a peek into a soul

Confession:
“Keep still, Rakitka, you don’t understand anything about us! And don’t you dare speak familiarly with me again, I forbid it… And now, Alyosha, I will tell the whole, pure truth to you alone, so that you can see what a creature I am! I tell it to you, not to Rakitka. I wanted to ruin you, I was quite determined, that is the great truth: I wanted it so much that I bribed Rakitka with money to bring you. And why did I want it so much? You knew nothing, alyosha, you used to turn away form me, you’d walk by me with your eyes on the ground, but I looked at you a hundred times before, I began asking everyone about you. Your face stayed in my heart: ‘He despises me,’ I though, ‘he doesn’t even want to look at me.’ And finally such a feeling took hold of me that I was surprised at myself: why should I be afraid of a boy like him? I’ll eat him up and laugh. I was so angry! Believe me, no one here dares to say or think they can come to Agrafena Alexandrovna for that bad thing; I have only the old man here, I’m bought and sold to him, Satan married us, but there’s no one else. Yet looking at you, I was determined: I’ll eat him up. Eat him up and laugh. See what a wicked bitch I am, and you called me your sister! Now the man who wronged me has come, I’m sitting here waiting for his message. Do you know what this man has been to me? It’s five years since Kuzma brought me here – I used to sit hiding from people, so that people wouldn’t see or hear me, a silly slip of a girl, sitting and crying, not sleeping all night, thinking: ‘Where is he now, the man who wronged me? He must be laughing at me with some other woman, and what won’t I do to him, if only I ever see him, if only I meet him: I’ll make him pay! How I’ll make him pay!’ At night, in the dark, I sobbed into the pillow and kept thinking it all over, I tore my heart on purpose, to ease it with spite: ‘How I’ll make him pay, oh, how I will!’ I would sometimes even scream in the darkness. Then I would suddenly remember that I was not going to do anything to him, but that he was laughing at me now, or maybe had quite forgotten me, just didn’t remember, and then I would throw myself from my bed onto the floor, flooding myself with helpless tears, and shake and shake till dawn. In the morning I would get up worse than a dog, ready to tear the whole world apart. And then you know what: I began saving money, became merciless, grew fat – and do you think I got any smarter? Not a bit. No one sees it, no one in the whole universe knows it, but when the dark of night falls, I sometimes lie just as I used to, as a young girl, five years ago, gnashing my teeth and crying all night, thinking: ‘I’ll show him, oh, yes, I’ll show him!’ Do you hear what I’m saying? Now try to understand me: a month ago I suddenly received this letter: he’s coming, his wife died, he wants to see me. it took my breath away. Lord, I suddenly thought: what if he comes and whistles for me, calls me, and I just crawl to him like a little dog, guilty and beaten! I thought of it and couldn’t believe myself: ‘Am I so base? Will I just run to him?’ And I’ve been so angry with myself all this month that it’s even worse than five years ago. Now you see how violent, how wild I am, Alyosha, I’ve spoken out the whole truth to you! I’ve been toying with Mitya so as not to run to the other one. Keep still, Rakitin, it’s not for you to judge me, I’m not telling it to you. Before you came I was lying here waiting, thinking, deciding my whole fate, and you will never know what was in my heart. No, Alyosha, tell your young lady not to be angry for two days ago…! No one in the whole world knows how I feel now, or can know… Because maybe I’ll take a knife with me today, I haven’t decided yet…”

“Misha,” he said, “don’t be angry. You’re offended with her, but don’t be angry. Did you hear her just now? One cannot ask so much of a human soul, one should be more merciful…”