Ah, what a charming little foot,

But what a swelling has come to ‘t!

Tho’ doctors visit, bringing balm,

They only seem to do it harm.^[296]

I do not long for little feet—Let Pushkin sing them if he please: My longing’s for a head that’s sweet But does not comprehend ideas.

It used to comprehend a bit;

The little foot’s distracted it! Oh, little foot, if you’d but mend, The little head might comprehend.’

“A swine, a pure swine, but he’s written it playfully, the scoundrel! And he really did stick in his ‘civic’ idea. And how mad he was when he got turned out. He was gnashing!” “He’s already had his revenge,” said Alyosha. “He wrote an article about Madame Khokhlakov.”

And Alyosha told him hastily about the article in the newspaper Rumors.

“That’s him, him!” Mitya confirmed, frowning. “It’s him! These articles ... how well I know ... I mean, so many base things have already been written, about Grusha, for instance . . .! And about the other one, about Katya .. . Hm!”

He walked worriedly around the room.

“Brother, I can’t stay with you long,” Alyosha said, after a pause. “Tomorrow will be a terrible, great day for you: divine judgment will be passed on you ... and so it surprises me that you’re walking around, talking about God knows what instead of anything that matters ...”

“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.

“You see, before I didn’t have any of these doubts, but they were all hiding in me. Maybe I was drinking and fighting and raging, just because unknown ideas were storming inside me. I was fighting to quell them within me, to tame them, to subdue them. Brother Ivan is not Rakitin, he hides his idea. Brother Ivan is a sphinx; he’s silent, silent all the time. And I’m tormented by God. Tormented only by that. What if he doesn’t exist? What if Rakitin is right, that it’s an artificial idea of mankind? So then, if he doesn’t exist, man is chief of the earth, of the universe. Splendid! Only how is he going to be virtuous without God? A good question! I keep thinking about it. Because whom will he love then—man, I mean? To whom will he be thankful, to whom will he sing the hymn? Rakitin laughs. Rakitin says it’s possible to love mankind even without God. Well, only a snotty little shrimp can affirm such a thing, but I can’t understand it. Life is simple for Rakitin: ‘You’d do better to worry about extending man’s civil rights,’ he told me today, ‘or at least about not letting the price of beef go up; you’d render your love for mankind more simply and directly that way than with any philosophies.’ But I came back at him: ‘And without God,’ I said, ‘you’ll hike up the price of beef yourself, if the chance comes your way, and make a rouble on every kopeck.’ He got angry. Because what is virtue?—answer me that, Alexei. I have one virtue and a Chinese has another—so it’s a relative thing. Or not? Not relative? Insidious question! You mustn’t laugh if I tell you that I didn’t sleep for two nights because of it. I just keep wondering now how people can live and think nothing about these things. Vanity! Ivan does not have God. He has his idea. Not on my scale. But he’s silent. I think he’s a freemason. I asked him—he’s silent. I hoped to drink from the waters of his source—he’s silent. Only once did he say something. “

“What did he say?” Alyosha picked up hastily.

“I said to him: ‘Then everything is permitted, in that case?’ He frowned: ‘Fyodor Pavlovich, our papa, was a little pig,’ he said, ‘but his thinking was right.’ That’s what he came back with. That’s all he ever said. It’s even neater than Rakitin.”

“Yes,” Alyosha bitterly confirmed. “When was he here?”

“That can wait, there’s something else now. I’ve said almost nothing to you about Ivan so far. I’ve been putting it off till last. When this thing is over with me here, and they give me my sentence, then I’ll tell you certain things, I’ll tell you everything. There’s one terrible matter here ... And you’ll be my judge in this matter. But for now don’t even get into it, for now—hush. You were talking about tomorrow, about the trial, but, would you believe it, I don’t know a thing.”