“You’ve come at last!” she cried, throwing down the cards and joyfully greeting Alyosha, “and Maximushka’s been scaring me that you might not come after all. Ah, how I need you! Sit down at the table; well, what will you have, some coffee?”
“Why not?” said Alyosha, sitting down at the table. “I’m very hungry.”
“So there. Fenya, Fenya, some coffee!” cried Grushenka. “I’ve had it ready for a long time, waiting for you. Bring some pirozhki, too, and make sure they’re hot. No, listen, Alyosha, I had a big storm over those pirozhki today. I took them to the prison for him, and would you believe it, he threw them back at me and wouldn’t eat them. He even flung one on the floor and trampled on it. So I said: ‘I’ll leave them with the guard; if you don’t eat them by evening, it means you’re feeding on your own venomous wickedness! ‘ and with that I left. We really quarreled again, do you believe it? Each time I go, we quarrel.”
Grushenka poured it all out in her excitement. Maximov, having at once grown timid, smiled and dropped his eyes.
“But what did you quarrel about this time?” asked Alyosha.
“I didn’t even expect it! Imagine, he got jealous over my ‘former’ one: ‘Why are you keeping him?’ he said. ‘So you’ve started keeping him, have you?’ He gets jealous all the time, jealous over me! He gets jealous eating and sleeping. Once last week he even got jealous of Kuzma.”
“But he knew about the ‘former’ one, didn’t he?”
“What can I say? He’s known about him from the very beginning right down to this day, and today he suddenly gets up and starts scolding me. It’s shameful even to tell what he was saying. Fool! Rakitka came to see him as I was leaving. Maybe it’s Rakitka who has been baiting him, eh? What do you think?” she added as if absentmindedly.
“He loves you, that’s what, he loves you very much. And he’s worried now, too.”
“How could he not be worried, the trial is tomorrow. I went to say something to him about tomorrow, because, Alyosha, I’m afraid even to think about what will happen tomorrow! You say he’s worried, but how about me! And he talks about the Pole! What a fool! Well, there’s no fear he’ll get jealous of Maximushka here.”
“My spouse was also very jealous over me, ma’am,” Maximov put a little word in.
“Over you, really?” Grushenka laughed despite herself. “Who was she jealous of?”
“The chambermaids, ma’am.”
“Eh, keep still, Maximushka, it’s no time for laughing now. I even feel angry. Don’t ogle the pirozhki, you won’t get any, they’re not good for you, and you won’t get your little drop either. Must I bother with him, too? Really, it’s like running an almshouse,” she laughed.
“I am unworthy of your benefactions, ma’am, I am nothing, ma’am,” Maximov said in a tearful little voice. “You’d do better to lavish your benefactions on those who are more useful than I am, ma’am.”
“Ahh, everyone is useful, Maximushka, and how can anyone say who is more useful? I wish that Pole wasn’t here at all, Alyosha, you know, he decided to get sick today. I visited him, too. And now I’m going to send him some pirozhki on purpose, I didn’t send him any, but Mitya accused me of it, so now I’ll send some on purpose, on purpose! Ah, here’s Fenya with a letter! Well, just as I thought, it’s from the Poles again, asking for money again.”
Pan Mussyalovich had indeed sent an extremely long and, as was his custom, flowery letter, in which he asked for a loan of three roubles. The letter was accompanied by a receipt and a note promising payment within three months; Pan Vrublevsky also signed the receipt. Grushenka had already received many such letters from her “former” one, all with such receipts. It started with her recovery, about two weeks before. She knew, however, that both pans had also come during her illness to inquire about her health. The first letter Grushenka had received was long, on stationery of large format, sealed with a big family crest, and terribly obscure and flowery, so that she read only halfway through and dropped it without having understood a thing. And she could hardly be bothered with letters then. The first letter was followed the next day by a second one, in which Pan Mussyalovich asked for a loan of two thousand roubles for a very short term. This letter Grushenka also left unanswered. After that a whole series of letters followed, one letter a day, all equally pompous and flowery, but in which the amount requested, gradually diminishing, went down to a hundred roubles, to twenty-five roubles, to ten roubles, and finally Grushenka suddenly received a letter in which the two pans asked her for only one rouble, and enclosed a receipt which they both had signed. Then Grushenka suddenly felt sorry for them, and at dusk she herself ran over to see the pan. She found the two Poles in terrible, almost abject poverty, without food, without firewood, without cigarettes, in debt to their landlady. The two hundred roubles they had won from Mitya at Mokroye had quickly disappeared somewhere. Grushenka found it surprising, however, that both pans met her with haughty pomposity and independence, with the greatest ceremony, with high-flown speeches. Grushenka merely laughed and gave her “former” one ten roubles. That time she had laughingly told Mitya about it, and he was not jealous at all. But from then on the pans had kept hold of Grushenka, bombarding her daily with letters asking for money, and each time she sent them a little. And suddenly that day Mitya decided to become fiercely jealous.
“Like a fool I stopped at his place, too, just for a moment, on my way to see Mitya, because he, too, has gotten sick—my former pan, I mean,” Grushenka began again, fussing and hurrying, “so I laughed and told Mitya about it: imagine, I said, my Pole decided to sing me his old songs on the guitar, he thought I’d get all sentimental and marry him. And Mitya jumped up cursing ... So I’m just going to send some pirozhki to the pans! Did they send that same girl, Fenya? Here, give her three roubles and wrap up a dozen or so pirozhki in paper, and tell her to take them, and you, Alyosha, be sure to tell Mitya that I sent pirozhki to them.”