She has very strong feelings and memories, and, what's more, she uses these phrases, most unexpected words, which come out all of a sudden when you least expect them.
She spoke lately about a pine-tree, for instance: there used to be a pine-tree standing in our garden in her early childhood. Very likely it's standing there still; so there's no need to speak in the past tense.
Pine-trees are not like people, Alexey Fyodorovitch, they don't change quickly.
'Mamma,' she said, 'I remember this pine tree as in a dream,' only she said something so original about it that I can't repeat it.
Besides, I've forgotten it.
Well, good-bye! I am so worried I feel I shall go out of my mind.
Ah! Alexey Fyodorovitch, I've been out of my mind twice in my life.
Go to Lise, cheer her up, as you always can so charmingly.
Lise," she cried, going to her door, "here I've brought you Alexey Fyodorovitch, whom you insulted so. He is not at all angry, I assure you; on the contrary, he is surprised that you could suppose so."
"Merci, maman. Come in, Alexey Fyodorovitch."
Alyosha went in.
Lise looked rather embarrassed, and at once flushed crimson.
She was evidently ashamed of something, and, as people always do in such cases, she began immediately talking of other things, as though they were of absorbing interest to her at the moment.
"Mamma has just told me all about the two hundred roubles, Alexey Fyodorovitch, and your taking them to that poor officer... and she told me all the awful story of how he had been insulted... and you know, although mamma muddles things... she always rushes from one thing to another... I cried when I heard.
Well, did you give him the money and how is that poor man getting on?"
"The fact is I didn't give it to him, and it's a long story," answered Alyosha, as though he, too, could think of nothing but his regret at having failed, yet Lise saw perfectly well that he, too, looked away, and that he, too, was trying to talk of other things.
Alyosha sat down to the table and began to tell his story, but at the first words he lost his embarrassment and gained the whole of Lise's attention as well.
He spoke with deep feeling, under the influence of the strong impression he had just received, and he succeeded in telling his story well and circumstantially.
In old days in Moscow he had been fond of coming to Lise and describing to her what had just happened to him, what he had read, or what he remembered of his childhood.
Sometimes they had made day-dreams and woven whole romances together- generally cheerful and amusing ones.
Now they both felt suddenly transported to the old days in Moscow, two years before.
Lise was extremely touched by his story.
Alyosha described Ilusha with warm feeling.
When he finished describing how the luckless man trampled on the money, Lise could not help clasping her hands and crying out:
"So you didn't give him the money! So you let him run away!
Oh, dear, you ought to have run after him!"
"No, Lise; it's better I didn't run after him," said Alyosha, getting up from his chair and walking thoughtfully across the room.
"How so? How is it better?
Now they are without food and their case is hopeless."
"Not hopeless, for the two hundred roubles will still come to them.
He'll take the money to-morrow.
To-morrow he will be sure to take it," said Alyosha, pacing up and down, pondering. "You see, Lise," he went on, stopping suddenly before her, "I made one blunder, but that, even that, is all for the best."
"What blunder, and why is it for the best?"
"I'll tell you. He is a man of weak and timorous character; he has suffered so much and is very good-natured.
I keep wondering why he took offence so suddenly, for I assure you, up to the last minute, he did not know that he was going to trample on the notes.
And I think now that there was a great deal to offend him... and it could not have been otherwise in his position.... To begin with, he was sore at having been so glad of the money in my presence and not having concealed it from me.
If he had been pleased, but not so much; if he had not shown it; if he had begun affecting scruples and difficulties, as other people do when they take money, he might still endure- to take it. But he was too genuinely delighted, and that was mortifying.
Ah, Lise, he is a good and truthful man- that's the worst of the whole business.
All the while he talked, his voice was so weak, so broken, he talked so fast, so fast, he kept laughing such a laugh, or perhaps he was crying- yes, I am sure he was crying, he was so delighted- and he talked about his daughters- and about the situation he could get in another town.... And when he had poured out his heart, he felt ashamed at having shown me his inmost soul like that.
So he began to hate me at once.
He is one of those awfully sensitive poor people.
What had made him feel most ashamed was that he had given in too soon and accepted me as a friend, you see. At first he almost flew at me and tried to intimidate me, but as soon as he saw the money he had begun embracing me; he kept touching me with his hands.
This must have been how he came to feel it all so humiliating, and then I made that blunder, a very important one. I suddenly said to him that if he had not money enough to move to another town, we would give it to him, and, indeed, I myself would give him as much as he wanted out of my own money.
That struck him all at once. Why, he thought, did I put myself forward to help him?
You know, Lise, it's awfully hard for a man who has been injured, when other people look at him as though they were his benefactors.... I've heard that; Father Zossima told me so.
I don't know how to put it, but I have often seen it myself.
And I feel like that myself, too.
And the worst of it was that though he did not know, to the very last minute, that he would trample on the notes, he had a kind of presentiment of it, I am sure of that.
That's just what made him so ecstatic, that he had that presentiment.... And though it's so dreadful, it's all for the best.
In fact, I believe nothing better could have happened."