But you are innocent, and such a cross is too much for you.
You wanted to make yourself another man by suffering. I say, only remember that other man always, all your life and wherever you go; and that will be enough for you.
Your refusal of that great cross will only serve to make you feel all your life even greater duty, and that constant feeling will do more to make you a new man, perhaps, than if you went there.
For there you would not endure it and would repine, and perhaps at last would say:
'I am quits.'
The lawyer was right about that.
Such heavy burdens are not for all men. For some they are impossible. These are my thoughts about it, if you want them so much.
If other men would have to answer for your escape, officers or soldiers, then I would not have 'allowed' you," smiled Alyosha. "But they declare- the superintendent of that etape* told Ivan himself- that if it's well managed there will be no great inquiry, and that they can get off easily.
Of course, bribing is dishonest even in such a case, but I can't undertake to judge about it, because if Ivan and Katya commissioned me to act for you, I know I should go and give bribes. I must tell you the truth.
And so I can't judge of your own action.
But let me assure you that I shall never condemn you.
And it would be a strange thing if I could judge you in this.
Now I think I've gone into everything." * Stockade.
"But I do condemn myself!" cried Mitya. "I shall escape, that was settled apart from you; could Mitya Karamazov do anything but run away?
But I shall condemn myself, and I will pray for my sin for ever.
That's how the Jesuits talk, isn't it?
Just as we are doing?"
"Yes." Alyosha smiled gently.
"I love you for always telling the whole truth and never hiding anything," cried Mitya, with a joyful laugh. "So I've caught my Alyosha being Jesuitical.
I must kiss you for that.
Now listen to the rest; I'll open the other side of my heart to you.
This is what I planned and decided. If I run away, even with money and a passport, and even to America, I should be cheered up by the thought that I am not running away for pleasure, not for happiness, but to another exile as bad, perhaps, as Siberia.
It is as bad, Alyosha, it is!
I hate that America, damn it, already.
Even though Grusha will be with me. Just look at her; is she an American?
She is Russian, Russian to the marrow of her bones; she will be homesick for the mother country, and I shall see every hour that she is suffering for my sake, that she has taken up that cross for me. And what harm has she done?
And how shall I, too, put up with the rabble out there, though they may be better than I, every one of them?
I hate that America already!
And though they may be wonderful at machinery, every one of them, damn them, they are not of my soul.
I love Russia, Alyosha, I love the Russian God, though I am a scoundrel myself.
I shall choke there!" he exclaimed, his eyes suddenly flashing.
His voice was trembling with tears.
"So this is what I've decided, Alyosha, listen," he began again, mastering his emotion. "As soon as I arrive there with Grusha, we will set to work at once on the land, in solitude, somewhere very remote, with wild bears.
There must be some remote parts even there.
I am told there are still Redskins there, somewhere, on the edge of the horizon. So to the country of the Last of the Mohicans, and there we'll tackle the grammar at once, Grusha and I.
Work and grammar- that's how we'll spend three years.
And by that time we shall speak English like any Englishman.
And as soon as we've learnt it- good-bye to America!
We'll run here to Russia as American citizens.
Don't be uneasy- we would not come to this little town.
We'd hide somewhere, a long way off, in the north or in the south.
I shall be changed by that time, and she will, too, in America. The doctors shall make me some sort of wart on my face- what's the use of their being so mechanical!- or else I'll put out one eye, let my beard grow a yard, and I shall turn grey, fretting for Russia. I dare say they won't recognise us.
And if they do, let them send us to Siberia- I don't care.
It will show it's our fate. We'll work on the land here, too, somewhere in the wilds, and I'll make up as an American all my life.
But we shall die on our own soil.
That's my plan, and it shan't be altered.
Do you approve?"
"Yes," said Alyosha, not wanting to contradict him.
Mitya paused for a minute and said suddenly:
"And how they worked it up at the trial!