Page 995 - the-brothers-karamazov

‘No, don’t be amazed at me,’ Mitya broke in warmly. ‘Am
I to talk of that stinking dog? Of the murderer? We’ve talk-
ed enough of him. I don’t want to say more of the stinking
son of Stinking Lizaveta! God will kill him, you will see.
Hush!’
He went up to Alyosha excitedly and kissed him. His
eyes glowed.
‘Rakitin wouldn’t understand it,’ he began in a sort of ex-
altation; ‘but you, you’ll understand it all. That’s why I was
thirsting for you. You see, there’s so much I’ve been want-
ing to tell you for ever so long, here, within these peeling
walls, but I haven’t said a word about what matters most;
the moment never seems to have come. Now I can wait no
longer. I must pour out my heart to you. Brother, these last
two months I’ve found in myself a new man. A new man
has risen up in me. He was hidden in me, but would never
have come to the surface, if it hadn’t been for this blow from
heaven. I am afraid! And what do I care if I spend twenty
years in the mines, breaking ore with a hammer? I am not
a bit afraid of that — it’s something else I am afraid of now:
that that new man may leave me. Even there, in the mines,
underground, I may find a human heart in another con-
vict and murderer by my side, and I may make friends with
him, for even there one may live and love and suffer. One
may thaw and revive a frozen heart in that convict, one may
wait upon him for years, and at last bring up from the dark
depths a lofty soul, a feeling, suffering creature; one may
bring forth an angel, create a hero! There are so many of
them, hundreds of them, and we are all to blame for them.

The Brothers Karamazov