A captivating little foot,
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Though swollen and red and tender! The doctors come and plasters put, But still they cannot mend her.
Yet, ’tis not for her foot I dread-
A theme for Pushkin’s muse more fit-It’s not her foot, it is her head:
I tremble for her loss of wit!
For as her foot swells, strange to say, Her intellect is on the wane-
Oh, for some remedy I pray
That may restore both foot and brain!
He is a pig, a regular pig, but he’s very arch, the rascal! And he really has put in a pro-gressive idea. And wasn’t he angry when she kicked him out! He was gnashing his teeth!»
«He’s taken his revenge already,» said Alyosha. «He’s written a paragraph about Madame Hohlakov.»
And Alyosha told him briefly about the paragraph in Gossip.
«That’s his doing, that’s his doing!» Mitya assented, frowning. «That’s him! These para-graphs… I know… the insulting things that have been written about Grushenka, for instance…. And about Katya, too…. H’m!
He walked across the room with a harassed air.
«Brother, I cannot stay long,» Alyosha said, after a pause. «To-morrow will be a great and awful day for you, the judgment of God will be accomplished… I am amazed at you, you walk about here, talking of I don’t know what…»
«No, don’t be amazed at me,» Mitya broke in warmly. «Am I to talk of that stinking dog? Of the murderer? We’ve talked enough of him. I don’t want to say more of the stinking son of Stinking Lizaveta! God will kill him, you will see. Hush!»
He went up to Alyosha excitedly and kissed him. His eyes glowed.
«Rakitin wouldn’t understand it,» he began in a sort of exaltation; «but you, you’ll under-stand it all. That’s why I was thirsting for you. You see, there’s so much I’ve been wanting to tell you for ever so long, here, within these peeling walls, but I haven’t said a word about what matters most; the moment never seems to have come. Now I can wait no longer. I must pour out my heart to you. Brother, these last two months I’ve found in myself a new man. A new man has risen up in me. He was hidden in me, but would never have come to the surface, if it hadn’t been for this blow from heaven. I am afraid! And what do I care if I spend twenty years in the mines, breaking ore with a hammer? I am not a bit afraid of that-it’s something else I am afraid of now: that that new man may leave me. Even there, in the mines, underground, I may find a human heart in another convict and murderer by my side, and I may make friends with him, for even there one may live and love and suffer. One
522 book page, Chapter 4 — A Hymn and a Secret
may thaw and revive a frozen heart in that convict, one may wait upon him for years, and at last bring up from the dark depths a lofty soul, a feeling, suffering creature; one may bring forth an angel, create a hero! There are so many of them, hundreds of them, and we are all to blame for them. Why was it I dreamed of that ‘babe’ at such a moment? ‘Why is the babe so poor?’ That was a sign to me at that moment. It’s for the babe I’m going. Because we are all responsible for all. For all the ‘babes,’ for there are big children as well as little children All are ‘babes.’ I go for all, because someone must go for all. I didn’t kill father, but I’ve got to go. I accept it. It’s all come to me here, here, within these peeling walls. There are numbers of them there, hundreds of them underground, with hammers in their hands. Oh, yes, we shall be in chains and there will be no freedom, but then, in our great sorrow, we shall rise again to joy, without which man cannot live nor God exist, for God gives joy: it’s His priv-ilege- a grand one. Ah, man should be dissolved in prayer! What should I be underground there without God? Rakitin’s laughing! If they drive God from the earth, we shall shelter Him underground. One cannot exist in prison without God; it’s even more impossible than out of prison. And then we men underground will sing from the bowels of the earth a glor-ious hymn to God, with Whom is joy. Hail to God and His joy! I love Him!»
Mitya was almost gasping for breath as he uttered his wild speech. He turned pale, his lips quivered, and tears rolled down his cheeks.
«Yes, life is full, there is life even underground,» he began again. «You wouldn’t believe, Alexey, how I want to live now, what a thirst for existence and consciousness has sprung up in me within these peeling walls. Rakitin doesn’t understand that; all he cares about is building a house and letting flats. But I’ve been longing for you. And what is suffering? I am not afraid of it, even if it were beyond reckoning. I am not afraid of it now. I was afraid of it before. Do you know, perhaps I won’t answer at the trial at all…. And I seem to have such strength in me now, that I think I could stand anything, any suffering, only to be able to say and to repeat to myself every moment, ‘I exist.’ In thousands of agonies- I exist. I’m tormented on the rack- but I exist! Though I sit alone on a pillar- I exist! I see the sun, and if I don’t see the sun, I know it’s there. And there’s a whole life in that, in knowing that the sun is there. Alyosha, my angel, all these philosophies are the death of me. Damn them! Brother Ivan-«
«What of brother Ivan?» interrupted Alyosha, but Mitya did not hear.
«You see, I never had any of these doubts before, but it was all hidden away in me. It was perhaps just because ideas I did not understand were surging up in me, that I used to drink and fight and rage. It was to stifle them in myself, to still them, to smother them. Ivan is not Rakitin, there is an idea in him. Ivan is a sphinx and is silent; he is always silent. It’s God that’s worrying me. That’s the only thing that’s worrying me. What if He doesn’t exist? What if Rakitin’s right- that it’s an idea made up by men? Then if He doesn’t exist, man is the chief of the earth, of the universe. Magnificent! Only how is he going to be good without
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God? That’s the question. I always come back to that. For whom is man going to love then? To whom will he be thankful? To whom will he sing the hymn? Rakitin laughs. Rakitin says that one can love humanity without God. Well, only a snivelling idiot can maintain that. I can’t understand it. Life’s easy for Rakitin. ‘You’d better think about the extension of civic rights, or even of keeping down the price of meat. You will show your love for humanity more simply and directly by that, than by philosophy.’ I answered him, ‘Well, but you, without a God, are more likely to raise the price of meat, if it suits you, and make a rouble on every copeck.’ He lost his temper. But after all, what is goodness? Answer me that, Alexey. Goodness is one thing with me and another with a Chinaman, so it’s a relative thing. Or isn’t it? Is it not relative? A treacherous question! You won’t laugh if I tell you it’s kept me awake two nights. I only wonder now how people can live and think nothing about it. Vanity! Ivan has no God. He has an idea. It’s beyond me. But he is silent. I believe he is a Freemason. I asked him, but he is silent. I wanted to drink from the springs of his soul- he was silent. But once he did drop a word.»
«What did he say?» Alyosha took it up quickly.
«I said to him, ‘Then everything is lawful, if it is so?’ He frowned. ‘Fyodor Pavlovitch, our papa,’ he said, ‘was a pig, but his ideas were right enough.’ That was what he dropped. That was all he said. That was going one better than Rakitin.»
«Yes,» Alyosha assented bitterly. «When was he with you?»
«Of that later; now I must speak of something else. I have said nothing about Ivan to you before. I put it off to
