Chapter 3 A Little Demon

Alyosha visits Lise and is startled by her physical decline and hostile, feverish intensity. Lise declares she is glad she refused him, mocks his readiness to serve, and confesses a desire for disorder and even arson. She argues wealth would only heighten her cruelty and toys with the idea of marriage as domination.

Pressing further, Lise claims people secretly love evil, citing Dmitri’s patricide case as perversely beloved by all. She describes recurring dreams of devils that advance and retreat with her blasphemies, which Alyosha unexpectedly shares, unsettling her. She begs Alyosha to visit often, saying he is the only one she can speak to without shame.

Lise then recounts reading about ritual cruelty, perversely pairing it with her craving for pineapple compote, and admits she summoned “a certain person” (Ivan) and told him so; he laughed and left. Alyosha judges that Ivan believes in such perversity yet distrusts people, thus despising them. Lise lurches between exulting in being despised and pleading for salvation, confessing self-loathing and despair.

Suddenly she thrusts a sealed note to Alyosha addressed to Ivan, commanding immediate delivery on threat of poisoning herself, then bolts the door. After Alyosha leaves, Lise deliberately crushes her finger in the door, watches the blood, and repeatedly calls herself a wretch, while Alyosha, shaken, heads on toward Dmitri at the prison.