just as fine as yesterday, it
seemed a wretched little place this time. There was a circle on the table,
left no doubt from the glass of brandy having been spilt the day before.
Foolish and irrelevant ideas strayed about his mind, as they always do in
a time of tedious waiting. He wondered, for instance, why he had sat down
precisely in the same place as before, why not in the other seat. At last
he felt very depressed--depressed by suspense and uncertainty. But he had
not sat there more than a quarter of an hour, when he suddenly heard the
thrum of a guitar somewhere quite close. People were sitting, or had only
just sat down, somewhere in the bushes not more than twenty paces away.
Alyosha suddenly recollected that on coming out of the summer-house the
day before, he had caught a glimpse of an old green low garden-seat among
the bushes on the left, by the fence. The people must be sitting on it
now. Who were they?

A man's voice suddenly began singing in a sugary falsetto, accompanying
himself on the guitar:

With invincible force
I am bound to my dear.
O Lord, have mercy
On her and on me!
On her and on me!
On her and on me!

The voice ceased. It was a lackey's tenor and a lackey's song. Another
voice, a woman's, suddenly asked insinuatingly and bashfully, though with
mincing affectation:

"Why haven't you been to see us for so long, Pavel Fyodorovitch? Why do
you always look down upon us?"

"Not at all," answered a man's voice politely, but with emphatic dignity.
It was clear that the man had the best of the position, and that the woman
was making advances. "I believe the man must be Smerdyakov," thought
Alyosha, "from his voice. And the lady must be the daughter of the house
here, who has come from Moscow, the one who wears the dress with a tail
and goes to Marfa for soup."

"I am awfully fond of verses of all kinds, if they rhyme," the woman's
voice continued. "Why don't you go on?"

The man sang again:

What do I care for royal wealth
If but my dear one be in health?
Lord have mercy
On her and on me!
On her and on me!
On her and on me!

"It was even better last time," observed the woman's voice. "You sang 'If
my darling be in health'; it sounded more tender. I suppose you've
forgotten to-day."

"Poetry is rubbish!" said Smerdyakov curtly.

"Oh, no! I am very fond of poetry."

"So far as it's poetry, it's essential rubbish. Consider your