"I've come to assure you that I've always loved you and I am glad that we are alone, even glad Dounia is out," he went on with the same impulse. "I have come to tell you that though you will be unhappy, you must believe that your son loves you now more than himself, and that all you thought about me, that I was cruel and didn't care about you, was all a mistake. I shall never cease to love you. . . . Well, that's enough: I thought I must do this and begin with this. . . ."
Pulcheria Alexandrovna embraced him in silence, pressing him to her bosom and weeping gently.
"I don't know what is wrong with you, Rodya," she said at last. "I've been thinking all this time that we were simply boring you and now I see that there is a great sorrow in store for you, and that's why you are miserable. I've foreseen it a long time, Rodya. Forgive me for speaking about it. I keep thinking about it and lie awake at nights. Your sister lay talking in her sleep all last night, talking of nothing but you. I caught something, but I couldn't make it out. I felt all the morning as though I were going to be hanged, waiting for something, expecting something, and now it has come! Rodya, Rodya, where are you going? You are going away somewhere?"
"Yes."
"That's what I thought! I can come with you, you know, if you need me. And Dounia, too; she loves you, she loves you dearly—and Sofya Semyonovna may come with us if you like. You see, I am glad to look upon her as a daughter even . . . Dmitri Prokofitch will help us to go together. But . . . where . . . are you going?"
"Good-bye, mother."
"What, to-day?" she cried, as though losing him for ever.
"I can't stay, I must go now. . . ."
"And can't I come with you?"
"No, but kneel down and pray to God for me. Your prayer perhaps will reach Him."
"Let me bless you and sign you with the cross. That's right, that's right. Oh, God, what are we doing?"
Yes, he was glad, he was very glad that there was no one there, that he was alone with his mother. For the first time
