Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com 1him, she scarcely doubts of his recovery,’ said Alyosha.
‘That means that she is convinced he will die. It’s because
she is frightened she’s so sure he will get well.’
‘Ivan has a strong constitution, and I, too, believe there’s
every hope that he will get well,’ Alyosha observed anxious-
ly.
‘Yes, he will get well. But she is convinced that he will die.
She has a great deal of sorrow to bear...’ A silence followed.
A grave anxiety was fretting Mitya.
‘Alyosha, I love Grusha terribly,’ he said suddenly in a
shaking voice, full of tears.
‘They won’t let her go out there to you,’ Alyosha put in
at once.
‘And there is something else I wanted tell you,’ Mitya
went on, with a sudden ring in his voice. ‘If they beat me on
the way or out there, I won’t submit to it. I shall kill some-
one, and shall be shot for it. And this will be going on for
twenty years! They speak to me rudely as it is. I’ve been lying
here all night, passing judgment on myself. I am not ready! I
am not able to resign myself. I wanted to sing a ‘hymn’; but
if a guard speaks rudely to me, I have not the strength to
bear it. For Grusha I would bear anything... anything ex-
cept blows.... But she won’t be allowed to come there.’
Alyosha smiled gently.
‘Listen, brother, once for all,’ he said. ‘This is what I
think about it. And you know that I would not tell you a
lie. Listen: you are not ready, and such a cross is not for you.
What’s more, you don’t need such a martyr’s cross when
you are not ready for it. If you had murdered our father, it