Page 979 - the-brothers-karamazov

‘No.’
‘You are awfully cross, because I don’t talk about holy
things. I don’t want to be holy. What will they do to one
in the next world for the greatest sin? You must know all
about that.’
‘God will censure you.’ Alyosha was watching her steadi-
ly.
‘That’s just what I should like. I would go up and they
would censure me, and I would burst out laughing in their
faces. I should dreadfully like to set fire to the house, Alyo-
sha, to our house; you still don’t believe me?’
‘Why? There are children of twelve years old, who have
a longing to set fire to something and they do set things on
fire, too. It’s a sort of disease.’
‘That’s not true, that’s not true; there may be children,
but that’s not what I mean.’
‘You take evil for good; it’s a passing crisis; it’s the result
of your illness, perhaps.’
‘You do despise me, though! It’s simply that I don’t want
to do good, I want to do evil, and it has nothing to do with
illness.’
‘Why do evil?’
‘So that everything might be destroyed. Ah, how nice it
would be if everything were destroyed! You know, Alyo-
sha, I sometimes think of doing a fearful lot of harm and
everything bad, and I should do it for a long while on the
sly and suddenly everyone would find it out. Everyone will
stand round and point their fingers at me and I would look
at them all. That would be awfully nice. Why would it be so

The Brothers Karamazov