“Stay! You knew it! And I see you understand it all at once. But be quiet, be quiet for a time. Don’t be sorry, and don’t cry.”

Dmitri stood up, thought a moment, and put his finger to his forehead.

“She’s asked you, written to you a letter or something, that’s why you’re going to her? You wouldn’t be going except for that?”

“Here is her note.” Alyosha took it out of his pocket. Mitya looked through it quickly.

“And you were going the back-way! Oh, gods, I thank you for sending him by the back-way, and he came to me like the golden fish to the silly old fishermen in the fable! Listen, Alyosha, listen, brother! Now I mean to tell you everything, for I must tell someone. An angel in heaven I’ve told already; but I want to tell an angel on earth. You are an angel on earth. You will hear and judge and forgive. And that’s what I need, that someone above me should forgive. Listen! If two people break away from everything on earth and fly off into the unknown, or at least one of them, and before flying off or going to ruin he comes to someone else and says, ‘Do this for me’⁠—some favor never asked before that could only be asked on one’s deathbed⁠—would that other refuse, if he were a friend or a brother?”

“I will do it, but tell me what it is, and make haste,” said Alyosha.

“Make haste! H’m!⁠ ⁠… Don’t be in a hurry, Alyosha, you hurry and worry yourself. There’s no need to hurry now. Now the world has taken a new turning. Ah, Alyosha, what a pity you can’t understand ecstasy. But what am I saying to him? As though you didn’t understand it. What an ass I am! What am I saying? ‘Be noble, O man!’⁠—who says that?”

Alyosha made up his mind to wait. He felt that, perhaps, indeed, his work lay here. Mitya sank into thought for a moment, with his elbow on the table and his head in his hand. Both were silent.