The Brothers Karamazov: A Novel in Four Parts With Epilogue

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

As he was leaving the monastery, thinking over all these unexpected words, Alyosha suddenly understood that in this monk, who had hitherto been stern and severe with him, he had now met a new and unlooked-for friend, a new director who ardently loved him—as if the elder Zosima, in dying, had bequeathed him to him.

He rushed to me suddenly, threw his little arms around my neck, and hugged me. You know, when children are silent and proud, and have been holding back their tears for a long time, when they suddenly burst out, if a great grief comes, the tears don’t just flow, sir, they pour out in streams.

“Love life more than its meaning?”