Page 126 - the-brothers-karamazov

not? Answer.’
‘I have,’ answered Alyosha in a low voice. Even Rakitin
was taken aback.
‘What? Have you really?’ he cried.
‘I... I’ve not exactly thought it,’ muttered Alyosha, ‘but
directly you began speaking so strangely, I fancied I had
thought of it myself.’
‘You see? (And how well you expressed it!) Looking at
your father and your brother Mitya to-day you thought of a
crime. Then I’m not mistaken?’
‘But wait, wait a minute,’ Alyosha broke in uneasily,
‘What has led you to see all this? Why does it interest you?
That’s the first question.’
‘Two questions, disconnected, but natural. I’ll deal with
them separately. What led me to see it? I shouldn’t have seen
it, if I hadn’t suddenly understood your brother Dmitri,
seen right into the very heart of him all at once. I caught the
whole man from one trait. These very honest but passionate
people have a line which mustn’t be crossed. If it were, he’d
run at your father with a knife. But your father’s a drunken
and abandoned old sinner, who can never draw the line —
if they both themselves go, they’ll both come to grief.’
‘No, Misha, no. If that’s all, you’ve reassured me. It won’t
come to that.’
‘But why are you trembling? Let me tell you; he may be
honest, our Mitya (he is stupid, but honest), but he’s — a
sensualist. That’s the very definition and inner essence of
him. It’s your father has handed him on his low sensuality.
Do you know, I simply wonder at you, Alyosha, how you

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