The Brothers Karamazov

“No, don’t be surprised,” Mitya hotly interrupted. “What should I talk about—that stinking dog, or what? About the murderer? We’ve talked enough about that, you and I. No more talk about the stinking son of Stinking Lizaveta! God will kill him, you’ll see. Keep still!”

Excited, he went up to Alyosha and suddenly kissed him. His eyes lit up.

“Rakitin wouldn’t understand this,” he began, all in a sort of rapture, as it were, “but you, you will understand everything. That’s why I’ve been thirsting for you. You see, for a long time I’ve been wanting to say many things to you here, within these peeling walls, but I’ve kept silent about the most important thing: the time didn’t seem to have come yet. I’ve been waiting till this last time to pour out my soul to you. Brother, in these past two months I’ve sensed a new man in me, a new man has arisen in me! He was shut up inside me, but if it weren’t for this thunderbolt, he never would have appeared. Frightening! What do I care if I spend twenty years pounding out iron ore in the mines, I’m not afraid of that at all, but I’m afraid of something else now: that this risen man not depart from me! Even there, in the mines, underground, you can find a human heart in the convict and murderer standing next to you, and you can be close to him, because there, too, it’s possible to live, and love, and suffer! You can revive and resurrect the frozen heart in this convict, you can look after him for years, and finally bring up from the cave into the light a soul that is lofty now, a suffering consciousness, you can revive an angel, resurrect a hero! And there are many of them, there are hundreds, and we’re all guilty for them! Why did I have a dream about a ‘wee one’ at such a moment? ‘Why is the wee one poor?’ It was a prophecy to me at that moment! It’s for the ‘wee one’ that I will go. Because everyone is guilty for everyone else. For all the ‘wee ones,’ because there are little children and big children. All people are ‘wee ones.’ And I’ll go for all of them, because there must be someone who will go for all of them. I didn’t kill father, but I must go. I accept! All of this came to me here ... within these peeling walls. And there are many, there are hundreds of them, underground, with hammers in their hands. Oh, yes, we’ll be in chains, and there will be no freedom, but then, in our great grief, we will arise once more into joy, without which it’s not possible for man to live, or for God to be, for God gives joy, it’s his prerogative, a great one ... Lord, let man dissolve in prayer! How would I be there underground without God? Rakitin’s lying: if God is driven from the earth, we’ll meet him underground! It’s impossible for a convict to be without God, even more impossible than for a non-convict! And then from the depths of the earth, we, the men underground, will start singing a tragic hymn to God, in whom there is joy! Hail to God and his joy! I love him!”

Mitya was almost breathless uttering his wild speech. He grew pale, his lips trembled, tears poured from his eyes.

“No, life is full, there is life underground, too!” he began again. “You wouldn’t believe, Alexei, how I want to live now, what thirst to exist and be conscious has been born in me precisely within these peeling walls! Rakitin doesn’t understand it, all he wants is to build his house and rent out rooms, but I was waiting for you. And besides, what is suffering? I’m not afraid of it, even if it’s numberless. I’m not afraid of it now; I was before. You know, maybe I won’t even give any answers in court ... And it seems to me there’s so much strength in me now that I can overcome everything, all sufferings, only in order to say and tell myself every moment: I am! In a thousand torments—I am; writhing under torture—but I am. Locked up in a tower, but still I exist, I see the sun, and if I don’t see the sun, still I know it is. And the whole of life is there—in knowing that the sun is. Alyosha, my cherub, all these philosophies are killing me, devil take them! Brother Ivan ...”

“What about brother Ivan?” Alyosha tried to interrupt, but Mitya did not hear.