An excerpt from the original text.(complete · 2564 words)
Little Demon
Going in to Lise, he found her half reclining in the invalid‐chair, in
which she had been wheeled when she was unable to walk. She did not
move to meet him, but her sharp, keen eyes were simply riveted on his
face. There was a feverish look in her eyes, her face was pale and
yellow. Alyosha was amazed at the change that had taken place in her in
three days. She was positively thinner. She did not hold out her hand
to him. He touched the thin, long fingers which lay motionless on her
dress, then he sat down facing her, without a word.
“I know you are in a hurry to get to the prison,” Lise said curtly,
“and mamma’s kept you there for hours; she’s just been telling you
about me and Yulia.”
“How do you know?” asked Alyosha.
“I’ve been listening. Why do you stare at me? I want to listen and I do
listen, there’s no harm in that. I don’t apologize.”
“You are upset about something?”
“On the contrary, I am very happy. I’ve only just been reflecting for
the thirtieth time what a good thing it is I refused you and shall not
be your wife. You are not fit to be a husband. If I were to marry you
and give you a note to take to the man I loved after you, you’d take it
and be sure to give it to him and bring an answer back, too. If you
were forty, you would still go on taking my love‐letters for me.”
She suddenly laughed.
“There is something spiteful and yet open‐hearted about you,” Alyosha
smiled to her.
“The open‐heartedness consists in my not being ashamed of myself with
you. What’s more, I don’t want to feel ashamed with you, just with you.
Alyosha, why is it I don’t respect you? I am very fond of you, but I
don’t respect you. If I respected you, I shouldn’t talk to you without
shame, should I?”
“No.”
“But do you believe that I am not ashamed with you?”
“No, I don’t believe it.”
Lise laughed nervously again; she spoke rapidly.
“I sent your brother, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, some sweets in prison.
Alyosha, you know, you are quite pretty! I shall love you awfully for
having so quickly allowed me not to love you.”
“Why did you send for me to‐day, Lise?”
“I wanted to tell you of a longing I have. I should like some one to
torture me, marry me and then torture me, deceive me and go away. I
don’t want to be happy.”
“You are in love with disorder?”
“Yes, I want disorder. I keep wanting to set fire to the house. I keep
imagining how I’ll creep up and set fire to the house on the sly; it
must be on the sly. They’ll try to put it out, but it’ll go on burning.
And I shall know and say nothing. Ah, what silliness! And how bored I
am!”
She waved her hand with a look of repulsion.
“It’s your luxurious life,” said Alyosha, softly.
“Is it better, then, to be poor?”
“Yes, it is better.”
“That’s what your monk taught you. That’s not true. Let me be rich and
all the rest poor, I’ll eat sweets and drink cream and not give any to
any one else. Ach, don’t speak, don’t say anything,” she shook her hand
at him, though Alyosha had not opened his mouth. “You’ve told me all
that before, I know it all by heart. It bores me. If I am ever poor, I
shall murder somebody, and even if I am rich, I may murder some one,
perhaps—why do nothing! But do you know, I should like to reap, cut the
rye? I’ll marry you, and you shall become a peasant, a real peasant;
we’ll keep a colt, shall we? Do you know Kalganov?”
“Yes.”
“He is always wandering about, dreaming. He says, ‘Why live in real
life? It’s better to dream. One can dream the most delightful things,
but real life is a bore.’ But he’ll be married soon for all that; he’s
been making love to me already. Can you spin tops?”
“Yes.”
“Well, he’s just like a top: he wants to be wound up and set spinning
and then to be lashed, lashed, lashed with a whip. If I marry him, I’ll
keep him spinning all his life. You are not ashamed to be with me?”
“No.”
“You are awfully cross, because I don’t talk about holy things. I don’t
want to be holy. What will they do to one in the next world for the
greatest sin? You must know all about that.”
“God will censure you.” Alyosha was watching her steadily.
“That’s just what I should like. I would go up and they would censure
me, and I would burst out laughing in their faces. I should dreadfully
like to set fire to the house, Alyosha, to our house; you still don’t
believe me?”
“Why? There are children of twelve years old, who have a longing to set
fire to something and they do set things on fire, too. It’s a sort of
disease.”
“That’s not true, that’s not true; there may be children, but that’s
not what I mean.”
“You take evil for good; it’s a passing crisis, it’s the result of your
illness, perhaps.”
“You do despise me, though! It’s simply that I don’t want to do good, I
want to do evil, and it has nothing to do with illness.”
“Why do evil?”
“So that everything might be destroyed. Ah, how nice it would be if
everything were destroyed! You know, Alyosha, I sometimes think of
doing a fearful lot of harm and everything bad, and I should do it for
a long while on the sly and suddenly every one would find it out. Every
one will stand round and point their fingers at me and I would look at
them all. That would be awfully nice. Why would it be so nice,
Alyosha?”
“I don’t know. It’s a craving to destroy something good or, as you say,
to set fire to something. It happens sometimes.”
“I not only say it, I shall do it.”
“I believe you.”
“Ah, how I love you for saying you believe me. And you are not lying
one little bit. But perhaps you think that I am saying all this on
purpose to annoy you?”
“No, I don’t think that ... though perhaps there is a little desire to
do that in it, too.”
“There is a little. I never can tell lies to you,” she declared, with a
strange fire in her eyes.
What struck Alyosha above everything was her earnestness. There was not
a trace of humor or jesting in her face now, though, in old days, fun
and gayety never deserted her even at her most “earnest” moments.
“There are moments when people love crime,” said Alyosha thoughtfully.
“Yes, yes! You have uttered my thought; they love crime, every one
loves crime, they love it always, not at some ‘moments.’ You know, it’s
as though people have made an agreement to lie about it and have lied
about it ever since. They all declare that they hate evil, but secretly
they all love it.”
“And are you still reading nasty books?”
“Yes, I am. Mamma reads them and hides them under her pillow and I
steal them.”
“Aren’t you ashamed to destroy yourself?”
“I want to destroy myself. There’s a boy here, who lay down between the
railway lines when the train was passing. Lucky fellow! Listen, your
brother is being tried now for murdering his father and every one loves
his having killed his father.”
“Loves his having killed his father?”
“Yes, loves it; every one loves it! Everybody says it’s so awful, but
secretly they simply love it. I for one love it.”
“There is some truth in what you say about every one,” said Alyosha
softly.
“Oh, what ideas you have!” Lise shrieked in delight. “And you a monk,
too! You wouldn’t believe how I respect you, Alyosha, for never telling
lies. Oh, I must tell you a funny dream of mine. I sometimes dream of
devils. It’s night; I am in my room with a candle and suddenly there
are devils all over the place, in all the corners, under the table, and
they open the doors; there’s a crowd of them behind the doors and they
want to come and seize me. And they are just coming, just seizing me.
But I suddenly cross myself and they all draw back, though they don’t
go away altogether, they stand at the doors and in the corners,
waiting. And suddenly I have a frightful longing to revile God aloud,
and so I begin, and then they come crowding back to me, delighted, and
seize me again and I cross myself again and they all draw back. It’s
awful fun. it takes one’s breath away.”
“I’ve had the same dream, too,” said Alyosha suddenly.
“Really?” cried Lise, surprised. “I say, Alyosha, don’t laugh, that’s
awfully important. Could two different people have the same dream?”
“It seems they can.”
“Alyosha, I tell you, it’s awfully important,” Lise went on, with
really excessive amazement. “It’s not the dream that’s important, but
your having the same dream as me. You never lie to me, don’t lie now:
is it true? You are not laughing?”
“It’s true.”
Lise seemed extraordinarily impressed and for half a minute she was
silent.
“Alyosha, come and see me, come and see me more often,” she said
suddenly, in a supplicating voice.
“I’ll always come to see you, all my life,” answered Alyosha firmly.
“You are the only person I can talk to, you know,” Lise began again. “I
talk to no one but myself and you. Only you in the whole world. And to
you more readily than to myself. And I am not a bit ashamed with you,
not a bit. Alyosha, why am I not ashamed with you, not a bit? Alyosha,
is it true that at Easter the Jews steal a child and kill it?”
“I don’t know.”
“There’s a book here in which I read about the trial of a Jew, who took
a child of four years old and cut off the fingers from both hands, and
then crucified him on the wall, hammered nails into him and crucified
him, and afterwards, when he was tried, he said that the child died
soon, within four hours. That was ‘soon’! He said the child moaned,
kept on moaning and he stood admiring it. That’s nice!”
“Nice?”
“Nice; I sometimes imagine that it was I who crucified him. He would
hang there moaning and I would sit opposite him eating pineapple
compote. I am awfully fond of pineapple compote. Do you like it?”
Alyosha looked at her in silence. Her pale, sallow face was suddenly
contorted, her eyes burned.
“You know, when I read about that Jew I shook with sobs all night. I
kept fancying how the little thing cried and moaned (a child of four
years old understands, you know), and all the while the thought of
pineapple compote haunted me. In the morning I wrote a letter to a
certain person, begging him particularly to come and see me. He came
and I suddenly told him all about the child and the pineapple
compote. All about it, all, and said that it was nice. He laughed
and said it really was nice. Then he got up and went away. He was only
here five minutes. Did he despise me? Did he despise me? Tell me, tell
me, Alyosha, did he despise me or not?” She sat up on the couch, with
flashing eyes.
“Tell me,” Alyosha asked anxiously, “did you send for that person?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Did you send him a letter?”
“Yes.”
“Simply to ask about that, about that child?”
“No, not about that at all. But when he came, I asked him about that at
once. He answered, laughed, got up and went away.”
“That person behaved honorably,” Alyosha murmured.
“And did he despise me? Did he laugh at me?”
“No, for perhaps he believes in the pineapple compote himself. He is
very ill now, too, Lise.”
“Yes, he does believe in it,” said Lise, with flashing eyes.
“He doesn’t despise any one,” Alyosha went on. “Only he does not
believe any one. If he doesn’t believe in people, of course, he does
despise them.”
“Then he despises me, me?”
“You, too.”
“Good,” Lise seemed to grind her teeth. “When he went out laughing, I
felt that it was nice to be despised. The child with fingers cut off is
nice, and to be despised is nice....”
And she laughed in Alyosha’s face, a feverish malicious laugh.
“Do you know, Alyosha, do you know, I should like—Alyosha, save me!”
She suddenly jumped from the couch, rushed to him and seized him with
both hands. “Save me!” she almost groaned. “Is there any one in the
world I could tell what I’ve told you? I’ve told you the truth, the
truth. I shall kill myself, because I loathe everything! I don’t want
to live, because I loathe everything! I loathe everything, everything.
Alyosha, why don’t you love me in the least?” she finished in a frenzy.
“But I do love you!” answered Alyosha warmly.
“And will you weep over me, will you?”
“Yes.”
“Not because I won’t be your wife, but simply weep for me?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you! It’s only your tears I want. Every one else may punish me
and trample me under foot, every one, every one, not excepting any
one. For I don’t love any one. Do you hear, not any one! On the
contrary, I hate him! Go, Alyosha; it’s time you went to your brother”;
she tore herself away from him suddenly.
“How can I leave you like this?” said Alyosha, almost in alarm.
“Go to your brother, the prison will be shut; go, here’s your hat. Give
my love to Mitya, go, go!”
And she almost forcibly pushed Alyosha out of the door. He looked at
her with pained surprise, when he was suddenly aware of a letter in his
right hand, a tiny letter folded up tight and sealed. He glanced at it
and instantly read the address, “To Ivan Fyodorovitch Karamazov.” He
looked quickly at Lise. Her face had become almost menacing.
“Give it to him, you must give it to him!” she ordered him, trembling
and beside herself. “To‐day, at once, or I’ll poison myself! That’s why
I sent for you.”
And she slammed the door quickly. The bolt clicked. Alyosha put the
note in his pocket and went straight downstairs, without going back to
Madame Hohlakov; forgetting her, in fact. As soon as Alyosha had gone,
Lise unbolted the door, opened it a little, put her finger in the crack
and slammed the door with all her might, pinching her finger. Ten
seconds after, releasing her finger, she walked softly, slowly to her
chair, sat up straight in it and looked intently at her blackened
finger and at the blood that oozed from under the nail. Her lips were
quivering and she kept whispering rapidly to herself:
“I am a wretch, wretch, wretch, wretch!”
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Let's Analyse the Pattern
When normal requests for connection fail, people escalate to increasingly destructive behavior to guarantee a response.
Why This Matters
Connect literature to life
This chapter teaches how to recognize when disturbing behavior is actually a desperate attempt to feel seen and heard.
Practice This Today
This week, notice when someone in your life escalates from normal complaints to dramatic confessions—respond to their underlying need for connection before they reach crisis mode.
Now let's explore the literary elements.
Key Quotes & Analysis
"I want to do evil and I want to burn everything up."
Context: When confessing her violent fantasies to Alyosha
This reveals how depression and trauma can manifest as destructive urges. Lise isn't truly evil - she's in so much pain that destruction feels like the only way to make the world match how she feels inside.
In Today's Words:
I'm hurting so bad I want to burn it all down.
"You are not fit to be a husband. If I were to marry you and give you a note to take to the man I loved after you, you'd take it and be sure to give it to him."
Context: Explaining why she rejected Alyosha's marriage proposal
She's testing his loyalty while rejecting him, creating a no-win situation. This shows how trauma makes people push away what they need most, expecting to be abandoned anyway.
In Today's Words:
You're too good for me and that's exactly why I can't be with you.
"I am a wretch! I am a wretch!"
Context: After deliberately slamming her finger in the door
Physical pain becomes a way to express emotional pain she can't otherwise communicate. The self-harm is both punishment and a desperate attempt to make her inner suffering visible.
In Today's Words:
I hate myself and I need everyone to know how much I'm hurting.
Thematic Threads
Isolation
In This Chapter
Lise's deterioration stems from feeling completely alone with disturbing thoughts, having no one who takes her seriously
Development
Builds on earlier themes of characters struggling with spiritual and emotional isolation
In Your Life:
You might recognize this when you feel like no one truly listens until you're in crisis mode
Self-destruction
In This Chapter
Lise deliberately injures herself after Alyosha leaves, choosing familiar pain over uncertain healing
Development
Connects to the broader pattern of characters choosing suffering they understand over growth they can't control
In Your Life:
You might see this when you sabotage good relationships because dysfunction feels more familiar
Connection
In This Chapter
Despite pushing Alyosha away, Lise desperately wants him to save her and secretly gives him a letter for Ivan
Development
Reinforces the novel's central theme that human connection is both desperately needed and terrifyingly vulnerable
In Your Life:
You might recognize this push-pull dynamic when you want help but fear being truly seen
Judgment
In This Chapter
Lise shares her darkest thoughts with Alyosha because he listens without condemning, unlike others who laugh at her
Development
Continues exploring how non-judgmental presence can be healing while judgment drives people deeper into darkness
In Your Life:
You might notice how differently you behave around people who listen versus those who immediately judge or dismiss
Power
In This Chapter
Lise's violent fantasies give her a sense of control when she feels powerless in her actual life
Development
Builds on themes of how powerlessness can manifest in destructive ways throughout the novel
In Your Life:
You might see this when feeling powerless leads to fantasies of control or revenge in your own mind
You now have the context. Time to form your own thoughts.
Discussion Questions
- 1
What specific behaviors does Lise confess to Alyosha, and how does she react when he doesn't judge her?
analysis • surface - 2
Why does Lise share increasingly shocking thoughts with Alyosha, and what happens when she feels he might leave?
analysis • medium - 3
Where do you see people today using crisis or drama to get attention when normal requests are ignored?
application • medium - 4
How would you respond to someone who shares disturbing thoughts with you - both setting boundaries and showing you care?
application • deep - 5
What does Lise's behavior teach us about the difference between wanting to be bad and wanting to be seen?
reflection • deep
Critical Thinking Exercise
Track the Escalation Pattern
Think of someone in your life who seems to create drama or crisis to get attention. Map their pattern: What do they try first? What happens when that doesn't work? How do they escalate? What finally gets people to respond? Then consider: what might they actually need underneath all the drama?
Consider:
- •Look for the unmet need behind the dramatic behavior
- •Notice how others respond to mild requests versus crisis situations
- •Consider how you might give attention before the crisis hits
Journaling Prompt
Write about a time when you had to escalate your own behavior to get someone to take you seriously. What were you really asking for? How might you ask for it more directly next time?
Coming Up Next...
Chapter 73: A Hymn and a Secret
As Alyosha carries Lise's mysterious letter to Ivan, he's about to witness a revelation that will shake the very foundations of faith and morality. What secret has Ivan been harboring, and how will it change everything Alyosha believes about good and evil?
