“Yes, yes—that is it!” he suddenly exclaimed, with tears in his eyes. “That is just what I wished to do. … Yes, I wished just that: just to give my soul, not to keep it safe, but to give it. … That is where joy lies—that is life! … I have done a great deal for other people’s sake, for the sake of human approbation—not the approbation of the crowd, but for the good opinion of those I respected and loved: Natásha and Dmítry Shelómof. And then I doubted and was agitated. I felt at ease only when I did something my soul demanded—when I wished to give myself, my whole self.”
From that moment Svetlogoúb spent most of his time reading and pondering what he read in that book. This reading not only evoked in him a glow of tender emotion which carried him beyond the conditions in which he found himself, but also evoked an activity of mind such as he had never before experienced. He wondered why people did not all live as they were told to in that book. “After all, to live so, is good not for one only, but for all. We only need live like that, and there will be no sorrow and no want, only blessedness.”
“If only this would end—if only I could be free once more,” he sometimes thought. “After all, they will let me out sooner or later, or send me to penal servitude—no matter which. It is possible to live like that anywhere … and I will live so! I can and must live so … not to live so is madness!”