,’
Lise laughed gaily. ‘Make haste with the lint and the lotion,
mamma. That’s simply Goulard’s water, Alexey Fyodoro-
vitch, I remember the name now, but it’s a splendid lotion.
Would you believe it, Mamma, on the way here he had a
fight with the boys in the street, and it was a boy bit his fin-

0 The Brothers Karamazov