The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky [children's books read aloud TXT] 📗

people. But however bad we may become-which

God forbid-yet, when we recall how we buried Ilusha, how we loved him

in his last days, and how we have been talking like friends all

together, at this stone, the cruellest and most mocking of us-if we

do become so will not dare to laugh inwardly at having been kind and

good at this moment! What’s more, perhaps, that one memory may keep

him from great evil and he will reflect and say, ‘Yes, I was good

and brave and honest then!’ Let him laugh to himself, that’s no

matter, a man often laughs at what’s good and kind. That’s only from

thoughtlessness. But I assure you, boys, that as he laughs he will say

at once in his heart, ‘No, I do wrong to laugh, for that’s not a thing

to laugh at.’

 

“That will be so, I understand you, Karamazov!” cried Kolya,

with flashing eyes.

 

The boys were excited and they, too, wanted to say something,

but they restrained themselves, looking with intentness and emotion at

the speaker.

 

“I say this in case we become bad,” Alyosha went on, “but

there’s no reason why we should become bad, is there, boys? Let us be,

first and above all, kind, then honest and then let us never forget

each other! I say that again. I give you my word for my part that I’ll

never forget one of you. Every face looking at me now I shall remember

even for thirty years. Just now Kolya said to Kartashov that we did

not care to know whether he exists or not. But I cannot forget that

Kartashov exists and that he is not blushing now as he did when he

discovered the founders of Troy, but is looking at me with his

jolly, kind, dear little eyes. Boys, my dear boys, let us all be

generous and brave like Ilusha, clever, brave and generous like

Kolya (though he will be ever so much cleverer when he is grown up),

and let us all be as modest, as clever and sweet as Kartashov. But why

am I talking about those two? You are all dear to me, boys; from

this day forth, I have a place in my heart for you all, and I beg

you to keep a place in your hearts for me! Well, and who has united us

in this kind, good feeling which we shall remember and intend to

remember all our lives? Who, if not Ilusha, the good boy, the dear

boy, precious to us for ever! Let us never forget him. May his

memory live for ever in our hearts from this time forth!”

 

“Yes, yes, for ever, for ever!” the boys cried in their ringing

voices, with softened faces.

 

“Let us remember his face and his clothes and his poor little

boots, his coffin and his unhappy, sinful father, and how boldly he

stood up for him alone against the whole school.”

 

“We will remember, we will remember,” cried the boys. “He was

brave, he was good!”

 

“Ah, how I loved him!” exclaimed Kolya.

 

“Ah, children, ah, dear friends, don’t be afraid of life! How good

life is when one does something good and just!”

 

“Yes, yes,” the boys repeated enthusiastically.

 

“Karamazov, we love you!” a voice, probably Kartashov’s, cried

impulsively.

 

“We love you, we love you!” they all caught it up. There were

tears in the eyes of many of them.

 

“Hurrah for Karamazov!” Kolya shouted ecstatically.

 

“And may the dead boy’s memory live for ever!” Alyosha added again

with feeling.

 

“For ever!” the boys chimed in again.

 

“Karamazov,” cried Kolya, “can it be true what’s taught us in

religion, that we shall all rise again from the dead and shall live

and see each other again, all, Ilusha too?”

 

“Certainly we shall all rise again, certainly we shall see each

other and shall tell each other with joy and gladness all that has

happened!” Alyosha answered, half laughing, half enthusiastic.

 

“Ah, how splendid it will be!” broke from Kolya.

 

“Well, now we will finish talking and go to his funeral dinner.

Don’t be put out at our eating pancakes-it’s a very old custom and

there’s something nice in that!” laughed Alyosha. “Well, let us go!

And now we go hand in hand.”

 

“And always so, all our lives hand in hand! Hurrah for Karamazov!”

Kolya cried once more rapturously, and once more the boys took up

his exclamation:

 

“Hurrah for Karamazov!”

 

THE END