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I beg you most earnestly, Kartashov, not to interrupt again with your idiotic remarks, especially when one is not talking to you and doesnt care to know whether you exist or not! Kolya snapped out irritably. The boy flushed crimson but did not dare to reply. Meantime they were strolling slowly along the path and suddenly Smurov exclaimed: Theres Ilushas stone, under which they wanted to bury him. They all stood still by the big stone. Alyosha looked and the whole picture of what Snegiryov had described to him that day, how Ilusha, weeping and hugging his father, had cried, Father, father, how he insulted you, rose at once before his imagination. A sudden impulse seemed to come into his soul. With a serious and earnest expression he looked from one to another of the bright, pleasant faces of Ilushas school- fellows, and suddenly said to them: Boys, I should like to say one word to you, here at this place. The boys stood round him and at once bent attentive and expectant eyes upon him. Boys, we shall soon part. I shall be for some time with my two brothers, of whom one is going to Siberia and the other is lying at deaths door. But soon I shall leave this town, perhaps for a long time, so we shall part. Let us make a compact, here, at Ilushas stone that we will never forget Ilusha and one another. And whatever happens to us later in life, if we dont meet for twenty years afterwards, let us always remember how we buried the poor boy at whom we once threw stones, do you remember, by the bridge? and afterwards we all grew so fond of him. He was a fine boy, a kind-hearted, brave boy, he felt for his fathers honour and resented the cruel insult to him and stood up for him. And so in the first place, we will remember him, boys, all our lives. And even if we are occupied with most important things, if we attain to honour or fall into great misfortunestill let us remember how good it was once here, when we were all together, united by a good and kind feeling which made us, for the time we were loving that poor boy, better perhaps than we are. My little doveslet me call you so, for you are very like them, those pretty blue birds, at this minute as I look at your good dear faces. My dear children, perhaps you wont understand what I am saying to you, because I often speak very unintelligibly, but youll remember it all the same and will agree with my words sometime. You must know that there is nothing higher and stronger and more wholesome and good for life in the future than some good memory, especially a memory of childhood, of home. People talk to you a great deal about your education, but some good, sacred memory, preserved from childhood, is perhaps the best education. If a man carries many such memories with him into life, he is safe to the end of his days, and if one has only one good memory left in ones heart, even that may sometime be the means of saving us. Perhaps we may even grow wicked later on, may be unable to refrain from a bad action, may laugh at mens tears and at those people who say as Kolya did just now, I want to suffer for all men, and may even jeer spitefully at such people. But however bad we may becomewhich God forbidyet, 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 usif we do become sowill not dare to laugh inwardly at having been kind and good at this moment! Whats 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, thats no matter, a man often laughs at whats good and kind. Thats 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 thats 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 theres 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 Ill never forget one of you. Every face looking |
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