The Brothers Karamazov
to the same God.’
Those words seemed strange to us, and mother would go
to her room and weep, but when she went in to him she
wiped her eyes and looked cheerful. ‘Mother, don’t weep,
darling,’ he would say, ‘I’ve long to live yet, long to rejoice
with you, and life is glad and joyful.’
‘Ah, dear boy, how can you talk of joy when you lie fever-
ish at night, coughing as though you would tear yourself to
pieces.’
‘Don’t cry, mother,’ he would answer, ‘life is paradise,
and we are all in paradise, but we won’t see it; if we would,
we should have heaven on earth the next day.’
Everyone wondered at his words, he spoke so strangely
and positively; we were all touched and wept. Friends came
to see us. ‘Dear ones,’ he would say to them, ‘what have I
done that you should love me so, how can you love anyone
like me, and how was it I did not know, I did not appreci-
ate it before?’
When the servants came in to him he would say continu-
ally, ‘Dear, kind people, why are you doing so much for me,
do I deserve to be waited on? If it were God’s will for me to
live, I would wait on you, for all men should wait on one
another.’
Mother shook her head as she listened. ‘My darling, it’s
your illness makes you talk like that.’
‘Mother darling,’ he would say, ‘there must be servants
and masters, but if so I will be the servant of my servants,
the same as they are to me. And another thing, mother, ev-
ery one of us has sinned against all men, and I more than