Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com 110 anyone to know of it?’
‘He told me,’ said Ivan firmly, refusing to admit a doubt.
‘It was all he did talk about, if you come to that. ‘And it would
be all right if you believed in virtue,’ he said. ‘No matter if
they disbelieve you, you are going for the sake of principle.
But you are a little pig like Fyodor Pavlovitch, and what do
you want with virtue? Why do you want to go meddling
if your sacrifice is of no use to anyone? Because you don’t
know yourself why you go! Oh, you’d give a great deal to
know yourself why you go! And can you have made up your
mind? You’ve not made up your mind. You’ll sit all night
deliberating whether to go or not. But you will go; you know
you’ll go. You know that whichever way you decide, the de-
cision does not depend on you. You’ll go because you won’t
dare not to go. Why won’t you dare? You must guess that for
yourself. That’s a riddle for you!’ He got up and went away.
You came and he went. He called me a coward, Alyosha!
Le mot de l’enigme is that I am a coward. ‘It is not for such
eagles to soar above the earth.’It was he added that — he!
And Smerdyakov said the same. He must be killed! Katya
despises me. I’ve seen that for a month past. Even Lise will
begin to despise me! ‘You are going in order to be praised.’
That’s a brutal lie! And you despise me too, Alyosha. Now I
am going to hate you again! And I hate the monster, too! I
hate the monster! I don’t want to save the monster. Let him
rot in Siberia! He’s begun singing a hymn! Oh, to-morrow
I’ll go, stand before them, and spit in their faces!’
He jumped up in a frenzy, flung off the towel, and fell
to pacing up and down the room again. Alyosha recalled