The Brothers Karamazovwarm it.’
‘But why is it? Why?’ foolish Mitya still persisted.
‘Why, they’re poor people, burnt out. They’ve no bread.
They’re begging because they’ve been burnt out.’
‘No, no,’ Mitya, as it were, still did not understand. ‘Tell
me why it is those poor mothers stand there? Why are peo-
ple poor? Why is the babe poor? Why is the steppe barren?
Why don’t they hug each other and kiss? Why don’t they
sing songs of joy? Why are they so dark from black misery?
Why don’t they feed the babe?’
And he felt that, though his questions were unreasonable
and senseless, yet he wanted to ask just that, and he had to
ask it just in that way. And he felt that a passion of pity, such
as he had never known before, was rising in his heart, that
he wanted to cry, that he wanted to do something for them
all, so that the babe should weep no more, so that the dark-
faced, dried-up mother should not weep, that no one should
shed tears again from that moment, and he wanted to do it
at once, at once, regardless of all obstacles, with all the reck-
lessness of the Karamazovs.
‘And I’m coming with you. I won’t leave you now for the
rest of my life, I’m coming with you’, he heard close beside
him Grushenka’s tender voice, thrilling with emotion. And
his heart glowed, and he struggled forward towards the light,
and he longed to live, to live, to go on and on, towards the
new, beckoning light, and to hasten, hasten, now, at once!
‘What! Where?’ he exclaimed opening his eyes, and sitting
up on the chest, as though he had revived from a swoon,
smiling brightly. Nikolay Parfenovitch was standing over