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whose heart and intellect she considered so superior to her
own. But the sternly virtuous girl did not abandon herself
altogether to the man she loved, in spite of the Karamazov
violence of his passions and the great fascination he had
for her. She was continually tormented at the same time by
remorse for having deserted Mitya, and in moments of dis-
cord and violent anger (and they were numerous) she told
Ivan so plainly. This was what he had called to Alyosha ‘lies
upon lies.’ There was, of course, much that was false in it,
and that angered Ivan more than anything.... But of all this
later.
He did, in fact, for a time almost forget Smerdyakov’s
existence, and yet, a fortnight after his first visit to him, he
began to be haunted by the same strange thoughts as before.
It’s enough to say that he was continually asking himself,
why was it that on that last night in Fyodor Pavlovitch’s
house he had crept out on to the stairs like a thief and lis-
tened to hear what his father was doing below? Why had he
recalled that afterwards with repulsion? Why next morning,
had he been suddenly so depressed on the journey? Why, as
he reached Moscow, had he said to himself, ‘I am a scoun-
drel’? And now he almost fancied that these tormenting
thoughts would make him even forget Katerina Ivanovna,
so completely did they take possession of him again. It was
just after fancying this, that he met Alyosha in the street.
He stopped him at once, and put a question to him:
‘Do you remember when Dmitri burst in after dinner
and beat father, and afterwards I told you in the yard that I
reserved ‘the right to desire’?... Tell me, did you think then

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