“Does she?” broke from Alyosha.
“Perhaps she does not. Only she is not coming this morning,” Mitya hastened to explain again; “I asked her to do something for me. You know, Ivan is superior to all of us. He ought to live, not us. He will recover.”
“Would you believe it, though Katya is alarmed about him, she scarcely doubts of his recovery,” said Alyosha.
“That means that she is convinced he will die. It’s because she is frightened she’s so sure he will get well.”
“Ivan has a strong constitution, and I, too, believe there’s every hope that he will get well,” Alyosha observed anxiously.
“Yes, he will get well. But she is convinced that he will die. She has a great deal of sorrow to bear...” A silence followed. A grave anxiety was fretting Mitya.
“Alyosha, I love Grusha terribly,” he said suddenly in a shaking voice, full of tears.
“They won’t let her go out there to you,” Alyosha put in at once.
“And there is something else I wanted to tell you,” Mitya went on, with a sudden ring in his voice. “If they beat me on the way or out there, I won’t submit to it. I shall kill some one, and shall be shot for it. And this will be going on for twenty years! They speak to me rudely as it is. I’ve been lying here all night, passing judgment on myself. I am not ready! I am not able to resign myself. I wanted to sing a ‘hymn’; but if a guard speaks rudely to me, I have not the strength to bear it. For Grusha I would bear anything ... anything except blows.... But she won’t be allowed to come there.”
Alyosha smiled gently.