feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/shmoop/The Brothers Karamazov/section_28_part_0.txt
feat_book_id: The Brothers Karamazov.book 4.chapter 5
feat_summary_id: book 4, chapter 5
feat_summary: {"name": "Book 4, Chapter 5", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201023112808/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/brothers-karamazov/summary/book-4-chapter-5", "summary": "Alyosha leaves Lise and follows Madame Khokhlakov into the drawing room, where Katerina and Ivan seem to have just finished a conversation. Alyosha is struck by Madame Khokhlakov's description of Katerina as loving Dmitri only out of \"strain,\" because he had woken up in the middle of the night uttering that very word. Katerina announces that although she is unsure whether she loves Dmitri, she will never leave him, out of a sense of duty. Alyosha notices that Katerina seems to recognize her own pridefulness and feels sorry for her. Ivan announces his agreement with Katerina's proposal, but Alyosha detects a note of malice in his words. Ivan then announces that he's leaving for Moscow. Katerina seems disconcerted but quickly recovers and expresses how glad she is that Ivan's leaving, because Ivan gets to tell her aunt about all of her and Dmitri's shenanigans. Madame Khokhlakov is beside herself with what she views as Katerina and Ivan's irrationality, because she believes they love each other. Alyosha is suddenly moved to chide Katerina for being so dramatic and faking her happiness at Ivan's departure. He tells her that he believes she and Dmitri perhaps never loved each other, and that she really loves Ivan. This drives Katerina into hysterics. Ivan is amused and explains to Alyosha that what motivates Katerina isn't love but pride, and that Katerina has only tolerated Ivan's friendship to take revenge on Dmitri. He then leaves the room. Katerina is still beside herself, but then offers Alyosha a couple hundred roubles. She asks Alyosha to take them to a retired captain named Snegiryov, whom Dmitri apparently insulted in front of Snegiryov's son. The captain lives in poverty with his wife and children, and Katerina wants to offer the roubles as charity. Then she abruptly leaves the room. Madame Khokhlakov praises Alyosha for his outburst, but Alyosha is utterly chagrined at the havoc he believes he caused. Madame Khokhlakov then runs off to take care of the hysterical Katerina. Lise, who is again behind the door to her room, won't let Alyosha open it to see her, but asks him how he became such an \"angel.\" Alyosha is just confused and distraught and tells her that he has to go.", "analysis": ""}
text: Chapter V. A Laceration In The Drawing-Room
  
  
  But in the drawing-room the conversation was already over. Katerina
  Ivanovna was greatly excited, though she looked resolute. At the moment
  Alyosha and Madame Hohlakov entered, Ivan Fyodorovitch stood up to take
  leave. His face was rather pale, and Alyosha looked at him anxiously. For
  this moment was to solve a doubt, a harassing enigma which had for some
  time haunted Alyosha. During the preceding month it had been several times
  suggested to him that his brother Ivan was in love with Katerina Ivanovna,
  and, what was more, that he meant "to carry her off" from Dmitri. Until
  quite lately the idea seemed to Alyosha monstrous, though it worried him
  extremely. He loved both his brothers, and dreaded such rivalry between
  them. Meantime, Dmitri had said outright on the previous day that he was
  glad that Ivan was his rival, and that it was a great assistance to him,
  Dmitri. In what way did it assist him? To marry Grushenka? But that
  Alyosha considered the worst thing possible. Besides all this, Alyosha had
  till the evening before implicitly believed that Katerina Ivanovna had a
  steadfast and passionate love for Dmitri; but he had only believed it till
  the evening before. He had fancied, too, that she was incapable of loving
  a man like Ivan, and that she did love Dmitri, and loved him just as he
  was, in spite of all the strangeness of such a passion.
  
  But during yesterday's scene with Grushenka another idea had struck him.
  The word "lacerating," which Madame Hohlakov had just uttered, almost made
  him start, because half waking up towards daybreak that night he had cried
  out "Laceration, laceration," probably applying it to his dream. He had
  been dreaming all night of the previous day's scene at Katerina
  Ivanovna's. Now Alyosha was impressed by Madame Hohlakov's blunt and
  persistent assertion that Katerina Ivanovna was in love with Ivan, and
  only deceived herself through some sort of pose, from "self-laceration,"
  and tortured herself by her pretended love for Dmitri from some fancied
  duty of gratitude. "Yes," he thought, "perhaps the whole truth lies in
  those words." But in that case what was Ivan's position? Alyosha felt
  instinctively that a character like Katerina Ivanovna's must dominate, and
  she could only dominate some one like Dmitri, and never a man like Ivan.
  For Dmitri might at last submit to her domination "to his own happiness"
  (which was what Alyosha would have desired), but Ivan--no, Ivan could not
  submit to her, and such submission would not give him happiness. Alyosha
  could not help believing that of Ivan. And now all these doubts and
  reflections flitted through his mind as he entered the drawing-room.
  Another idea, too, forced itself upon him: "What if she loved neither of
  them--neither Ivan nor Dmitri?"
  
  It must be noted that Alyosha felt as it were ashamed of his own thoughts
  and blamed himself when they kept recurring to him during the last month.
  "What do I know about love and women and how can I decide such questions?"
  he thought reproachfully, after such doubts and surmises. And yet it was
  impossible not to think about it. He felt instinctively that this rivalry
  was of immense importance in his brothers' lives and that a great deal
  depended upon it.
  
  "One reptile will devour the other," Ivan had pronounced the day before,
  speaking in anger of his father and Dmitri. So Ivan looked upon Dmitri as
  a reptile, and perhaps had long done so. Was it perhaps since he had known
  Katerina Ivanovna? That phrase had, of course, escaped Ivan unawares
  yesterday, but that only made it more important. If he felt like that,
  what chance was there of peace? Were there not, on the contrary, new
  grounds for hatred and hostility in their family? And with which of them
  was Alyosha to sympathize? And what was he to wish for each of them? He
  loved them both, but what could he desire for each in the midst of these
  conflicting interests? He might go quite astray in this maze, and
  Alyosha's heart could not endure uncertainty, because his love was always
  of an active character. He was incapable of passive love. If he loved any
  one, he set to work at once to help him. And to do so he must know what he
  was aiming at; he must know for certain what was best for each, and having
  ascertained this it was natural for him to help them both. But instead of
  a definite aim, he found nothing but uncertainty and perplexity on all
  sides. "It was lacerating," as was said just now. But what could he
  understand even in this "laceration"? He did not understand the first word
  in this perplexing maze.
  
  Seeing Alyosha, Katerina Ivanovna said quickly and joyfully to Ivan, who
  had already got up to go, "A minute! Stay another minute! I want to hear
  the opinion of this person here whom I trust absolutely. Don't go away,"
  she added, addressing Madame Hohlakov. She made Alyosha sit down beside
  her, and Madame Hohlakov sat opposite, by Ivan.
  
  "You are all my friends here, all I have in the world, my dear friends,"
  she began warmly, in a voice which quivered with genuine tears of
  suffering, and Alyosha's heart warmed to her at once. "You, Alexey
  Fyodorovitch, were witness yesterday of that abominable scene, and saw
  what I did. You did not see it, Ivan Fyodorovitch, he did. What he thought
  of me yesterday I don't know. I only know one thing, that if it were
  repeated to-day, this minute, I should express the same feelings again as
  yesterday--the same feelings, the same words, the same actions. You
  remember my actions, Alexey Fyodorovitch; you checked me in one of them"
  ... (as she said that, she flushed and her eyes shone). "I must tell you
  that I can't get over it. Listen, Alexey Fyodorovitch. I don't even know
  whether I still love _him_. I feel _pity_ for him, and that is a poor sign
  of love. If I loved him, if I still loved him, perhaps I shouldn't be
  sorry for him now, but should hate him."
  
  Her voice quivered, and tears glittered on her eyelashes. Alyosha
  shuddered inwardly. "That girl is truthful and sincere," he thought, "and
  she does not love Dmitri any more."
  
  "That's true, that's true," cried Madame Hohlakov.
  
  "Wait, dear. I haven't told you the chief, the final decision I came to
  during the night. I feel that perhaps my decision is a terrible one--for
  me, but I foresee that nothing will induce me to change it--nothing. It
  will be so all my life. My dear, kind, ever-faithful and generous adviser,
  the one friend I have in the world, Ivan Fyodorovitch, with his deep
  insight into the heart, approves and commends my decision. He knows it."
  
  "Yes, I approve of it," Ivan assented, in a subdued but firm voice.
  
  "But I should like Alyosha, too (Ah! Alexey Fyodorovitch, forgive my
  calling you simply Alyosha), I should like Alexey Fyodorovitch, too, to
  tell me before my two friends whether I am right. I feel instinctively
  that you, Alyosha, my dear brother (for you are a dear brother to me),"
  she said again ecstatically, taking his cold hand in her hot one, "I
  foresee that your decision, your approval, will bring me peace, in spite
  of all my sufferings, for, after your words, I shall be calm and submit--I
  feel that."
  
  "I don't know what you are asking me," said Alyosha, flushing. "I only
  know that I love you and at this moment wish for your happiness more than
  my own!... But I know nothing about such affairs," something impelled him
  to add hurriedly.
  
  "In such affairs, Alexey Fyodorovitch, in such affairs, the chief thing is
  honor and duty and something higher--I don't know what--but higher perhaps
  even than duty. I am conscious of this irresistible feeling in my heart,
  and it compels me irresistibly. But it may all be put in two words. I've
  already decided, even if he marries that--creature," she began solemnly,
  "whom I never, never can forgive, _even then I will not abandon him_.
  Henceforward I will never, never abandon him!" she cried, breaking into a
  sort of pale, hysterical ecstasy. "Not that I would run after him
  continually, get in his way and worry him. Oh, no! I will go away to
  another town--where you like--but I will watch over him all my life--I will
  watch over him all my life unceasingly. When he becomes unhappy with that
  woman, and that is bound to happen quite soon, let him come to me and he
  will find a friend, a sister.... Only a sister, of course, and so for
  ever; but he will learn at least that that sister is really his sister,
  who loves him and has sacrificed all her life to him. I will gain my
  point. I will insist on his knowing me and confiding entirely in me,
  without reserve," she cried, in a sort of frenzy. "I will be a god to whom
  he can pray--and that, at least, he owes me for his treachery and for what
  I suffered yesterday through him. And let him see that all my life I will
  be true to him and the promise I gave him, in spite of his being untrue
  and betraying me. I will--I will become nothing but a means for his
  happiness, or--how shall I say?--an instrument, a machine for his happiness,
  and that for my whole life, my whole life, and that he may see that all
  his life! That's my decision. Ivan Fyodorovitch fully approves me."
  
  She was breathless. She had perhaps intended to express her idea with more
  dignity, art and naturalness, but her speech was too hurried and crude. It
  was full of youthful impulsiveness, it betrayed that she was still
  smarting from yesterday's insult, and that her pride craved satisfaction.
  She felt this herself. Her face suddenly darkened, an unpleasant look came
  into her eyes. Alyosha at once saw it and felt a pang of sympathy. His
  brother Ivan made it worse by adding:
  
  "I've only expressed my own view," he said. "From any one else, this would
  have been affected and overstrained, but from you--no. Any other woman
  would have been wrong, but you are right. I don't know how to explain it,
  but I see that you are absolutely genuine and, therefore, you are right."
  
  "But that's only for the moment. And what does this moment stand for?
  Nothing but yesterday's insult." Madame Hohlakov obviously had not
  intended to interfere, but she could not refrain from this very just
  comment.
  
  "Quite so, quite so," cried Ivan, with peculiar eagerness, obviously
  annoyed at being interrupted, "in any one else this moment would be only
  due to yesterday's impression and would be only a moment. But with
  Katerina Ivanovna's character, that moment will last all her life. What
  for any one else would be only a promise is for her an everlasting
  burdensome, grim perhaps, but unflagging duty. And she will be sustained
  by the feeling of this duty being fulfilled. Your life, Katerina Ivanovna,
  will henceforth be spent in painful brooding over your own feelings, your
  own heroism, and your own suffering; but in the end that suffering will be
  softened and will pass into sweet contemplation of the fulfillment of a
  bold and proud design. Yes, proud it certainly is, and desperate in any
  case, but a triumph for you. And the consciousness of it will at last be a
  source of complete satisfaction and will make you resigned to everything
  else."
  
  This was unmistakably said with some malice and obviously with intention;
  even perhaps with no desire to conceal that he spoke ironically and with
  intention.
  
  "Oh, dear, how mistaken it all is!" Madame Hohlakov cried again.
  
  "Alexey Fyodorovitch, you speak. I want dreadfully to know what you will
  say!" cried Katerina Ivanovna, and burst into tears. Alyosha got up from
  the sofa.
  
  "It's nothing, nothing!" she went on through her tears. "I'm upset, I
  didn't sleep last night. But by the side of two such friends as you and
  your brother I still feel strong--for I know--you two will never desert me."
  
  "Unluckily I am obliged to return to Moscow--perhaps to-morrow--and to leave
  you for a long time--And, unluckily, it's unavoidable," Ivan said suddenly.
  
  "To-morrow--to Moscow!" her face was suddenly contorted; "but--but, dear me,
  how fortunate!" she cried in a voice suddenly changed. In one instant
  there was no trace left of her tears. She underwent an instantaneous
  transformation, which amazed Alyosha. Instead of a poor, insulted girl,
  weeping in a sort of "laceration," he saw a woman completely self-
  possessed and even exceedingly pleased, as though something agreeable had
  just happened.
  
  "Oh, not fortunate that I am losing you, of course not," she corrected
  herself suddenly, with a charming society smile. "Such a friend as you are
  could not suppose that. I am only too unhappy at losing you." She rushed
  impulsively at Ivan, and seizing both his hands, pressed them warmly. "But
  what is fortunate is that you will be able in Moscow to see auntie and
  Agafya and to tell them all the horror of my present position. You can
  speak with complete openness to Agafya, but spare dear auntie. You will
  know how to do that. You can't think how wretched I was yesterday and this
  morning, wondering how I could write them that dreadful letter--for one can
  never tell such things in a letter.... Now it will be easy for me to
  write, for you will see them and explain everything. Oh, how glad I am!
  But I am only glad of that, believe me. Of course, no one can take your
  place.... I will run at once to write the letter," she finished suddenly,
  and took a step as though to go out of the room.
  
  "And what about Alyosha and his opinion, which you were so desperately
  anxious to hear?" cried Madame Hohlakov. There was a sarcastic, angry note
  in her voice.
  
  "I had not forgotten that," cried Katerina Ivanovna, coming to a sudden
  standstill, "and why are you so antagonistic at such a moment?" she added,
  with warm and bitter reproachfulness. "What I said, I repeat. I must have
  his opinion. More than that, I must have his decision! As he says, so it
  shall be. You see how anxious I am for your words, Alexey Fyodorovitch....
  But what's the matter?"
  
  "I couldn't have believed it. I can't understand it!" Alyosha cried
  suddenly in distress.
  
  "What? What?"
  
  "He is going to Moscow, and you cry out that you are glad. You said that
  on purpose! And you begin explaining that you are not glad of that but
  sorry to be--losing a friend. But that was acting, too--you were playing a
  part--as in a theater!"
  
  "In a theater? What? What do you mean?" exclaimed Katerina Ivanovna,
  profoundly astonished, flushing crimson, and frowning.
  
  "Though you assure him you are sorry to lose a friend in him, you persist
  in telling him to his face that it's fortunate he is going," said Alyosha
  breathlessly. He was standing at the table and did not sit down.
  
  "What are you talking about? I don't understand."
  
  "I don't understand myself.... I seemed to see in a flash ... I know I am
  not saying it properly, but I'll say it all the same," Alyosha went on in
  the same shaking and broken voice. "What I see is that perhaps you don't
  love Dmitri at all ... and never have, from the beginning.... And Dmitri,
  too, has never loved you ... and only esteems you.... I really don't know
  how I dare to say all this, but somebody must tell the truth ... for
  nobody here will tell the truth."
  
  "What truth?" cried Katerina Ivanovna, and there was an hysterical ring in
  her voice.
  
  "I'll tell you," Alyosha went on with desperate haste, as though he were
  jumping from the top of a house. "Call Dmitri; I will fetch him--and let
  him come here and take your hand and take Ivan's and join your hands. For
  you're torturing Ivan, simply because you love him--and torturing him,
  because you love Dmitri through 'self-laceration'--with an unreal
  love--because you've persuaded yourself."
  
  Alyosha broke off and was silent.
  
  "You ... you ... you are a little religious idiot--that's what you are!"
  Katerina Ivanovna snapped. Her face was white and her lips were moving
  with anger.
  
  Ivan suddenly laughed and got up. His hat was in his hand.
  
  "You are mistaken, my good Alyosha," he said, with an expression Alyosha
  had never seen in his face before--an expression of youthful sincerity and
  strong, irresistibly frank feeling. "Katerina Ivanovna has never cared for
  me! She has known all the time that I cared for her--though I never said a
  word of my love to her--she knew, but she didn't care for me. I have never
  been her friend either, not for one moment; she is too proud to need my
  friendship. She kept me at her side as a means of revenge. She revenged
  with me and on me all the insults which she has been continually receiving
  from Dmitri ever since their first meeting. For even that first meeting
  has rankled in her heart as an insult--that's what her heart is like! She
  has talked to me of nothing but her love for him. I am going now; but,
  believe me, Katerina Ivanovna, you really love him. And the more he
  insults you, the more you love him--that's your 'laceration.' You love him
  just as he is; you love him for insulting you. If he reformed, you'd give
  him up at once and cease to love him. But you need him so as to
  contemplate continually your heroic fidelity and to reproach him for
  infidelity. And it all comes from your pride. Oh, there's a great deal of
  humiliation and self-abasement about it, but it all comes from pride.... I
  am too young and I've loved you too much. I know that I ought not to say
  this, that it would be more dignified on my part simply to leave you, and
  it would be less offensive for you. But I am going far away, and shall
  never come back.... It is for ever. I don't want to sit beside a
  'laceration.'... But I don't know how to speak now. I've said
  everything.... Good-by, Katerina Ivanovna; you can't be angry with me, for
  I am a hundred times more severely punished than you, if only by the fact
  that I shall never see you again. Good-by! I don't want your hand. You
  have tortured me too deliberately for me to be able to forgive you at this
  moment. I shall forgive you later, but now I don't want your hand. 'Den
  Dank, Dame, begehr ich nicht,' " he added, with a forced smile, showing,
  however, that he could read Schiller, and read him till he knew him by
  heart--which Alyosha would never have believed. He went out of the room
  without saying good-by even to his hostess, Madame Hohlakov. Alyosha
  clasped his hands.
  
  "Ivan!" he cried desperately after him. "Come back, Ivan! No, nothing will
  induce him to come back now!" he cried again, regretfully realizing it;
  "but it's my fault, my fault. I began it! Ivan spoke angrily, wrongly.
  Unjustly and angrily. He must come back here, come back," Alyosha kept
  exclaiming frantically.
  
  Katerina Ivanovna went suddenly into the next room.
  
  "You have done no harm. You behaved beautifully, like an angel," Madame
  Hohlakov whispered rapidly and ecstatically to Alyosha. "I will do my
  utmost to prevent Ivan Fyodorovitch from going."
  
  Her face beamed with delight, to the great distress of Alyosha, but
  Katerina Ivanovna suddenly returned. She had two hundred-rouble notes in
  her hand.
  
  "I have a great favor to ask of you, Alexey Fyodorovitch," she began,
  addressing Alyosha with an apparently calm and even voice, as though
  nothing had happened. "A week--yes, I think it was a week ago--Dmitri
  Fyodorovitch was guilty of a hasty and unjust action--a very ugly action.
  There is a low tavern here, and in it he met that discharged officer, that
  captain, whom your father used to employ in some business. Dmitri
  Fyodorovitch somehow lost his temper with this captain, seized him by the
  beard and dragged him out into the street and for some distance along it,
  in that insulting fashion. And I am told that his son, a boy, quite a
  child, who is at the school here, saw it and ran beside them crying and
  begging for his father, appealing to every one to defend him, while every
  one laughed. You must forgive me, Alexey Fyodorovitch, I cannot think
  without indignation of that disgraceful action of _his_ ... one of those
  actions of which only Dmitri Fyodorovitch would be capable in his anger
  ... and in his passions! I can't describe it even.... I can't find my
  words. I've made inquiries about his victim, and find he is quite a poor
  man. His name is Snegiryov. He did something wrong in the army and was
  discharged. I can't tell you what. And now he has sunk into terrible
  destitution, with his family--an unhappy family of sick children, and, I
  believe, an insane wife. He has been living here a long time; he used to
  work as a copying clerk, but now he is getting nothing. I thought if you
  ... that is I thought ... I don't know. I am so confused. You see, I
  wanted to ask you, my dear Alexey Fyodorovitch, to go to him, to find some
  excuse to go to them--I mean to that captain--oh, goodness, how badly I
  explain it!--and delicately, carefully, as only you know how to" (Alyosha
  blushed), "manage to give him this assistance, these two hundred roubles.
  He will be sure to take it.... I mean, persuade him to take it.... Or,
  rather, what do I mean? You see it's not by way of compensation to prevent
  him from taking proceedings (for I believe he meant to), but simply a
  token of sympathy, of a desire to assist him from me, Dmitri
  Fyodorovitch's betrothed, not from himself.... But you know.... I would go
  myself, but you'll know how to do it ever so much better. He lives in Lake
  Street, in the house of a woman called Kalmikov.... For God's sake, Alexey
  Fyodorovitch, do it for me, and now ... now I am rather ... tired. Good-
  by!"
  
  She turned and disappeared behind the portiere so quickly that Alyosha had
  not time to utter a word, though he wanted to speak. He longed to beg her
  pardon, to blame himself, to say something, for his heart was full and he
  could not bear to go out of the room without it. But Madame Hohlakov took
  him by the hand and drew him along with her. In the hall she stopped him
  again as before.
  
  "She is proud, she is struggling with herself; but kind, charming,
  generous," she exclaimed, in a half-whisper. "Oh, how I love her,
  especially sometimes, and how glad I am again of everything! Dear Alexey
  Fyodorovitch, you didn't know, but I must tell you, that we all, all--both
  her aunts, I and all of us, Lise, even--have been hoping and praying for
  nothing for the last month but that she may give up your favorite Dmitri,
  who takes no notice of her and does not care for her, and may marry Ivan
  Fyodorovitch--such an excellent and cultivated young man, who loves her
  more than anything in the world. We are in a regular plot to bring it
  about, and I am even staying on here perhaps on that account."
  
  "But she has been crying--she has been wounded again," cried Alyosha.
  
  "Never trust a woman's tears, Alexey Fyodorovitch. I am never for the
  women in such cases. I am always on the side of the men."
  
  "Mamma, you are spoiling him," Lise's little voice cried from behind the
  door.
  
  "No, it was all my fault. I am horribly to blame," Alyosha repeated
  unconsoled, hiding his face in his hands in an agony of remorse for his
  indiscretion.
  
  "Quite the contrary; you behaved like an angel, like an angel. I am ready
  to say so a thousand times over."
  
  "Mamma, how has he behaved like an angel?" Lise's voice was heard again.
  
  "I somehow fancied all at once," Alyosha went on as though he had not
  heard Lise, "that she loved Ivan, and so I said that stupid thing.... What
  will happen now?"
  
  "To whom, to whom?" cried Lise. "Mamma, you really want to be the death of
  me. I ask you and you don't answer."
  
  At the moment the maid ran in.
  
  "Katerina Ivanovna is ill.... She is crying, struggling ... hysterics."
  
  "What is the matter?" cried Lise, in a tone of real anxiety. "Mamma, I
  shall be having hysterics, and not she!"
  
  "Lise, for mercy's sake, don't scream, don't persecute me. At your age one
  can't know everything that grown-up people know. I'll come and tell you
  everything you ought to know. Oh, mercy on us! I am coming, I am
  coming.... Hysterics is a good sign, Alexey Fyodorovitch; it's an
  excellent thing that she is hysterical. That's just as it ought to be. In
  such cases I am always against the woman, against all these feminine tears
  and hysterics. Run and say, Yulia, that I'll fly to her. As for Ivan
  Fyodorovitch's going away like that, it's her own fault. But he won't go
  away. Lise, for mercy's sake, don't scream! Oh, yes; you are not
  screaming. It's I am screaming. Forgive your mamma; but I am delighted,
  delighted, delighted! Did you notice, Alexey Fyodorovitch, how young, how
  young Ivan Fyodorovitch was just now when he went out, when he said all
  that and went out? I thought he was so learned, such a _savant_, and all
  of a sudden he behaved so warmly, openly, and youthfully, with such
  youthful inexperience, and it was all so fine, like you.... And the way he
  repeated that German verse, it was just like you! But I must fly, I must
  fly! Alexey Fyodorovitch, make haste to carry out her commission, and then
  make haste back. Lise, do you want anything now? For mercy's sake, don't
  keep Alexey Fyodorovitch a minute. He will come back to you at once."
  
  Madame Hohlakov at last ran off. Before leaving, Alyosha would have opened
  the door to see Lise.
  
  "On no account," cried Lise. "On no account now. Speak through the door.
  How have you come to be an angel? That's the only thing I want to know."
  
  "For an awful piece of stupidity, Lise! Good-by!"
  
  "Don't dare to go away like that!" Lise was beginning.
  
  "Lise, I have a real sorrow! I'll be back directly, but I have a great,
  great sorrow!"
  
  And he ran out of the room.
  
  
  
  
  
feat_summary_name: Book 4, Chapter 5
target: Alyosha leaves Lise and follows Madame Khokhlakov into the drawing room, where Katerina and Ivan seem to have just finished a conversation. Alyosha is struck by Madame Khokhlakov's description of Katerina as loving Dmitri only out of "strain," because he had woken up in the middle of the night uttering that very word. Katerina announces that although she is unsure whether she loves Dmitri, she will never leave him, out of a sense of duty. Alyosha notices that Katerina seems to recognize her own pridefulness and feels sorry for her. Ivan announces his agreement with Katerina's proposal, but Alyosha detects a note of malice in his words. Ivan then announces that he's leaving for Moscow. Katerina seems disconcerted but quickly recovers and expresses how glad she is that Ivan's leaving, because Ivan gets to tell her aunt about all of her and Dmitri's shenanigans. Madame Khokhlakov is beside herself with what she views as Katerina and Ivan's irrationality, because she believes they love each other. Alyosha is suddenly moved to chide Katerina for being so dramatic and faking her happiness at Ivan's departure. He tells her that he believes she and Dmitri perhaps never loved each other, and that she really loves Ivan. This drives Katerina into hysterics. Ivan is amused and explains to Alyosha that what motivates Katerina isn't love but pride, and that Katerina has only tolerated Ivan's friendship to take revenge on Dmitri. He then leaves the room. Katerina is still beside herself, but then offers Alyosha a couple hundred roubles. She asks Alyosha to take them to a retired captain named Snegiryov, whom Dmitri apparently insulted in front of Snegiryov's son. The captain lives in poverty with his wife and children, and Katerina wants to offer the roubles as charity. Then she abruptly leaves the room. Madame Khokhlakov praises Alyosha for his outburst, but Alyosha is utterly chagrined at the havoc he believes he caused. Madame Khokhlakov then runs off to take care of the hysterical Katerina. Lise, who is again behind the door to her room, won't let Alyosha open it to see her, but asks him how he became such an "angel." Alyosha is just confused and distraught and tells her that he has to go.