I love one man here.
Who is that man? That's what you must tell me." A smile lighted up her face that was swollen with weeping, and her eyes shone in the half darkness. "A falcon flew in, and my heart sank.
"Fool! that's the man you love!' That was what my heart whispered to me at once.
You came in and all grew bright.
What's he afraid of? I wondered.
For you were frightened; you couldn't speak.
It's not them he's afraid of- could you be frightened of anyone?
It's me he's afraid of, I thought, only me.
So Fenya told you, you little stupid, how I called to Alyosha out of the window that I'd loved Mityenka for one hour, and that I was going now to love... another.
Mitya, Mitya, how could I be such a fool as to think I could love anyone after you?
Do you forgive me, Mitya?
Do you forgive me or not?
Do you love me?
Do you love me?"
She jumped up and held him with both hands on his shoulders.
Mitya, dumb with rapture, gazed into her eyes, at her face, at her smile, and suddenly clasped her tightly his arms and kissed her passionately.
"You will forgive me for having tormented you?
It was through spite I tormented you all.
It was for spite I drove the old man out of his mind.... Do you remember how you drank at my house one day and broke the wine-glass?
I remembered that and I broke a glass to-day and drank 'to my vile heart.'
Mitya, my falcon, why don't you kiss me?
He kissed me once, and now he draws back and looks and listens. Why listen to me?
Kiss me, kiss me hard, that's right. if you love, well, then, love!
I'll be your slave now, your slave for the rest of my life.
It's sweet to be a slave.
Kiss me!
Beat me, ill-treat me, do what you will with me.... And I do deserve to suffer.
Stay, wait, afterwards, I won't have that..." she suddenly thrust him away. "Go along, Mitya, I'll come and have some wine, I want to be drunk, I'm going to get drunk and dance; I must, I must!"
She tore herself away from him and disappeared behind the curtain.
Mitya followed like a drunken man.
"Yes, come what may- whatever may happen now, for one minute I'd give the whole world," he thought.
Grushenka did, in fact, toss off a whole glass of champagne at one gulp, and became at once very tipsy.
She sat down in the same chair as before, with a blissful smile on her face.
Her cheeks were glowing, her lips were burning, her flashing eyes were moist; there was passionate appeal in her eyes.
Even Kalgonov felt a stir at the heart and went up to her.
"Did you feel how I kissed you when you were asleep just now?" she said thickly. "I'm drunk now, that's what it is.... And aren't you drunk?
And why isn't Mitya drinking?
Why don't you drink, Mitya? I'm drunk, and you don't drink..."
"I am drunk!
I'm drunk as it is... drunk with you... and now I'll be drunk with wine, too." He drank off another glass, and- he thought it strange himself- that glass made him completely drunk. He was suddenly drunk, although till that moment he had been quite sober, he remembered that.
From that moment everything whirled about him, as though he were delirious.
He walked, laughed, talked to everybody, without knowing what he was doing.
Only one persistent burning sensation made itself felt continually, "like a red-hot coal in his heart," he said afterwards.
He went up to her, sat beside her, gazed at her, listened to her.... She became very talkative, kept calling everyone to her, and beckoned to different girls out of the chorus. When the girl came up, she either kissed her, or made the sign of the cross over her.
In another minute she might have cried.
She was greatly amused by the "little old man," as she called Maximov.
He ran up every minute to kiss her hands, each little finger," and finally he danced another dance to an old song, which he sang himself.
He danced with special vigour to the refrain:
The little pig says- umph! umph! umph! The little calf says- moo, moo, moo, The little duck says- quack, quack, quack, The little goose says- ga, ga, ga.
The hen goes strutting through the porch; Troo-roo-roo-roo-roo, she'll say, Troo-roo-roo-roo-roo, she'll say!