Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com 1‘Will you preach this in your reviews?’ I asked him. ‘Oh,
well, if I did it openly, they won’t let it through, ‘he said.
He laughed. ‘But what will become of men then?’ I asked
him, ‘without God and immortal life? All things are law-
ful then, they can do what they like?’ ‘Didn’t you know?’ he
said laughing, ‘a clever man can do what he likes,’ he said. ‘A
clever man knows his way about, but you’ve put your foot in
it, committing a murder, and now you are rotting in prison.’
He says that to my face! A regular pig! I used to kick such
people out, but now I listen to them. He talks a lot of sense,
too. Writes well. He began reading me an article last week. I
copied out three lines of it. Wait a minute. Here it is.’
Mitya hurriedly pulled out a piece of paper from his
pocket and read:
‘In order to determine this question, it is above all essen-
tial to put one’s personality in contradiction to one’s reality.’
Do you understand that?’
‘No, I don’t,’ said Alyosha. He looked at Mitya and lis-
tened to him with curiosity.
‘I don’t understand either. It’s dark and obscure, but in-
tellectual. ‘Everyone writes like that now,’ he says, ‘it’s the
effect of their environment.’ They are afraid of the envi-
ronment. He writes poetry, too, the rascal. He’s written in
honour of Madame Hohlakov’s foot. Ha ha ha!’
‘I’ve heard about it,’ said Alyosha.
‘Have you? And have you heard the poem?’
‘No.’
‘I’ve got it. Here it is. I’ll read it to you. You don’t know
— I haven’t told you — there’s quite a story about it. He’s a