"You've come at last!" she cried, flinging down the cards and joyfully greeting Alyosha, "and Maximushka's been scaring me that perhaps you wouldn't come.Ah, how I need you! Sit down to the table.What will you have coffee?""Yes, please," said Alyosha, sitting down at the table."I am very hungry.""That's right.Fenya, Fenya, coffee," cried Grushenka."It's been made a long time ready for you.And bring some little pies, and mind they are hot.Do you know, we've had a storm over those pies to-day.I took them to the prison for him, and would you believe it, he threw them back to me: he would not eat them.He flung one of them on the floor and stamped on it.So I said to him: 'I shall leave them with the warder; if you don't eat them before evening, it will be that your venomous spite is enough for you!' With that Iwent away.We quarrelled again, would you believe it? Whenever I go we quarrel."Grushenka said all this in one breath in her agitation.Maximov, feeling nervous, at once smiled and looked on the floor.
"What did you quarrel about this time?" asked Alyosha.
"I didn't expect it in the least.Only fancy, he is jealous of the Pole.'Why are you keeping him?' he said.'So you've begun keeping him.' He is jealous, jealous of me all the time, jealous eating and sleeping! He even took into his head to be jealous of Kuzma last week.""But he knew about the Pole before?"
"Yes, but there it is.He has known about him from the very beginning but to-day he suddenly got up and began scolding about him.I am ashamed to repeat what he said.Silly fellow! Rakitin went in as I came out.Perhaps Rakitin is egging him on.What do you think?" she added carelessly.
"He loves you, that's what it is; he loves you so much.And now he is particularly worried.""I should think he might be, with the trial to-morrow.And Iwent to him to say something about to-morrow, for I dread to think what's going to happen then.You say that he is worried, but how worried I am! And he talks about the Pole! He's too silly! He is not jealous of Maximushka yet, anyway.""My wife was dreadfully jealous over me, too," Maximov put in his word.
"Jealous of you?" Grushenka laughed in spite of herself."Of whom could she have been jealous?""Of the servant girls."
"Hold your tongue, Maximushka, I am in no laughing mood now; Ifeel angry.Don't ogle the pies.I shan't give you any; they are not good for you, and I won't give you any vodka either.I have to look after him, too, just as though I kept an almshouse," she laughed.
"I don't deserve your kindness.I am a worthless creature," said Maximov, with tears in his voice."You would do better to spend your kindness on people of more use than me.""Ech, everyone is of use, Maximushka, and how can we tell who's of most use? If only that Pole didn't exist, Alyosha.He's taken it into his head to fall ill, too, to-day.I've been to see him also.And I shall send him some pies, too, on purpose.I hadn't sent him any, but Mitya accused me of it, so now I shall send some! Ah, here's Fenya with a letter! Yes, it's from the Poles- begging again!
Pan Mussyalovitch had indeed sent an extremely long and characteristically eloquent letter in which he begged her to lend him three roubles.In the letter was enclosed a receipt for the sum, with a promise to repay it within three months, signed by Pan Vrublevsky as well.Grushenka had received many such letters, accompanied by such receipts, from her former lover during the fortnight of her convalescence.But she knew that the two Poles had been to ask after her health during her illness.The first letter Grushenka got from them was a long one, written on large notepaper and with a big family crest on the seal.It was so obscure and rhetorical that Grushenka put it down before she had read half, unable to make head or tail of it.She could not attend to letters then.
The first letter was followed next day by another in which Pan Mussyalovitch begged her for a loan of two thousand roubles for a very short period.Grushenka left that letter, too, unanswered.A whole series of letters had followed- one every day- all as pompous and rhetorical, but the loan asked for, gradually diminishing, dropped to a hundred roubles, than to twenty-five, to ten, and finally Grushenka received a letter in which both the Poles begged her for only one rouble and included a receipt signed by both.
Then Grushenka suddenly felt sorry for them, and at dusk she went round herself to their lodging.She found the two Poles in great poverty, almost destitution, without food or fuel, without cigarettes, in debt to their landlady.The two hundred roubles they had carried off from Mitya at Mokroe had soon disappeared.But Grushenka was surprised at their meeting her with arrogant dignity and self-assertion, with the greatest punctilio and pompous speeches.
Grushenka simply laughed, and gave her former admirer ten roubles.
Then, laughing, she told Mitya of it and he was not in the least jealous.But ever since, the Poles had attached themselves to Grushenka and bombarded her daily with requests for money and she had always sent them small sums.And now that day Mitya had taken it into his head to be fearfully jealous.
"Like a fool, I went round to him just for a minute, on the way to see Mitya, for he is ill, too, my Pole," Grushenka began again with nervous haste."I was laughing, telling Mitya about it.'Fancy,' Isaid, 'my Pole had the happy thought to sing his old songs to me to the guitar.He thought I would be touched and marry him!' Mitya leapt up swearing....So, there, I'll send them the pies! Fenya, is it that little girl they've sent? Here, give her three roubles and pack up a dozen pies in a paper and tell her to take them.And you, Alyosha, be sure to tell Mitya that I did send them the pies.""I wouldn't tell him for anything," said Alyosha, smiling.
"Ech! You think he is unhappy about it.Why, he's jealous on purpose.He doesn't care," said Grushenka bitterly.
"On purpose?" queried Alyosha.