“Flowers for mama, flowers for mama! Mama has been hurt!” he suddenly started exclaiming. Someone shouted to him to put his hat on because it was cold, but hearing that, he flung his hat on the snow as if in anger and began repeating: “I don’t want any hat, I don’t want any hat!” The boy Smurov picked it up and carried it after him. All the boys were crying, Kolya and the boy who discovered Troy most of all, and though Smurov, with the captain’s hat in his hand, was also crying terribly, he still managed, while almost running, to snatch up a piece of brick lying red on the snow-covered path and fling it at a flock of sparrows flying quickly by. He missed, of course, and went on running, crying. Halfway home, Snegiryov suddenly stopped, stood for half a minute as if struck by something, and suddenly, turning back to the church, started running towards the abandoned little grave. But the boys immediately caught up with him and seized him from all sides. Then, as if strengthless, as if he had been struck down, he fell on the snow, struggling, screaming, sobbing, and began crying out: “Ilyushechka, dear fellow, dear old fellow!” Alyosha and Kolya set about lifting him up, pleading with him, persuading him.
“Enough, captain, a brave man must endure,” Kolya mumbled.
“And you’ll ruin the flowers,” Alyosha added, “and ‘mama’ is waiting for them, she’s sitting there crying because you didn’t give her any flowers from Ilyushechka this morning. Ilyusha’s bed is still there...”
“Yes, yes, to mama!” Snegiryov suddenly remembered again. “They’ll put the bed away, they’ll put it away!” he added, as if fearing that they might indeed put it away, and he jumped up and ran for home again. But it was not far now, and they all came running up together. Snegiryov threw the door open and shouted to his wife, with whom he had quarreled so hardheartedly that morning.
“Mama, dear, Ilyushechka has sent you flowers, oh, poor crippled feet!” he cried, handing her the little bunch of flowers, frozen and broken from when he had just been struggling in the snow. But at that same moment he noticed Ilyusha’s little boots standing side by side in the corner, in front of Ilyusha’s bed, where the landlady had just neatly put them—old, stiff, scuffed, and patched little boots. Seeing them, he threw up his hands and simply rushed to them, fell on his knees, snatched up one boot, and, pressing his lips to it, began greedily kissing it, crying out: “Ilyushechka, dear fellow, dear old fellow, where are your little feet?”
“Where did you take him? Where did you take him?” the mad woman screamed in a rending voice. And then Ninochka also started sobbing. Kolya ran out of the room, the boys started going out after him. Finally Alyosha also went out after them. “Let them cry it through,” he said to Kolya, “of course there’s no use trying to comfort them now. Let’s wait a minute and then go back.”
“No, there’s no use, it’s terrible,” Kolya agreed. “You know, Karamazov,” he suddenly lowered his voice so that no one could hear, “I feel very sad, and if only it were possible to resurrect him, I’d give everything in the world!”
“Ah, so would I,” said Alyosha.
“What do you think, Karamazov, should we come here tonight? He’s sure to get drunk.”
“Yes, he may get drunk. Just you and I will come, and that will be enough, to sit with them for an hour, with his mother and Ninochka; if we all come at once, we’ll remind them of everything again,” Alyosha advised.
“The landlady is setting the table for them now—for this memorial dinner or whatever, the priest will be there; shall we stay for that, Karamazov?”
“Certainly,” said Alyosha.
“It’s all so strange, Karamazov, such grief, and then pancakes all of a sudden—how unnatural it all is in our religion!”
“They’re going to have salmon, too,” the boy who discovered Troy remarked suddenly in a loud voice.
“I ask you seriously, Kartashov, not to interrupt anymore with your foolishness, especially when no one is talking to you or even cares to know of your existence,” Kolya snapped irritably in his direction. The boy flushed deeply, but did not dare make any reply. Meanwhile they were all walking slowly along the path, and Smurov suddenly exclaimed: “Here’s Ilyusha’s stone, the one they wanted to bury him under!” They all silently stopped at the big stone. Alyosha looked and the whole picture of what Snegiryov had once told him about Ilyushechka, crying and embracing his father, exclaiming: “Papa, papa, how he humiliated you!” rose at once in his memory. Something shook, as it were, in his soul. With a serious and important look he gazed around at all those dear, bright faces of the schoolboys, Ilyusha’s comrades, and suddenly said to them:
“Gentlemen, I should like to have a word with you, here, on this very spot.” The boys gathered around him and turned to him at once with attentive, expectant eyes.
“Gentlemen, we shall be parting soon. Right now I shall be with my two brothers for a while, one of whom is going into exile, and the other is lying near death. But soon I shall leave this town, perhaps for a very long time. And so we shall part, gentlemen. Let us agree here, by Ilyusha’s stone, that we will never forget—first, Ilyushechka, and second, one another. And whatever may happen to us later in life, even if we do not meet for twenty years afterwards, let us always remember how we buried the poor boy, whom we once threw stones at—remember, there by the little bridge?—and whom afterwards we all came to love so much. He was a nice boy, a kind and brave boy, he felt honor and his father’s bitter offense made him rise up. And so, first of all, let us remember him, gentlemen, all our lives. And even though we may be involved with the most important affairs, achieve distinction or fall into some great misfortune—all the same, let us never forget how good we once felt here, all together, united by such good and kind feelings as made us, too, for the time that we loved the poor boy, perhaps better than we actually are. My little doves—let me call you that—little doves, because you are very much like those pretty gray blue birds, now, at this moment, as I look at your kind, dear faces—my dear children, perhaps you will not understand what I am going to say to you, because I often speak very incomprehensibly, but still you will remember and some day agree with my words. You must know that there is nothing higher, or stronger, or sounder, or more useful afterwards in life, than some good memory, especially a memory from childhood, from the parental home. You hear a lot said about your education, yet some such beautiful, sacred memory, preserved from childhood, is perhaps the best education. If a man stores up many such memories to take into life, then he is saved for his whole life. And even if only one good memory remains with us in our hearts, that alone may serve some day for our salvation. Perhaps we will even become wicked later on, will even be unable to resist a bad action, will laugh at people’s tears and at those who say, as Kolya exclaimed today: ‘I want to suffer for all people’—perhaps we will scoff wickedly at such people. And yet, no matter how wicked we may be—and God preserve us from it—as soon as we remember how we buried Ilyusha, how we loved him in his last days, and how we’ve been talking just now, so much as friends, so together, by this stone, the most cruel and jeering man among us, if we should become so, will still not dare laugh within himself at how kind and good he was at this present moment! Moreover, perhaps just this memory alone will keep him from great evil, and he will think better of it and say: ‘Yes, I was kind, brave, and honest then.’ Let him laugh to himself, it’s no matter, a man often laughs at what is kind and good; it just comes from thoughtlessness; but I assure you, gentlemen, that as soon as he laughs, he will say at once in his heart: ‘No, it’s a bad thing for me to laugh, because one should not laugh at that! ‘“