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her that you have to clear yourself, so she mustn’t hinder
you, must not depress you, or you may lose your head and
say the wrong thing in your evidence. In fact, I talked to her
and she understood. She’s a sensible girl, my boy, a good-
hearted girl, she would have kissed my old hands, begging
help for you. She sent me herself, to tell you not to worry
about her. And I must go, my dear fellow, I must go and tell
her that you are calm and comforted about her. And so you
must be calm, do you understand? I was unfair to her; she
is a Christian soul, gentlemen, yes, I tell you, she’s a gentle
soul, and not to blame for anything. So what am I to tell her,
Dmitri Fyodorovitch? Will you sit quiet or not?’
The good-natured police captain said a great deal that
was irregular, but Grushenka’s suffering, a fellow creature’s
suffering, touched his good-natured heart, and tears stood
in his eyes. Mitya jumped up and rushed towards him.
‘Forgive me, gentlemen, oh, allow me, allow me!’ he cried.
‘You’ve the heart of an angel, an angel, Mihail Makarovitch,
I thank you for her. I will, I will be calm, cheerful, in fact.
Tell her, in the kindness of your heart, that I am cheerful,
quite cheerful, that I shall be laughing in a minute, know-
ing that she has a guardian angel like you. I shall have done
with all this directly, and as soon as I’m free, I’ll be with her,
she’ll see, let her wait. Gentlemen,’ he said, turning to the
two lawyers, now I’ll open my whole soul to you; I’ll pour
out everything. We’ll finish this off directly, finish it off gai-
ly. We shall laugh at it in the end, shan’t we? But gentlemen,
that woman is the queen of my heart. Oh, let me tell you
that. That one thing I’ll tell you now.... I see I’m with hon-

0 The Brothers Karamazov