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"I Am Coming, Too!"
But Dmitri Fyodorovitch was speeding along the road. It was a little more than twenty versts to Mokroe, but Andrey's three horses galloped at such a pace that the distance might be covered in an hour and a quarter. The swift motion revived Mitya. The air was fresh and cool, there were big stars shining in the sky. It was the very night, and perhaps the very hour, in which Alyosha fell on the earth, and rapturously swore to love it for ever and ever.
All was confusion, confusion in Mitya's soul, but although many
things were goading his heart, at that moment his whole being was
yearning for her, his queen, to whom he was flying to look on her
for the last time. One thing I can say for certain; his heart did
not waver for one instant. I shall perhaps not be believed when I
say that this jealous lover felt not the slightest jealousy of this
new rival, who seemed to have sprung out of the earth. If any other
had appeared on the scene, he would have been jealous at once, and
would-perhaps have stained his fierce hands with blood again. But as
he flew through the night, he felt no envy, no hostility even, for the
man who had been her first lover.... It is true he had not yet seen
him.
"Here there was no room for dispute: it was her right and his; this was her first love which, after five years, she had not forgotten; so she had loved him only for those five years, and I, how do I come in? What right have I? Step aside, Mitya, and make way! What am I now? Now everything is over apart from the officer even if he had not appeared, everything would be over..."
These words would roughly have expressed his feelings, if he had
been capable of reasoning. But he could not reason at that moment. His
present plan of action had arisen without reasoning. At Fenya's
first words, it had sprung from feeling, and been adopted in a
flash, with all its consequences. And yet, in spite of his resolution, there was confusion in his soul, an agonising confusion: his resolution did not give him peace. There was so much behind that tortured him. And it seemed strange to him, at moments, to think that he had written his own sentence of death with pen and paper: "I punish myself," and the paper was lying there in his pocket, ready; the pistol was loaded; he had already resolved how, next morning, he would meet the first warm ray of "golden-haired Phoebus."
And yet he could not be quit of the past, of all that he had
left behind and that tortured him. He felt that miserably, and the
thought of it sank into his heart with despair. There was one moment
when he felt an impulse to stop Andrey, to jump out of the cart, to
pull out his loaded pistol, and to make an end of everything without
waiting for the dawn. But that moment flew by like a spark. The horses
galloped on, "devouring space," and as he drew near his goal, again
the thought of her, of her alone, took more and more complete
possession of his soul, chasing away the fearful images that had
been haunting it. Oh, how he longed to look upon her, if only for a
moment, if only from a distance!
"She's now with him," he thought, "now I shall see what she
looks like with him, her first love, and that's all I want." Never had
this woman, who was such a fateful influence in his life, aroused such
love in his breast, such new and unknown feeling, surprising even to
himself, a feeling tender to devoutness, to self-effacement before
her! "I will efface myself!" he said, in a rush of almost hysterical
ecstasy.
They had been galloping nearly an hour. Mitya was silent, and
though Andrey was, as a rule, a talkative peasant, he did not utter
a word, either. He seemed afraid to talk, he only whipped up smartly
his three lean, but mettlesome, bay horses. Suddenly Mitya cried out
in horrible anxiety:
"Andrey! What if they're asleep?"
This thought fell upon him like a blow. It had not occurred to him
before.
"It may well be that they're gone to bed by now, Dmitri
Fyodorovitch."
Mitya frowned as though in pain. Yes, indeed... he was rushing
there... with such feelings... while they were asleep... she was
asleep, perhaps, there too.... An angry feeling surged up in his
heart.
"Drive on, Andrey! Whip them up! Look alive!" he cried, beside
himself.
"But maybe they're not in bed!" Andrey went on after a pause. "Timofey said they were a lot of them there-."