The Brothers Karamazov, page 139 by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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for ever- his filthy back-alley, his beloved back-alley, where he is at home and where he will sink in filth and stench at his own free will and with enjoyment. I've been talking foolishly. I've no words left. I used them at random, but it will be as I have said. I shall drown in the back-alley, and she will marry Ivan."
"Stop, Dmitri," Alyosha interrupted again with great anxiety. "There's one thing you haven't made clear yet: you are still betrothed all the same, aren't you? How can you break off the engagement if she, your betrothed, doesn't want to?"
"Yes, formally and solemnly betrothed. It was all done on my arrival in Moscow, with great ceremony, with ikons, all in fine style. The general's wife blessed us, and- would you believe it?- congratulated Katya. You've made a good choice,' she said, 'I see right through him.' And- would you believe it?- she didn't like Ivan, and hardly greeted him. I had a lot of talk with Katya in Moscow. I told her about myself- sincerely, honourably. She listened to everything.
There was sweet confusion,
There were tender words.
Though there were proud words, too. She wrung out of me a mighty promise to reform. I gave my promise, and here- "
"What?"
"Why, I called to you and brought you out here to-day, this very day- remember it- to send you- this very day again- to Katerina Ivanovna, and- "
"To tell her that I shall never come to see her again. Say, 'He sends you his compliments.'"
"But is that possible?"
"That's just the reason I'm sending you, in my place, because it's impossible. And, how could I tell her myself?"
"And where are you going?"
"To the back-alley."
"To Grushenka, then!" Alyosha exclaimed mournfully, clasping his hands. "Can Rakitin really have told the truth? I thought that you had just visited her, and that was all."
"Can a betrothed man pay such visits? Is such a thing possible and with such a betrothed, and before the eyes of all the world? Confound it, I have