The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoyevsky (reading an ebook TXT) 📗
- Author: Fyodor Dostoyevsky
- Performer: 0140449248
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God forbid-yet, when we recall how we buried Ilusha, how we loved him
in his last days, and how we have been talking like friends all
together, at this stone, the cruellest and most mocking of us-if we
do become so will not dare to laugh inwardly at having been kind and
good at this moment! What’s more, perhaps, that one memory may keep
him from great evil and he will reflect and say, ‘Yes, I was good
and brave and honest then!’ Let him laugh to himself, that’s no
matter, a man often laughs at what’s good and kind. That’s only from
thoughtlessness. But I assure you, boys, that as he laughs he will say
at once in his heart, ‘No, I do wrong to laugh, for that’s not a thing
to laugh at.’
“That will be so, I understand you, Karamazov!” cried Kolya,
with flashing eyes.
The boys were excited and they, too, wanted to say something,
but they restrained themselves, looking with intentness and emotion at
the speaker.
“I say this in case we become bad,” Alyosha went on, “but
there’s no reason why we should become bad, is there, boys? Let us be,
first and above all, kind, then honest and then let us never forget
each other! I say that again. I give you my word for my part that I’ll
never forget one of you. Every face looking at me now I shall remember
even for thirty years. Just now Kolya said to Kartashov that we did
not care to know whether he exists or not. But I cannot forget that
Kartashov exists and that he is not blushing now as he did when he
discovered the founders of Troy, but is looking at me with his
jolly, kind, dear little eyes. Boys, my dear boys, let us all be
generous and brave like Ilusha, clever, brave and generous like
Kolya (though he will be ever so much cleverer when he is grown up),
and let us all be as modest, as clever and sweet as Kartashov. But why
am I talking about those two? You are all dear to me, boys; from
this day forth, I have a place in my heart for you all, and I beg
you to keep a place in your hearts for me! Well, and who has united us
in this kind, good feeling which we shall remember and intend to
remember all our lives? Who, if not Ilusha, the good boy, the dear
boy, precious to us for ever! Let us never forget him. May his
memory live for ever in our hearts from this time forth!”
“Yes, yes, for ever, for ever!” the boys cried in their ringing
voices, with softened faces.
“Let us remember his face and his clothes and his poor little
boots, his coffin and his unhappy, sinful father, and how boldly he
stood up for him alone against the whole school.”
“We will remember, we will remember,” cried the boys. “He was
brave, he was good!”
“Ah, how I loved him!” exclaimed Kolya.
“Ah, children, ah, dear friends, don’t be afraid of life! How good
life is when one does something good and just!”
“Yes, yes,” the boys repeated enthusiastically.
“Karamazov, we love you!” a voice, probably Kartashov’s, cried
impulsively.
“We love you, we love you!” they all caught it up. There were
tears in the eyes of many of them.
“Hurrah for Karamazov!” Kolya shouted ecstatically.
“And may the dead boy’s memory live for ever!” Alyosha added again
with feeling.
“For ever!” the boys chimed in again.
“Karamazov,” cried Kolya, “can it be true what’s taught us in
religion, that we shall all rise again from the dead and shall live
and see each other again, all, Ilusha too?”
“Certainly we shall all rise again, certainly we shall see each
other and shall tell each other with joy and gladness all that has
happened!” Alyosha answered, half laughing, half enthusiastic.
“Ah, how splendid it will be!” broke from Kolya.
“Well, now we will finish talking and go to his funeral dinner.
Don’t be put out at our eating pancakes-it’s a very old custom and
there’s something nice in that!” laughed Alyosha. “Well, let us go!
And now we go hand in hand.”
“And always so, all our lives hand in hand! Hurrah for Karamazov!”
Kolya cried once more rapturously, and once more the boys took up
his exclamation:
“Hurrah for Karamazov!”
THE END
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